Vendors make their pitch at Holiday Trade Fair

FAIRFIELD – Fairfield First Fridays Art Walk held its 15th annual Holiday Trade Fair Dec. 13-14 at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center.

The trade fair is an opportunity for local vendors to sell their creations and meet their customers face to face. So many of the vendors have fascinating stories to tell about how they became interested in their line of work, or for some, their favorite hobby.

Shelley Gratzon set up a booth of free samples of food, all of which were recipes from her cookbook called “Crouching Tofu Hidden Zucchini: Vegetarian for Kids (and Grown-Ups) Who Don’t Like Vegetables.” The samples included tofu veggie balls, “un-cheese” cheddar spread, and a cashew date cream, among others.

Gratzon said she’s been developing recipes for over 30 years, but never had intentions of writing a cookbook.

“I was raising my son, and there was a need to get more vegetables into his diet without him knowing about it, to sneak them in,” she said. “The first vegetable he really liked was zucchini, but then he wouldn’t eat it anymore. So the first recipe I developed was my secret spaghetti sauce, which is made with zucchini, carrots, red pepper and tomatoes. You sauté it with some basil and oregano, and then you just blend it up.”

A little over 20 years ago, a friend suggested to Gratzon that she should write a cookbook based on her recipes. That’s when Gratzon got serious about developing new recipes for different kinds of food such as soups, sauces and burgers. After years of research and experimentation, Gratzon published her book in 2023.

Gratzon’s husband, Fred, started a publishing company called Soma Press, and she published her cookbook through his company. Since its publication, she’s taken it and her samples to farmers markets and trade fairs in the area, such as in Fairfield and Iowa City.

Shelley said she’s proud that her recipes went over so well with her son, Jake, that he’s now in the food business, too. He founded Old Capitol Tofu in Iowa City, and the company’s tofu is distributed through many Hy-Vee stores, at Everybody’s Whole Foods and various restaurants.

Another vendor who set up shop at the Holiday Trade Fair was Greg Thatcher and his wife Jan. Thatcher was selling prints of his series of drawings of Yew trees. He started the series in 1991 on a trip to Gloucestershire, England. Greg said he got a grant to go there from the Iowa Arts Council, and presold artwork to pay for the trip.

“I had no idea what I was going to do, and I owed all these people money,” Greg said. “England has millions of travel brochures because it’s such a unique country, and while I was flipping through them I found a churchyard, called Saint Mary’s Churchyard, where it showed these trees with wonderful shadows.”

Yew trees are well known for living a long time, and Jan said the Yew trees in this churchyard were planted in 1756.

Thatcher said he and his wife have returned to that same village in England almost every year since, except during the pandemic. He does his original drawing in black and white, and then takes a high resolution image of it to create prints, which he hand colors.

Greg was chairman of the art department at Maharishi International University, where he taught for 10 years, and taught art at Maharishi School for 28 years. Today, he does freelance teaching and sells his artwork at a gallery in Galesburg, Illinois, in England, and through his website www.gregthatchergallery.com.

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Call Andy Hallman at 641-575-0135 or email him at andy.hallman@southeastiowaunion.com

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