*Photo Credit: Michael Caballes
Growing up in Panama, Didi Johnson was used to making everything from scratch. She grew up going to public markets daily rather than shopping at grocery stores. So, when her late husband Brian’s health made it difficult for him to continue his work as a master tailor, they pivoted. “We said we need to do something different that we both can enjoy,” she told me. “We really enjoyed cooking more than anything in the world. We started cooking and experimenting. And that’s how [Curry Shack] got started.”
After a year and a half into the business, Didi left her corporate job to join Brian in operating Curry Shack full-time. For 22 years, Didi and Brian blessed the 32nd Street Farmers Market community in Waverly with original spice blends, pockets, patties, samosas, curries, rice dishes, and specialty teas. It’s Didi’s iced mint green tea that first hooked Melanie Malson, who I met during one of my Story Seeds pop-ups in September 2023. November of 2023 would mark the end of the summer season and Didi’s tenure at the market, and Melanie expressed how much she would miss Didi and Curry Shack. I asked Didi and Melanie if they would be interested in having a joint conversation about their relationship with each other, and the 32nd Street Farmers Market community more generally. Below is a compressed version of our conversation, which took place via Zoom:
DIDI: Melanie, I know you’re going to miss my tea.
MEGAN: Hold on! I want to catch this. All right. Okay, so the tea. Tell me about the tea, Melanie.
MELANIE: Didi had made the most delicious iced tea honestly that I've ever had. It's a nice, iced mint tea and it was just so perfectly sweet and minty and refreshing. I would literally go every week and get this iced tea and I brought a bunch of my friends with me to get this iced tea.
DIDI: They were lined up and it was the funniest thing. As soon as I saw her if I didn't have the tea, she would give me this look like she lost her puppy or the puppy was not going to get food that day. She would be the last customer to get the last tea for the season no matter what. That was so funny. Anyway...it's social and sort of like a spiritual communion, me giving her the tea. Her taking it and me seeing her...seeing each other...we would give each other good vibes, you know?
MELANIE: Aw, that means a lot because I felt the same exact way.
MEGAN: So how did your relationship start? What was the first time that you tried Curry Shack?
MELANIE: I don't know...I moved to Baltimore about two years ago and it was probably shortly after that because I moved to the neighborhood that I live in basically because of the Farmers Market. I went to the Farmers Market and Didi happened to be there selling delicious iced tea. I bought one and then I had to have it again and again and again.
DIDI: To me, it seems so much longer. It seems like I've known you much longer than two years.
MELANIE: Yeah, it feels like I've lived here longer than two years.
MEGAN: Didi, can you talk about the community you've built with your customers over the years?
DIDI: Oh absolutely. First of all, when we started the farmers market circuit, we didn't start with Waverly [32nd Street Farmers Market]. We were invited to Waverly because one of our customers loved us so much that they were saying, “You will fit in at Waverly well.” And we were like, “What's Waverly?” because we lived in West Baltimore then. We came and checked it out. We came as a guest vendor a couple of times…This was in 2000...I’m sorry, 2001. We did the winter market and people were like, “You can't go.” Some of the people that advocated for us...Oh my God, it meant so much to me. They’ve now passed on. Oh my God, it just brings a tear to my eyes, thinking about it. Marc Rey, he pushed for us. He said, "This husband and wife have to stay there.” The rest is history.
We built a community there, and they've seen us through the best and the worst of times. It is truly a family. I miss it so much. If it wasn't for my health, I still would be doing it. I still keep in touch. I talk to some of the vendors every Saturday after the market, because we always did that. We have a Zoom and we have either coffee or lemon or whatever your beverage of choice and discuss the Market...share the tea as we said, you know. Share what's happening to customers and everything. It truly is a family. Oh my God, it's just so many things…so many good things about Waverly that cannot be captured by just a few words.
MEGAN: Melanie, can you talk more about your first day at the Market and your experience of finding community in Baltimore?
MELANIE: I moved to Baltimore after college. I went to college in DC and then I became displaced by the pandemic, so I moved in with a friend’s family in Harford County, Maryland. My partner and I did not want to be in Harford County anymore, and because we knew we were going to move here...We wanted to go and visit a museum for, I think it was our third anniversary. She took me to the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA), but we wanted to get breakfast before. She did some research and found that there was a farmers market in the area...and I love that kind of thing. So we went and it was honestly a really magical anniversary.
That was the start of our day. I can't even remember what we ate [at the market]. I know we definitely got from the crepe place [Little Paris] one of those chocolate pretzel pastries that are very delicious. We went to the secondhand bookstore, Normals, that's right down the street. And then we went to the BMA. I just felt incredibly like…I wanted to be here again, you know.
After that day, I couldn't stop thinking about the day that I had spent here in this neighborhood. We barely even left the area. I mean, the BMA is in Charles Village, but it's right next door. And so basically, because of that day and just seeing the way that people talk to each other...The people always have the most amazing outfits too at the Farmers Market. People are always dressed so good. And you know, the art museum being right there and all of it...just the culture and the community. It is unlike anywhere I've ever lived before this.
