Book Review: Hollywood Rides a Bike

Hollywood Rides a Bike: Cycling with the Stars, by Steven Rea, Angel City Press, 160 pp., $20.
Take a ride back in time and pay homage to classic wheels. Steven Rea, film critic for the Philadelphia INquirer and professor at Drexel University, initially took his love for cinema and cycling to the internet in NOvember 2010

More
1 min read

Neighborhood Bike Works

Founded in 1966 as a program of the Bicycle Coalition, Neighborhood Bike Works is now the leading nonprofit educational organization for empowering Philadelphia youth in underserved neighborhoods through bicycling. Their flagship program, Earn-A-Bike, teaches youth basic bike repair and maintenance skills, safe urban riding practices, and lessons on health and nutrition, all while refurbishing a

More
1 min read

Shoots & Ladders: Bottle of Rain

story by Char VandermeerHeat can beat even the most conscientious of gardeners. All it takes is consecutive 100-degree days to reduce cucumbers and tomatoes to sad piles of shriveled leaves and cracked fruits. But even though the best way to avoid heat damage is to keep roots cool, and the best way

More
1 min read

Recycling Challenge: Child Car Seats

story by Samantha WittchenFACT: Americans are estimated to buy as many as 12 million car seats a year.
PROBLEM: Kids outgrow car seats, and the seats have expiration dates (usually five to six years after manufactured), as the materials eventually degrade from ultraviolet light exposure. So, parents generally buy multiple car seats for their children during

More
1 min read

Green Living: Lip Service

Last month, I talked about the toxins in skincare products and, unfortunately, cosmetics aren’t exempt from those same dangers. Did you know many lip products may contain lead? Even though it’s not listed in the ingredients label, lead can be a byproduct of the manufacturing process. If you’re putting a product

More
1 min read

Urban Naturalist: Fancy Feast

story by Bernard BrownYou won’t hear urban coyotes howling. They’re nocturnal and as quiet as, well, cats. But coyotes are filling the vacancy we created at the top of the food chain when we wiped out grey wolves and cougars in eastern North America. By now, hundreds of the wily canids

More
2 mins read

Cheese of the Month: Grass-Fed Ricotta

story by Tenaya Darlington, madamefromageblog.comForget about the sad, granular cement that comes in supermarket tubs. Fresh ricotta is feather-light, like the cheese Mark Lopez produces at his Wholesome Dairy Farms in Yellow House, Pa. Made from grass-fed milk, this stuff is dream-inducing. Take a spoonful, drizzle some honey on it, and you will experience double

More
1 min read

Squash Cycle: What to do with summer’s ubiquitous vegetable

story by Marisa McClellanWhether you love or hate summer squash, July and August are impossible to live through without having it cross your dinner plate. Happily, I adore it all, whether it’s the classic green zucchini, the more unconventional yellow crookneck or the tender, flying saucer-shaped pattypan.
Still, during the height of the season, I eventually

More
3 mins read