Fall is a great time to explore the cheeses of Chester County. The area is home to eight fabulous cheesemakers, including one of my favorites, Yellow Springs Farm. Al and Catherine Renzi are passionate about Nubian goats and native plants, and these two things come together in the form of beautiful, subtle cheeses that are
MoreMy wife, Jen, adores Canada geese. She especially loves the fluffy goslings that graze alongside their parents throughout grassy Philadelphia, but she waves to the adults, too. Jen might be the only Philadelphian I’ve met who likes the geese, and, like anyone whose spouse holds a dangerously contrarian position, I am bound to publicly agree
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Seeds of Discentby Nic Esposito(Bobcat Coveside Books, 300 pp., $20, March 2011)
The descent of plant roots into Philadelphia’s trashed soils is the most essential dissent against America’s failing economy, especially when these roots grow food, says author Nic Esposito. A 28-year-old West Philly farmer, Esposito’s first novel, Seeds of Discent, appears inspired by, if not a
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Can you hear that?
There’s a movement afoot. Building materials are being given a second life, and hundreds, if not thousands, of tons of construction and demolition waste are being diverted from landfills. And it’s all happening in our backyard.
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Shucked: Life on a New England Oyster Farmby Erin Byers Murray(St. Martin’s Press, 368 pp., $24.99, October 2011)
Boston-based journalist Erin Byers Murray quit her full-time job as a lifestyle reporter to go work on an oyster farm. Shucked is both a personal memoir of the physical, emotional, and mental challenges she faced to succeed at
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The first time I tasted pumpkin curry was 10 years ago, at a place in Portland, Ore., that’s half restaurant, half Laundromat. The pumpkin cubes were perfectly tender and the coconut and yellow curry broth were habit-forming. Ever since, pumpkin curry has been one of my primary food obsessions.
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This weekend, the 2011 Community Arts Festival (CAFe) comes together to promote local artists and the importance of environmental sustainability. Featuring organizations from all over the city, there are plenty of diverse passions to discover: ceramics with Old City’s Clay Studios; Arabic calligraphy with Albustan Seeds of Culture, a local nonprofit that teaches Arabic language,
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Rambunctious Garden: Saving Nature in a Post-Wild Worldby Emma MarrisBloomsbury Publishing (2011), $25
"Rambunctious gardening is proactive and optimistic; it creates more and more nature as it goes, rather than just building walls around the nature we have left,” proclaims author Emma Marris in the first chapter of Rambunctious Garden.
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When Tim Patton moved to Philadelphia in 2006, going into the beer business wasn’t even on his radar.
“I came up from Wilmington, where I’d started an Internet business,” he says. “I wanted to get out of the suburbs, so I moved up here to find something else to do with my life.”
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FACT
Yard waste, consisting of grass, leaves and other garden debris, comprises an estimated 18 percent of the annual municipal waste stream.
PROBLEM
Sending yard waste to the landfill puts an unnecessary seasonal burden on the municipal garbage collection system. Leaf waste can account for as much as 60 percent to 80 percent of the waste stream in
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