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Summer has arrived, and that usually means that the Dripping Springs Farmers Market changes its hours to escape the worst of the heat. However, the market organizers recently surveyed vendors and customers about an option to keep regular hours and move into an air-conditioned space, and 74% of respondents preferred that plan.
So, starting with the Farmers Market on June 4, vendors will be located inside Dripping Springs Ranch Park. The market will still be on Wednesdays from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m.
While the air condidrippingspringsnews.
tioning will be a welcome change for many, there is another change that has everyone a little sad - longtime vendor Nong Weitzel has retired, and will no longer be cooking up her legendary Thai food at the market.
Nong’s final market was on May 28, and customers past and present showed up to wish her a happy retirement.
“It's overwhelming,” Nong said. “The Friends Foundation showed up, and past vendors who don't even work anymore - they retired before me - they showed up. Many longtime customers came and I was really surprised.”
Nong said she didn’t expect such a huge response, and she sold out very fast.
“They took everything on my table today. It can't be better than that,” Nong said. “They took salsa and cooking sauce and everything. I mean, the table’s empty. It was in an hour and a half, all gone.”
Nong said that for most of the time she lived in Dripping Springs, there were not a lot of different types of food in the area. In fact, when she and her husband Rick Weitzel first moved into their home here, they even had to drive to Oak Hill to buy groceries.
In those days, the town only had a couple of stop lights, and everyone recognized each other’s cars. She saw the community pull together to build a senior center and then a nursing home. She was involved with those efforts from the beginning.
“Everything was nonprofit and belonged to the community,” Nong said.
Nong worked at the nursing home for 17 years. It was her way of giving back to the people who helped her learn about country life.
“I'm sad that many of them that have taught me so much have gone but I'm happy that I was at the nursing home taking care of them as well. So that was my goal.”
It wasn’t until she retired from the nursing home that she took up cooking for others.
“I wanted to do something close to my roots. I wanted to show the community who I really am,” Nong said. “I still have Thai in me to do it.”
Soon enough, Nong had a dedicated group of customers. And at the Farmers Market, she also formed close relationships with the other vendors.
“I enjoy meeting people, enjoy these people,” Nong said. “They are hard workers, you know, to grow all the vegetables and stuff. I'm gonna miss all of them.”
To read a more indepth Q&A with Nong, see the story below.
To keep up with the latest Farmers Market happenings, sign up for the weekly newsletter at www.cityofdrippingsprings. com/farmersmarket.
