Denny Farms: Saranac, MI

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I've been holding onto this post for a month or two now. I had planned on using it as a submission for #marketfriday sponsored by @dswigle, but just before I was able to get to it that initiative was put on hiatus. Sure, I could have went ahead and published it anyway, but since it is a market, it just seemed to fit.

Patience has never been one of my strong suits, so I finally decided to let er rip and I am posting it not on a Friday, but on a Monday at the end of September.

Anyway, Denny Farms was a lucky find by @mrsbozz when we were camping in Ionia, MI in late July or early August. I honestly don't remember when it was now. She was looking for someplace interesting to visit and this just happened to pop up during her research.

It's actually not far from the Ionia State Recreation area where we were camping. Just a mile or two down the road actually. You leave the entrance to the state park, go straight, and then right at the top of a hill on the right hand side of the road, there it is!

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It's actually pretty cool because right across the street from the market is one of the farms that I am guessing supplies the goods for the store. You could see the people driving carts back and forth from across the road to bring fresh items to the store.

It's a really nice building and I recommend you read the "our story" section of the site I linked above if you want to find out more information about them.

As you can see, they have a number of hand crafted items outside the store. It's inside the store that the magic really starts happening.

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Sorry, before we step inside, I had to stop and take a photo of this old coach wagon that was sitting in front of the store under the canopy. As you can see they had some firewood for sale on it, but I am sure throughout the year they put any number of items on it for sale. It's in pretty impressive condition for how old it probably is.

We needed firewood, but we ended up buying it from a place around the corner because these bundles were actually a bit small.

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Once you step inside, you are immediately met with shelves upon shelves of dry goods and items for sale. It's pretty clear that Denny Farms carries more than just their own products. The coffee in this section of the store is a great example. I'm not a coffee drinker myself, and I have never heard of this Freedom Hill brand, but maybe some of you out there have.

A bit further down we had local honey and maple syrup.

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On the opposite side of the aisle, they had an assortment of salsa's, pickled items, jam's, and sauces. These were all the Denny Farms brand and I ended up buying a jar of medium salsa. If you look really close in the photo the far right of the screen has ghost pepper salsa. I decided to skip that.

I've gotta say, it was a while before I opened the jar, but this was some of the best salsa I have had in a long time. It was a bit pricey at around $7 per jar, so I probably wouldn't buy it all the time, but for a special treat, it was perfect.

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This next shot is just looking down the rest of the aisle towards the corner. They had this old cabinet up against the wall in with some more handmade stuff for sale. I think the boxes in the cabinet were tea if I remember right.

As you go around the corner, you are met with the bakery counter. They had any number of doughnuts and cookies for sale. We decided to give some of the cookies a try.

We bought a half dozen, but two of the standouts were the ones I am going to show below.

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The first is a chocolate "no-bake" cookie and the second is a peanut butter "no-bake" cookie. @mrsbozz would take a little chunk off each one and eat them together for a chocolate peanut butter treat. We also got four or five other cookies and they were so big we were able to portion them out and enjoy them for the next couple of weeks.

The cookies were actually so good that we ended up going back to Denny Farms again the next day so we could get another half dozen as a thank you gift for her parents who were watching our dog Jovi while we were gone.

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In addition to the cookie side of the bakery counter, they also had another section that had fresh pies, muffins, and other savory baked goods. The second half of the store was filled with platforms like the one you see above where they kept fresh produce.

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Likewise, they had more handcrafted decor along the one wall. We ended up buying a couple ears of corn to have for dinner that night. Once again, the corn was so good that when we went back the next day (for the cookies), we bought another dozen ears of corn to cook and vacuum seal when we got home.

We also picked up some peaches that you see in the white bags in the far part of the photo. They were delicious. We gave a couple to my father in law and he said they were some of the best peaches he has ever had.

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This is some of the corn we had later that night after it was cut off the cob. Like I said, it was delicious.

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They also had an number of squash and root vegetables for sale along the far wall. I didn't look really closely, but I think they also had fresh meat for sale from some of the local farmers. If you look in the distance in the photo above, you will see that they have a rolling door they can open to get the products in the store easier.

I've always loved farm markets that are set up like this. Especially on a beautiful day like the one we had.

I'd also like to point out, that Denny Market participates in the CSA program. Community Supported Agriculture programs allow people to purchase part of the share of the farms harvest. Basically, you pay a fee and then starting in July through October, you get a weekly box that has a share of the harvest.

Pretty cool right?! I think it is something that @mrsbozz and I might have to look into. If there is one closer to home, it might be worth checking out.

If you ever find yourself in the middle of the lower peninsula of Michigan and you want some good baked goods, produce, or canned goods, I highly recommend you check out Denny Farms. I don't know if or when @mrsbozz and I will ever make it back to Ionia/Saranac, but if we do, Denny Farms will definitely be on our list of places to visit again.

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Sports Talk Social - @bozz.sports

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All pictures/screenshots taken by myself or @mrsbozz unless otherwise sourced