by Emily Kovach MOM-MOM’S POLISH FOOD CART The owners: Kaitlin Wines and Ryan Elmore (they’re engaged!) @MomMomNomNom on Twitter Who is Mom-Mom? We are named after Kaitlin’s Mom-Mom (grandmother), Rita Chmielewski, a second-generation Polish immigrant and thriving 93-year-old. We could have called ourselves Babcia’s (the Polish word for grandmother) but Kait grew up eating/cooking/baking with Mom-Mom—it
Moreby Emily Kovach FARM TRUCK The owners: Kris Pepper and Eliot Covenfarmtruckphilly.com @Farm_Truck on Twitter Cuisine: Seasonal, farm-to-table. We buy locally whenever possible and serve an eclectic mix of American, Asian, Mediterranean and fusion cuisine. We often get asked if everything on our menu is healthy. To which we say, “It isn’t health food, it’s
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Photo by Gene Smirnov Counter Culture by Anna Herman Many of us with yards have those small animals that are dubbed micro-livestock—chickens, ducks, rabbits and honeybees and the like—as part of our urban homestead and hyper-local food sources. But even apartment dwellers can improve their nutrition and cultivate microorganisms by fermenting food. So many traditional
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Illustration by James Olstein Blinded by Science by Jerry Silberman Question: Is sustainability a religious value?The Right Question: Can you have faith without respecting the world? “If then you obey the commandments that I enjoin upon you this day… I will grant the rain for your land in season, the early rain and the late.
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Short and Sweet by Peggy Paul Casella Large, watery, cone-shaped strawberries are available any time at the grocery store, but if you want the real thing—fragrant, red all the way through, with juices that dribble down your chin—you have to wait for that sweet spot in the year, when late spring meets early summer. Strawberries
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Compassion Project interview by Alex Mulcahy Wrapped in a brown robe and exuding a disarmingly calm manner, the Tibetan-born Venerable Losang Samten does not act like someone with a looming deadline. In a small building on the campus of the Plymouth Meeting Friends Center, Samten is working on a sand mandala, quietly arranging brightly colored
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Illustration by Nicholas Massarelli Faith in Action by the Rev. Cheryl Pyrch and Rabbi Malkah Binah Klein “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.” JEREMIAH 29:11 A low-level but corrosive despair and cynicism pervades
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The Halo Effect by Heather Shayne Blakeslee When I was 6 or 7, I thought that Jesus was born in Pennsylvania. My reasoning was this: Jesus was born in Bethlehem. Bethlehem is a city in Pennsylvania, therefore Jesus was born in Pennsylvania. It’s an argument form that seems so solid and obvious that logicians have
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