This week, we continue the employee spotlight series with the hilarious, diligent, and extremely tenacious, Amy Gallo, our Farmers Market Coordinator. She has been working her tail off for JBG for a little over three years now. If you have visited any of our markets throughout the past few years, you undoubtedly have spotted this incredibly unique and funky lady slingin' veggies and sharing food hacks. We tracked her down this past week, and had a little time to learn a more about her life on and off the farm. Farm community - meet Amy!

Where did you grow up? I grew up in upstate New York, in kind of a rural small town, which I left promptly and headed to Boston (fun fact: she studied neuroscience at Northeastern). I quickly decided that it was too cold there, and soon after, I decided to move to the rhyming city of Austin with my partner, Dany.

What brought you to JBG? When I moved down here, I was working from home and it was very isolating. I didn’t want to get a second job, so I started volunteering at JBG once a week, and then they just kept calling me in every day to volunteer more and more. I was like, you should just pay me money to do this! So then I started working markets, and it quickly snowballed into a full-time gig.

What is your current role at JBG? I’m the farmer’s market coordinator… I manage the farmer’s markets. At the site, I have a lot of interaction with all of different organizations that run markets in the city. I also help with managing the farmer markets’ staff. I drive deliveries here and there, too.

Fun fact: Amy got married this past year! Above: Amy on her wedding day.

Do you remember the first market that you worked? Yes, I do! I think it was a volunteer shift, actually, that I was asked to do very last minute. The shift was with Pitters, who now no longer works at JBG, but used to run this place. She’s the toughest girl I’ve ever met in my life. She just ordered me around for 6 hours... I was SO sore and dead at the end of the day.

What does your life look like off the farm? I really like exploring Austin and seeing what there is to do here. I made a pact with myself at the beginning of the summer to go swimming at least once a week… so we’ve been trying to hit all the swimming holes, or as many as possible.

What’s your favorite swimming spot? That’s really tough… I really love going to McKinney Falls. There’s this one really great waterfall there.

What are you cooking at home? So much eggplant. As much eggplant as possible. My summer go-to food is just melon because of not having to cook it, but I do partake in a lot of spaghetti squash adventures and sauce-making. Whatever I can make that is solely vegetables is just perfect.

Do you have any pro tips for shopping at farmers markets? YES. Tip one: don’t come before the market starts! Tip two: ask questions about everything. Just do it. Everyone that we work with at JBG, everybody from other farms, anybody I’ve ever met working at a farmer’s market is so incredibly knowledgeable about produce. Just ask! Don’t take home a canary melon thinking that it’s a spaghetti squash, or vice versa. I have so many recipe ideas, tips, and food hacks to give out to everyone. It’s really why we are all there.

How do you find the BEST melon at the market? On a melon that’s not a watermelon, there’s usually, I call it a button, a little area where the stem has popped off of the melon. If you smell that, and it’s sweet… you’re good to go. Also, do not be afraid of scars, brown spots, or even soft spots on most melons. It just means that they are really ripe and ready to eat.

As far as watermelons go, it’s a little more complicated. You want to hear that ‘thump’. You flick it, and if you get a nice, hollow sound, it means that puppy is ripe and bursting with flavor.

What’s your favorite farmer’s market to work? Why? I love the SFC Downtown Market. It’s where I started, and I have a really good team there. We work really well together. When I walk around, I feel like the queen of the market. Every vendor is like “Hello! Let me ply you with my wares!” and give me high-fives. It’s really my favorite thing.

Downtown market. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Least favorite? I’m not a huge fan of our smaller markets, honestly. I like to be really busy when I’m at a market, and if there’s down time, the boredom gets to me. I want to be running around like a chicken with it’s head chopped off.

What’s your favorite season of vegetables? People are gonna slap me for this… I love the summer. I love melons. I love when it’s hot out. I love the produce that we have right now.

What’s your favorite vegetable? Why? Is it weird if I say chard? I love chard. It reminds me of my dad, we used to eat it a lot when I was a kid. There was this one farmstand that was very out of the way, but we would always drive to for this specific chard. It’s just so good. Salty stems and green-tasting leaves, plus it’s so beautiful and huge. I love it.

Favorite thing about JBG? Everyone who works here is the best. The funniest, coolest, and hardest-working people I have ever met in my life.

Least favorite thing about JBG? Everything is always broken. All of the time. Every day.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve been asked at market? This one time, a woman was asking me how to prepare beets, and I gave her the usual stock answer that they are delicious roasted. She then asked how to do it. So, I started describing the process of how to roast a beet, which is not the first time I’ve been asked that specific question. A co-worker then chimed in and mentioned throwing some onions in with the roasted beets, and the lady asked, “what are the onions for? Are they for the beets?” I just thought it was a very strange, metaphysical question... Are they for the beets? Do the beets ingest them in the oven while it’s roasting? Are they for human consumption? I honestly didn’t know how to respond...

