Food from the Farms

After the great farm dinner I placed my order from Harvest Local Foods, selecting from a list of weekly offerings that has grown very large, including dry goods, fresh fruit and veggies, jams, jellies, chocolate, coffee, meats, prepared foods, cookbooks, milk, yogurt, and much more.

Here's my cooler of food delivered by Carly from Harvest Local Foods for the week:

Boylan's birch beer, Hillacres Pride Horseradish cheddar cheese, potatoes from an African-American growers alliance in North Carolina, scrapple from High View Farm (where the dinner was held), Shady Lane Farm eggs,  yellow squash, turnips, apples, carrots, cucumbers, Kauffman's apple snitz (dried apples snack), garlic scapes.

It's so nice to come home after work and have fresh local farm food food sitting in the

entryway of your house waiting for you!

I made omelets with the scapes, turnips, potatoes, apples this week.

New Year, New Fabulous Cookbook!

For the last couple of years I've treated myself to a new cookbook every year and this year I'm so excited by "My New Orleans" by John Besh. It's a huge beautiful coffeetable book with fantasticphotographs, but what impresses me the most is his mission to save the rituals, incomperable local ingredients, and what makes New Orleans different from getting muddied by post-Katrina influx and disorganization. With sections on celebrations like the Feast of St. Joseph and Revillion, features on strawberries (from the North Shore strawberry festivals), creole tomatoes, figs, seafood and odd items like mirlitons you'll find out alot about New Orleans you didn't even know. The writing is beautiful. Besh grew up in Slidell, LA and trained in restaurants there and in Europe, fought in Desert Storm and returned to the area to settle with his family where he runs several restaurants, so the stories are personal and the photos feature family and people he knows from the city.

I was most impressed with the section on the Vietnamese community and the new Urban Farm Besh is supporting, a 28 acre farm being developed by the community to allow locals to farm, hold a market and sell to local restaurants. Besh also raises his own hogs and cattle in town for use in his recipes. His comittment to local food is a huge asset to rebuilding a sustainable local economy that benefits the residents of New Orleans.

Last year I picked up these two cookbooks at the Big Blue Marble bookstore next to Weaver's Way co-op in Mt. Airy

Square Peg Artery & Salvage Holiday Shop In Liberty Place at 17th Street

Suare Peg Artery & Salvage has a second shop open for the holidays

in Liberty Place! The entrance is on 17th street between Market and Chestnut streets

next to the Westin Hotel entrance (or you can walk through the mall toward the 17th street exit).

They have lots of cute clothes (I think I spotted a cute screenprinted button up for a guy friend), jewlery, cards (like mine above!), candles, soaps and wall art including some cool square paintings/thread collages and my photos!

See, that's the Westin drive through in the background of my Love Park photo.
Stop by and buy local! I went here today, then strolled up to 13th street between Walnut and Pine where there are some awesome little shops with many cute gifts, flowers, cards, wrapping paper, housewares, ornaments, furniture and you pass Blick art supply and West Elm on the way! I had no money, but I'm window shopping for the future.

Sweetie's Pie Diner

I can't explain how excited I was to see the words "pie diner" decorating the door of a building being renovated at 19th and Spring Garden streets and they finally opened a couple of weeks ago. The place lives up to the name, they not only are a diner that specializes in pie, but local sourced gourmet pie with the most unusual and delightful combinations. I got a day old sample of an apple cake that was fabulous, then came back later that day with coworkers to taste a lemon pie. They also had plum, chocolate, pumpkin, more kinds of pie than I could remember. It was a memorable experience.

What I also love is that they have items like beet salad, savory pies for lunch, weekend brunch and get their supplies from local farms. It's a pie diner done right and the morning crew is really sweet. I stopped in again last week for coffee and tried a ginger scone. I think this might become a regular stop for me.

Oh, and the prices are so reasonable in comparison to other neighborhood coffee places! $2.25 for a slice of pie!

Mt. Airy Focus on Local Art Friday and Sat. Nov 6, 7

Come join me for First Friday in Mt. Airy 6-9 pm or on Saturday the 7th from 12-6 pm for the Mt. Airy Focus on Local Art Exhibition. I'll be at the storefront at 7167 Germantown Ave., between the Bank of America and North by Northwest. I'll be showing my newest work from Awbury Arboretum which focuses on connecting with nature.

Here are some of the many images that are part of the show:

I posted a few of these on etsy already (click on the shop link at the left)! I'm going to print them large for the show and frame them. I'm also going to have a magnet collage of the trees you can play with and arrange! There will be food and drinks at ours and the other venues both days. Shops will be open upand down Germantown Ave. and there are lots of great restaurants, coffee shops and old school main street type shops and locals to make it a fun day.