Middle Eastern market opens Friday
A Turkish woman entered Zeezenia International Market and became its first-ever customer over the weekend.
The market, situated at 2325 SW 13th St., officially opened its doors Friday. It offers locally grown meats, produce and Middle Eastern groceries.
Owners Fawzy Ebrahim and his wife, Zaineb, received the woman’s blessing soon after.
“She gave us $20 and told us to put it in a frame in the front of the store,” said Ebrahim.
As someone’s first customer, it’s a Turkish tradition to give the owner extra money, he said.
Ebrahim, a former statistics professor at Nova Southeastern University, said his family conceived the idea about three years ago.
Before Ebrahim opened his business, people drove to either Orlando or Tampa to purchase halal meat, he said.
Now he has the opportunity to sell his own chicken, lamb, goat and beef — all raised on his family farm and completely halal.
In the future, Ebrahim hopes to grow herbs to complement the mint he already sells.
“We started out with our farm first, then we had more and more customers coming to us to buy some organic meat and so forth,” he said.
Ashraf Amshaqn, a Libyan student at the UF English Language Institute, said the market’s products remind him of home.
“I’m so happy because we can do our shopping at a place that we are related to in some way,” the 30-year-old said.
-Elizabeth Pantaleon
Cookie company announces grand opening
A late-night delivery service will celebrate the grand opening of its new location Saturday.
From 10 p.m. to 2 a.m., Cookiegazm is hosting a grand-opening party with music, drinks and loads of cookies, owner Daniel Leal, a 21-year-old UF sustainability studies junior, said.
Leal started selling an average of 200 cookies a night out of Omi’s Playa Azul and Elegant Catering, situated at 101 SE 2nd Place, in early January.
The location will now host Cookiegazm’s grand opening Saturday.
In Fall 2014, Leal started selling cookies to his neighbors as a way to earn extra cash.
After three days, Leal said the emerging business sold about 100 cookies, all baked in his apartment’s oven, each night.
“What began as a way to make a quick buck turned quickly into a pretty big operation,” he said.
The name, Leal said, is the result of a 30-second brainstorming session. What do all people like?
Cookies and sex, Leal said.
Natalia Ibarra, a 20-year-old UF food and resource economics junior, first tried the cookies in November.
White chocolate macadamia and cookies and cream were the first cookies she tried, and they remain her favorite now.
“They are definitely better than Midnight Cookies,” Ibarra said.
If all goes as planned, Leal said students outside of Gainesville could experience Cookiegazm in the future.
“My plan is to spread the ‘gazm across the nation,” he said.
- Lauren Rowland
Farmer Brown offers tours of Family Garden on Saturday
Jordan Brown starts every day at 5:30 a.m.
When he’s not taking his four kids to school, Brown goes to his 20-acre “office” and begins working.
Brown is the owner of The Family Garden, an organic farm situated in Southeast Gainesville.
The Family Garden, situated at 1655 SE 23rd Place, was created by Brown in Gainesville over the summer.
On Saturday, Brown gave walking tours to the public.
Katie Conley, the farm coordinator, said Brown has another farm in Gilchrist County.
“This is the first time that many of the people have actually been out to the farm — to either farm — so I think Jordan wanted everybody to kind of see how far he had come,” she said.
Brown said his love for farming grew out of a gardening hobby, and he originally owned a construction business.
Eventually, the construction industry wilted.
“I had to make a decision about what to do, and I just decided that I would try farming,” he said.
Brown constantly drove between Gainesville and Bell, Florida, costing him about $1,000 a month. When the opportunity to buy land in Gainesville arose, he took it.
Joni Ellis, a local homestead farmer and Brown’s neighbor, toured the farm with her dog, Bailey.
“I think people need to get more in touch with where their food comes from and how hard it is to grow food,” she said.
-Mary-Lou Watkinson
