Trashing South StreetFor an entire year, Burnell Yow! went out every trash night, rummaged through people’s garbage and made a collage of what he found. Fifty-Two Collages in Fifty-Two Weeks is the result of that effort, and it’s hanging up in a brand new gallery space on South Street.
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Isn’t it inspiring to see Michelle Obama and a class of fifth graders digging up the White House lawn, planting the first garden there since Eleanor Roosevelt’s victory garden in 1943? It’s clear that nutrition is going to be a priority for our First Lady, and her interest in it is personal; a few years
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Saving rainwater for your own usesby Will DeanTo comply with federal regulations governing combined storm water and sewage overflow (where lots of rain can wash sewage into local watersheds), the Philadelphia Water Department is trying something new.
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How to start heirloom veggies from seedby Phil ForsythSo you’ve been enjoying those orange, yellow, purple, green, striped, two-tone, cherry, plum, pear-shaped and downright unusual tomatoes from the farmer’s market. Then you get your hands on a seed catalog and the names call to you: Black From Tula, Golden Sunray, Aunt Ruby’s German Green. So
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Fixing our broken food systemby Paul GloverEverything we hope to achieve, have and enjoy would be shaken from our grasp without the miracle of seeds unfolding into food, far from where we live. Are you on the road to success? Take food with you. Whether we eat from silver plates or tin cups, three times
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Upscale vegan eats warm your stomach and conscienceby Will DeanWith the rush towards eating locally, it’s surprisingly easy to forget about the original “ethical” eating choice that for hundreds of years has attracted people like Ben Franklin, Charlotte Bronte, Albert Einstein and, of course, me. While Kate Jacoby, co-owner and pastry chef of upscale vegan
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Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Healthby Marion NestleUC Press, 2003; $16.95When you bite into an apple, you’re probably not considering the laws and regulations, complex legal relationships and huge amounts of money that go into promoting food products. On your behalf, though, Marion Nestle is.
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The Philadelphia Orchard Project is harvesting edible agriculture one vacant lot at a timeby Natalie Hope McDonaldFrom Kensington’s Cambria Orchard to Chester Avenue’s Squirrel Hill and the Martin Luther King High School Farm on West Oak Lane, fresh fruits and vegetables are being harvested in once-vacant, crime-ridden lots. It’s all part of a massive nutrition
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How Haddington used guerrilla gardening to transform its vacant lots, and why the city should encourage everyone to do the sameby Haley LoramSomeone left a busted couch at the edge of the Conestoga Children’s Garden, directly under the “No Dumping” sign. Skip Wiener, who tends to the network of gardens in the West Philly neighborhood
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Patients as Person, City as Healer?by Nathaniel PopkinIn the earliest days of the Center for Community Partnerships at Penn, a project I was a part of for a few years in the mid-’90s, we considered (but never executed) a “misery/happiness index” for West Philadelphia. The index was an idea of the historian Lee Benson, the
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