The shortest distance between two points is incontestably a straight line. But the route Matt Kirchner followed prior to launching Local Bound, a local food distribution business, meandered through South Jersey, North Carolina, Los Angeles, New York City and Point Breeze, and from baseball diamonds to family farms. Kirchner’s passion for playing baseball dominated his
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As the oldest of nine children, Shevy Sputz was her mother’s kitchen assistant in their Brooklyn household. Sputz’s mother, a talented cook and baker, wisely gave her daughter responsibility for making desserts. Decades later, that early family apprenticeship and an heirloom recipe led to the formation of Sputz’s burgeoning Fairmount-based business, Shevy’s Babka Paradise. Although
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Germantown Kitchen Garden’s farmer, Amanda Staples, who hails from Upper Darby, did not grow up on a farm. Although her grandparents operated a Christmas tree farm near Clarks Summit, Lackawanna County, Staples’ initial hands-on contact with farming was growing lima beans in her backyard for an elementary school assignment. After graduating from Temple University with
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Emily Grossman and Alyssa Bonventure, co-owners of All Aboard Candy, opened their Rittenhouse Square store last June with a clear mission. “If you’re an adult, we want you to feel like a kid again,” says Bonventure. “And if you’re a kid, we want to introduce you to the joy of feeling like a kid in
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Joseph Nguyen, 27, lives in South Philly and holds a 2020 Temple University degree in international business. But if you ask him what he does, the answer is much more nuanced. “I live three different lives,” he says. Nguyen performs audits for government and corporate clients, competes as a Muay Thai martial artist, and runs
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Even the most talented chefs began their food careers as eaters. Well before they were able to cook, they witnessed the magic of combining ingredients into delicious dishes, made for them by family, friends and other cooks. For some, need, desire — or even nostalgia — converts us from eaters to makers of the foods
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Ebo Nunoo’s grandfather was part of a generations-long line of cocoa farmers in rural Ghana. In search of more opportunity, he moved his family to Accra, the nation’s capital, and became a shoemaker. Decades later, his grandson Ebo left Accra for the United States to attend college and find his own opportunities. It’s unlikely that
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Summer is over, but it’s not too late to capture its flavors in a jar. Scoop up late-season veggies at your farmers market and lean into the magic of pickling. Amina Aliako is eager to share her Syrian-style pickling secrets with you. At its most basic, pickling requires only four ingredients: water, salt, vinegar and
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The name Edible Alphabet might conjure images of sugary breakfast cereal or playful pasta shapes. That’s not what has drawn more than 1,000 adult learners to this innovative series of free, fun English language classes at the Culinary Literacy Center in the Free Library of Philadelphia since 2016. Lindsay Southworth, senior program manager, traces the
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Bakari Clark describes herself as a student and a gardener. As the 2025 recipient of the prestigious Douglas Dockery Thomas Fellowship in Garden History and Design, Clark can now claim to be a student of gardens. The 25-year-old Virginia native came to Philadelphia to study at Temple University, where she became interested in many aspects
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