Edible Schoolyard and Shopping Local

I just ordered Edible Schoolyard by Alice Waters from the Penn Book Center (not the bookstore, but the Indie bookstore on 34th and Sansom). I'm getting really excited about building a garden at West Philly High School this summer, so I am buying books on all the ways to prepare every vegetable under the sun and I figured I would buy Alice Water's book since she was the first person who got me thinking about gardens as food sources and community builders at public schools.

Thinking about buying locally, (not from the Penn Bookstore which is owned by Barnes & Noble), Sansom Street between 34th and 36th streets is a great local shopping enclave that is dissapearing as we speak. The Saturn Club will close its cafe in about a week and focus on Salon space. Bucks County Coffee closed its doors on this block about a year ago (and the other stores were bought by Saxby's), The Black Cat gift shop is closing its doors and has been selling off all their stock since Christmas and the White Dog Cafe has been bought out by the folks who run Moshulu.

On the upside, AVRIL 50 is still going strong after 25 years and has every magazine you love but is hard to find at the big box stores or CVSes (Bust, Ready Made, European magazines, every subject you can think of) and espresso drinks, teas and gourmet import chocolates. It really is a place you need to see to believe. Decorated with covers of Interview magazines from the early 90's, he also carries notecards, International newspapers, wrapping paper, black and white postcards, calenders and planners. Located at 3406 Sansom Street.

Food Inc. Movie Premier and Eats & Beats

I went to the Food Inc. movie premier tonight (free tickets were given out to see it at the Ritz Borse) and it was much of the things I know from work, corporate food vs. local growers, but some new stuff: the companies that control the chicken, beef and pork, corn and soybean seeds.

There were the usual experts: Eric Schlosser, author of Fast Food Nation and Michael Pollan author of Omnivore's Dillema, but the best character in the movie is Joel Salatin
owner/farmer of Polyface Farms in Virginia, who feeds his livestock grass, and has the most matter of fact way of describing how scewed the food system has gotten when he describes how his cows eat grass.

I've been trying to wean myself off of plastics and this movie made me think more about cutting out traditional food products, esp. industrial meat. I've been shopping almost exclusively at Whole Foods, but I really don't know where the turkey I bought came from, or if the salmon is fed corn. And it makes me strongly consider buying the meat products at Farm Fresh Express or farmers markets. I knew about the industrial mechanization of the meat corporations, but I didn't think about the chemicals and poo and ecoli and where it comes from (even on spinach).

This is all connected with my work for the Urban Nutrition Initiative and I'm excited to go the the Eats & Beats dinner on Saturday night, 5:30-8:30 at 48th and Baltimore Ave. The high school farmers and chefs are doing the most of the cooking, but they also have donations from many local restaurants and farms. I took photographs of the garden they tend at University City Hish School, my garden at Spring Gardens Community Garden and at Reading Terminal Market at Iovine Brothers and Fair Food Farmstand and they will be on the silent auction tables, matted and in sets of cards.

New Etsy Shop Today

I was selected to be in a treasury of trains and I found this shop in the same treasury:

LocalWisdomCards from Stowe, Vermont

They have over 100 cards like this with a wide variety of quotes.
The collages are beautiful and very thoughtful and well crafted.