What’s the weirdest thing you have seen at the market? Some of our customers are very eccentric and bring pet lizards, birds, and/or cats on leashes and walk them around the market. I can’t look away when that’s happening.

Amy at market. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

What is the vegetable you most frequently have to advocate for at market? People don’t really like to use greens that aren’t kale or spinach. I love advocating for odd greens, or anything that people haven’t heard of… sweet potato greens, mustard greens, malabar spinach… greens that just aren’t as popular.

Food hacks for weird greens? I have to eat everything that we have, and figure out a way to make it work before I can suggest it to somebody. Most greens fall into a more like kale or more like spinach category. Is it tender? Or does it need to be beaten into submission? A great idea on how to utilize mustard greens is to make a pesto with it, so delicious and spicy.

Most market mishaps in one day? Any particular day stick out to you? I don’t know! It’s every weekend… every weekend there’s some sort of mishap. There was one day that I brought two dollies with us to the Mueller market, and all of the tires on each dolly were flat. That was a really fun day...

Amy working. Photo by Scott David Gordon.

Why does buying locally matter? Buying locally matters because you are supporting people’s jobs, businesses, and livelihood in the town that you are in. When I buy something that wasn’t produced here, I know none of my friends are benefiting… I’m not paying for anyone’s salary when I do that.

Why should people care about farms/farmers markets? Besides being environmentally friendly, it benefits you as a consumer. You get better quality food, fresher items that are better for you, and you get out of your house to interact with your community. I mean it’s the whole package.

What was your motivation to work for a farm for so many years? I’m not sure that I intentionally set out to work here for so long, but I started doing it, and loved it… and saw no reason to stop.

Did you grow up near farms? Would you consider farms as being a part of your upbringing? I mean where I’m from is pretty small. It’s located in what is referred to as the “black dirt area” of New York, named for the very fertile soil left over from a glacial lake. It’s very good for growing onions, corn, etc. It’s an agriculturally-minded area, for sure, though personally, I had no real direct interaction with farms besides going to the farmer’s market.

What are the best Italian recipes from your parents/family? My dad is VERY Italian. My family is super New York Italian. That’s definitely where my love for vegetables comes from, specifically eggplant and bitter greens. My mom’s side is really stuck in the 60’s casserole era, and my dad’s side is all super fresh and vegetable-heavy recipes.

There’s this one really funny article that I read recently about how Sicilian people in America pronounce everything really strangely… and as I was reading, I realized it was about me and my family. We pronounce things very differently, instead of saying “prosciutto” we say “prosciutt” - instead of “parmesano” we say “parmesan” - We take the last syllable off of everything. My grandma makes this dish and I never knew what it was called because she always pronounced it “gabbardeen.” I would try to google it, and I realized, I had no idea how to spell it… maybe it was a made-up word? So, as you can see, it’s really hard to replicate those recipes unless I go home and request special dispensation from my grandma.

One of the things that Amy is notoriously good for is making the BEST market displays, so when you are setting up market, what are you thinking about? What’s your game plan? It’s a deeply psychological process. I like to think that I have dug into the consumer’s mind: their hopes, their fears, and their dreams, hopefully… and I can use that in my display to lure them. The vegetables are the medium within which I work, but it’s not just color blocking or separation of type and variety. It can’t just be based on what’s new or pretty, it really has to be a total package. If I put a bin of spaghetti squash next to some bagged tomatoes, peppered with basil around it - I’m making you think of something that you want. It’s my game. (Amy is also notorious for her amazing, inimitable vegetable art - see below).

 

Just in case you forgot how talented I am #googlyeyes #veggieart #boredatwork

A photo posted by Amy Gallo (@amy_ukulele) on Mar 31, 2016 at 9:52am PDT

If you were stuck on a desert island and could only bring three things, what would you bring?

1. A knife
2. Dany
3. Hopefully Netflix

 

What’s your favorite color? Pink, the whole spectrum.

What’s your favorite band? A tie between Animal Collective and Wu Tang Clan.



Staff Survey: If Amy were a veggie, which one would she be, and why?

Ada: Amy is an eggplant. Comes is lots of different beautiful pink/purple varieties (like her hair/style), but always traditionally Italian. Like eggplants, she usually doesn't have a working cell phone and can be sometime hard to get in touch with, but when you finally get her, she's consistently delicious. Also, I think I'm pinning her as an eggplant because she's introduced me to the world's best eggplack hack EVER... basically this technique.

Krishna: I guess it would be Daikon Radish. It is tender but hard like a pole. She’s a very strong person, and able to carry the load even if the job is tiring.

Nellie: Sweet potato - their unique shapes and sizes are as beautiful and funky as Amy. Everyone likes sweet potatoes, plus she makes funny veggie faces out of our sweet potatoes for market-goers to enjoy!

Now that you know her, visit Amy at the market this weekend! 'Til next week, y'all!