Now having been here for two years, I have no intention of leaving. I love Baltimore and I love Waverly. And I'm really, really glad that I came to the Farmers Market, just randomly finding it on Google, because I think it changed the trajectory of my life.
MEGAN: I love hearing your story Melanie because I resonate so much with it. I went to my first farmers market in my college town in Ohio. I went to that farmers market every Saturday during college and I still keep in touch with the farmers who I bought chocolate milk from. What you were saying earlier Didi too, about feeling like you’ve known Melanie so much longer...When I graduated college…and I had actually met the chocolate milk farmers two years before I started college on a visit… and they were like, “I can't believe I've known you for six years.” To have someone just observe you grow and go through college...it’s such a special relationship.
DIDI: It's a family...it's a family. When my husband got sick, I made a call and it was like the Avengers. They engaged. Everybody surrounded me with love, told me I was going to be okay. I felt this state of depression. My workers came to my house and said, “We can do this.” We restructured the business. We had to come up with a different concept to change from hot food to a product that was perishable but that people could consume at home. When my husband died, they helped me plan everything, every single thing to the last detail. Marc [Rey] sang at my husband's funeral. When I found out I had cancer, everybody just engulfed me and told me I was going to make it and I was going to be okay.
*Photo Credit: Michael Caballes
MEGAN: Melanie, you said that moving to the market changed the trajectory of your life. Other than changing where you want to live and where you spend your time, what has it changed for you?
MELANIE: I guess it's moving to Baltimore more broadly. I grew up in suburban New Jersey and then I went to college in Washington, DC. Where I went to college in the city and where I grew up, there was not a very big sense of community. I had a community within my school, but we were probably hostile towards the neighborhood, not beneficial, looking back as an adult thinking about the effects that college campuses have on the cities they're in. I have always wanted to live in a place where people are in genuine community with one another, not just living next to each other. And I feel like I've really found that here and I think it's taught me a lot about myself. I think it's made me a better person. I’ve made incredible friends here, with people that aren’t my same age or do totally different jobs from me. I might not have been exposed to them in a place where people don’t just talk to each other on the street.
MEGAN: Can you talk more about that relationship between college and a city, or the role that a farmers market can play in shaping the narrative of a city?
MELANIE: Yeah, actually my partner works at the Johns Hopkins College Bookstore, the Barnes & Noble in Charles Village, so she interacts with a lot of Johns Hopkins students. She has definitely been told by a lot of the students that she talks to... like if they won't have something at the store, she'll recommend another store in the immediate area where they could walk to get it from. And when she tells them where it is, they’ll say, “They told us on campus we shouldn't go there, that we could get hurt.” And I'm like, I live there. That's so ridiculous. My neighbors are lovely. I never really feel afraid here. And it's so upsetting to me that an institution that's supposed to be about education and about growing as a person would tell people to deliberately cut themselves off from their community.
DIDI: As a vendor, I know when the new batch is...like a fresh batch, like young little eggs. I love to see them and I love when they want to talk to me. Some of them start cooking in their dorm and they ask me what to do. I give them recipes on the spot and sometimes I give them spices, encouraging them to cook. It is so lovely because it's just…it makes them feel like, “You're not so far from home. There are people that care for you right here where you are.”
I catered for Loyola University for the Women's Center for about 12 years and we missed only one year because my son was graduating and we had to travel. Long story short, that year I got a dozen girls who came to my stall complaining about how bad the catering was because we weren't there. I told them, “It could not be that bad. I think you guys just missed our presence.” And they were like, “Yeah, Ms. Didi, you got to do it next year. No excuses.” You get attached to the young students. They're like a part of your tribe and you protect the young tribal members.
My husband was very ill and that happened right during the pandemic. It was a horrific situation the way he died. I had to engage in a wrongful death suit. My representative used to be my customer when he was an undergrad. He went to law school and became a lawyer. He and his team were so tenacious defending us because he knew what we did for a living. He knew Brian and those relationships matter.
You don't get those relationships in other places. Where I lived before, you see your neighbors and chat over the fence. “What's going on in your life?” “Did you go to the market?” “Was it a good market?” “Make sure you dress warm because it's going to be brisk at the market.” Or they asked me, “The watermelons come out yet?” like I was their clock to tell them when every fruit was in season.
MEGAN: Both of you have expressed so much love for the city and particularly the Waverly community. Is there anything else that you’d like to say about the [32nd St] Farmers Market or Baltimore in general?
DIDI: I would say, Farmers Market is love. Like football is life, Farmers Market is love. That's all I'm going to say. Melanie, you have the floor.
MELANIE: I would like to say that growing up, I heard really bad things about Baltimore and I didn't really know what to expect when I moved here. This is probably my favorite place I've ever been. You know, I've traveled. I've lived other places. But nowhere has ever given me such a feeling of welcome and community and support as here. I feel so lucky that I get to be a part of that, and I get to give back in the ways that I can. I look forward to developing more relationships the longer that I live here, and both of you can feel free to reach out if you need anything.
DIDI: Likewise. I feel honored that you're here. We'll keep in contact so we can get you some more tea.