Art Show | written by: PAMELA DEY VOSSLER
For the Palmers family, it’s the fruit cake. Megan Palmer Riviera, CEO and a fifth-generation leader of the family-owned Palmer’s Market at 264 Heights Road in Darien, knew she had arrived when she finally got her own piece. As an adult.
Growing up, her mom, Cindy Palmer Dean, Palmer’s co-owner and CEO before Megan, stashed the one piece the family received each December from Aunt Clara, Megan’s great grandmother’s sister, who made the fruit cake each year from a generations-old family recipe. Cindy divvied it up day by holiday-day, sliver by sliver, to Megan, her dad and her brother.
“Aunt Clara always made one fruit cake, then she taught my grandfather Rocco how to make it and he took over,” explained Megan. “People would fight over it. You knew how much he loved you based on whether you got a piece or not,” she recalled, laughing.
It’s that kind of tradition, and plainly, it’s not just any old fruit cake.
“A lot of people are traumatized by fruit cake because they think of those disgusting candied fruits,” acknowledged Megan who now makes the cake. Her grandfather bequeathed the recipe to her not long before he died. “This is fresh California apricots and dates and raisins and currants and it has this brown sugar molasses batter that’s baked into it. We coat it in apricot jam and then it has a little lemon glaze that goes around the outside. It’s delicious and it’s super, super decadent. It’s such a special treat.”
It’s also one of the countless traditions Palmer’s Market brings to us each holiday season, not only sharing the gems from their own family but easing the way for us to keep traditions of our own …and start new ones.
…traditions that remind us who we are
…traditions that put people we’ve lost back in the room
…traditions that give us certainty in an uncertain world
…traditions that pull us to an invigorating and comforting kind of belonging
…traditions that bind us and give our kids the kind of foundation from which they can thrive.
It’s in the ingredients Palmer’s commits to carry—obscure items that rarely move the rest of the year, loss leaders customers count on for that one recipe handed down in their own families.
It’s in the prepared foods made from scratch they give us to call our own—quality works such as the hundreds of beef wellingtons they make each year from one of Megan’s recipes.
“Our chefs put so much love into hand wrapping every single one of those beef wellingtons and they have to be done right at the last minute before people pick it up …even hand cleaning all of those mushrooms to make the duxelle that goes inside and putting the beautiful pastry bow on the top of it. That’s definitely a signature item for us,” said Megan.
Megan Palmer Riviera and her daughter Rachel making fruit cakes / photo courtesy Palmer’s Market
It’s in their scalloped potatoes, the homemade gravy made from countless turkeys baked solely for this holiday favorite, Nanny’s cranberry relish made with shredded cranberries and oranges from another old family recipe and Cindy’s apple sausage and brioche stuffing. Oh and that pumpkin cheesecake with the ginger snap crust and the pear almond tart! (Thank you Megan, a master pastry chef who returns to the kitchen each year to help make these Palmer’s favorites …from scratch, like all of Palmer’s prepared food.)
“One of the things I love about all of our food is that you can pretend like it’s your own,” said Megan, well aware of how Palmer’s eases the way for all manner of tradition keeping. “Some people want to make everything and only want a little bit of help. Other people want us to do the entire meal. We provide that for people,” she continued. “We complement people’s holidays in different ways and people incorporate Palmer’s into their own traditions in different ways.”
It’s in the creative, resourceful buying that brings special items such as the Nyåkers Gingerbread Cookies, Kuechenmeister Stollen Bread, Goldkenn Chocolates, Walkers Mince Pies and the Niederegger Marzipan into the store each year.
It’s in Palmer’s itself. Opened in 1921, it is a longstanding tradition in its own right, and not just in what it sells. Go there during any part of the holiday season, you will feel it—the community, the warmth and the festive camaraderie passed generation to generation.
…and, of course, it’s in the fruit cake. The sole keeper of the recipe for her generation, Megan bakes a limited run of seven cakes each year to sell a piece at a time from Palmer’s Bakery, as committed to helping us keep the traditions that make us close as she and her family are to inspiring us with traditions of their own.
