Early in 2026 in the Oxford Circle neighborhood, 115 Philadelphians representing 15 different nationalities sat down to enjoy dinner at the first in a series of 21 events across seven diverse neighborhoods. The social impact project, called “Breaking Bread, Breaking Barriers” and conceived by president and CEO of The Welcoming Center (TWC) Anuj Gupta, rests
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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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When Peter Merzbacher first started delivering loaves of bread around the city on his bicycle, he had no five-year plan to grow his small baking project into a wholesale business. But today, Merzbacher’s processes 12,000 pounds of dough into bread every week out of its Germantown warehouse. And still, the mission remains the same: nourish
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Estere Alveno-Marius remembers the first time she tasted comparette (also known as konparèt), the sweetly spiced gingerbread-like treat that originated in Jérémie, the capital of Haiti’s Grand’Anse region. A friend visiting Alveno-Marius in her hometown of Saint-Louis-du-Sud brought the pastry as a gift. One taste and Alveno-Marius understood how the fragrant coconut sweet bun got
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In 1965, Alphonse Pignataro, recently graduated from Trenton State College (now The College of New Jersey), boarded a plane bound for Barbados. For the Elizabeth, New Jersey, native, this marked a moment of multiple firsts: his first jet flight, his first time leaving the United States and the first year of a two-year Peace Corps
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As many people discovered during the COVID-19 boom in home baking, if you want a challenge, try baking with a sourdough starter. Iryna Teslia embraced this challenge, and sourdough became the basis for everything she produces in her micro-bakery, The Bread Anatomy — from traditional Ukrainian holiday breads like paska and kolach to all-American chocolate
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What became “The Year of the Cake” started innocently enough. In October 2023, Sandi Pierantozzi and her husband, Neil Patterson, ordered a slice of pistachio torte from a bakery in Sicily. It was love at first bite. The couple returned to the shop each of the five days they spent in Taormina, always savoring the
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Every Monday around 9 a.m., Kimberton Waldorf School’s Food for Thought lunch program stocks up on Seven Stars Farm maple and vanilla yogurt. Located just across the street, the biodynamic farm is among the many local food producers and growers the school uses to source ingredients for their daily lunch menu. The agricultural hub of
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Launched in 2021, Aaji’s is first and foremost, a family affair. Co-founders Rajus and Poorva Korde created the brand based on Rajus’s grandmother’s tomato lonsa recipe — a tomato-based dish that incorporates coastal Indian spices like asafoetida and turmeric. Aaji’s currently offers an original tomato lonsa, as well as garlic, spicy and spicy garlic flavors.
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In a scene from the PBS docuseries “NOVA: Chasing Carbon Zero,” Chef Chris Galarza removes an ice cold frying pan from a freezer and places it on an induction burner. Only a moment later, he tosses some chopped peppers in the pan, which immediately start to sizzle. This impossible-seeming trick is one that Galaraza has
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