The travel magazine “Texas Highways” draws attention to Abilenes Tigé Boats and Slowpoke Farm Market in Cisco nationwide.
How a small town reacts to COVID-19
In its online column Small-Town Dispatches on Tuesday, the magazine highlighted the boat maker’s linchpin in the manufacture of personal protective equipment for first aiders.
The company is donating face shields and masks to fire departments and other authorities on the front lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
More:Tigé boats for the production of face protection, personal protective equipment for COVID-19 emergency services
The article also described how the city’s top travel sites, the Abilene Zoo, the Grace Museum and the National Center for Illustrated Children’s Literature, function in new ways in a coronavirus world where public gatherings and personal interactions are prohibited.
Cake and more in Cisco
The May issue of the magazine, which arrived in mailboxes earlier this week, shows farmers Joy and Kerry Hedges who opened a market and café in Cisco in 2018.
The hedges will tell you that enjoying the slow life is hard work.
The couple opened the Slowpoke Farm Market in 2018, the latest in their 20-year journey to health by raising chemical-free foods and animals on 83 acres between Cross Plains and Cisco.
More:Slowpoke is contributing to the Cisco renaissance by using beans, cornbread, and cake
Writer June Naylor spent time at the couple’s Slowpoke Farm and Market in a historic building in Cisco’s business district at 709 Conrad Hilton Blvd. The market offers beef, pork, chicken, vegetables, and other products from Hedges Farm or selected family farms that follow chemical-free practices.
The Hedges left Houston company jobs in 2000 to buy the Eastland County farm. The name is a nod to managing animals and land on a natural schedule that promotes their best qualities.
After the hedges opened the farm, they sold fresh vegetables, free-range eggs, and grass-fed beef to their neighbors. A larger loyal following developed as they regularly sold at the Abilene Farmers Market before opening the market closer to home.
However, Naylor notes that what draws repeat customers from Abilene and Fort Worth is the cafe’s convenience foods and cakes.
Menu options are listed on a blackboard near Southern Living’s photogenic cakes that are worth cheating on any healthy diet. Savory options include meatloaf, quiche, enchilada casserole, egg salad sandwiches with homemade sourdough bread, beans, and corn bread.
With the coronavirus pandemic, lunch is currently only available for takeout and roadside.
When the virus is over, come back and enjoy the inviting dining room in a renovated historic building with exposed rock walls and views of the kitchen. On the tables there are cups with Scrabble letters, which encourage vocabulary and long conversations over a piece of Kerry’s signature sea salt, chocolate, pecan and caramel cake. Yes, it’s all in one cake.
Other options can be buttermilk, lemon meringue, and coconut cream.
Slowpoke Farm Market put Naylor on the list of the top 10 places for vacation cakes in the AAA online magazine texas.aaa.com in October 2019.
Can’t make it to Cisco? Frozen ground beef and other meat products from Slowpoke Farms are available in Abilene at Drug Emporium / Vitamins Plus, 2550 Barrow St.
When you go
What: Slowpoke Farm
Where: 709 Conrad Hilton Blvd., Cisco.
Hours: Market open on Thursdays and Fridays from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., Saturdays from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Lunch is from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Contact: 254-735-7090; slowpokemarket@gmail.com; slowpokemarket.com
Laura Gutschke is a reporter and columnist for general tasks and manages online content for the reporter news. If you value local news, you can support local journalists with a digital subscription to ReporterNews.com.
