Phoenixville, PA

When I arrived in Phoenixville this Sunday after a 2.5 hour journey on the train and then a bus that tours every suburban mall and plaza and hideous corporate park in the region, I was excited to see the small town main street was worth the 45 minute wait at the Norristown Transportation Center.

I came for an architectural tour, but thanks to Septa's "signal problems" I missed the tour and wandered around on my own. Bridge street serves as their main street, crossed by Main street (little odd) running parallel to the river. Church street is further up the hill and had several churches (surprise) and a block of older houses with second story wrought iron balconies on porches that reminded me of New Orleans. The homes are unique and some are being renovated and the unusual woodwork restored.

The town is filled with independent businesses that had a home-made and fun feel, from the second floor bookstore with snarky signs, to the hand carved lava rock fountain store, to the movie theater playing Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to the Fire House Bingo Nights (every Tuesday!). It's renovated, but still seems to belong to the town, not to trendy new business start-ups.

Right along the river, the old foundry was made into a Schulykill River Museum with a bridge, a small falls and a paved nature trail. Two bike stores in town rent bikes, including a tandem, for $9 - $14 per hour.

Iron Hill Brewery and Majolica are amoung the restaurants that offer local farm fresh foods and there were several coffee houses to choose from including a nice one with handmade ceramics piled up in the window and applesauce muffins

I'm planning another trip back to bike the trail and try the restaurants.

Silent Spring

I'm finishing the book Silent Spring by Rachel Carson, which if you have not read, I think you should. Even though it was printed in 1962, the historic systematic poisoning of our environment is something all people should be aware of and it just makes me want to know more about what is happening now.

Rachel was a marine biologist for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and she blew the whistle on the use of super strength industrial poisons in the water, air and soil, meant to kill a pesky plant or bug but actually killing humans and wildlife and their children for generations to come.

Her observations are supported by studies and stories of rivers where all the fish were killed, sprayings that killed livestock, and people dying of nervous system damage and cancer.

The book was widely read when it came out and lead to public outrage (as well as death threats) and the banning of DDT one of the worst offending pesticides. But as Al Gore points out in the introduction, we still produce DDT, we just ship it off to foreign countries for them to use.

Some of Carson's arguments are very relevant today. She compares the fight against cancer to the fight against infectious diseases of the last century. Instead of just treating people who had diseases like Tuberculosis, scientists looked for the environmental causes and prevented the disease (by removing contaminated communal pump handles). For some reason, though, we think of cancer as a disease we fight through treatment of the afflicted. We don't spend research dollars removing carcinogens from our food, air, soil and water. And she points out, there will never be one magic pill to cure cancer because it has too many causes and forms in the body.

I thought this was going to be an environmentalist book about the planet. But, it turns out this is a book about humans and how we have poisoned ourselves.

Some of the things we can do to combat all this is think about the soap, detergent, bug spray, air cleaner, bathroom cleanser, fertilizer, paint stripper we use and how we use it. Even phosphates in the water can make us more susseptible to cancers. We can think about where our food comes from and how it was treated while it was growing and what was in the soil it grew in and the water it was watered with. We can learn about the companies we live around and buy from and the by-poducts of their manufacturing. And we can learn about the historic dumping and desecrating of our surroundings. I found out recently the place where I work is next to land where lead was being processed for decades. Yikes! We can also support great folks like the ones below: GRID magazine is a Philly free magazine focused on local sustainability. What more could we ask for. I love all of their projects, restaurants, articles, it's just great. The Green Project is in New Orleans and I wish we had one here in Philly. They recycle paint and housing materials and household items, fixtures and furniture. This stuff just heads straight to the landfill in Philly. They have awesome craft workshops, used clothing redesign contests, art supplies and a warehouse and yard full of items for your house. It's fun to look at their items on flickr.

On the upside Philly is now doing Recycling Pays! Yeah! They scan your bucket, weigh your recycyclables and you can redeem points for stuff online! Now if I can just find a container big enough...

New Year, New Fabulous Cookbook!

For the last couple of years I've treated myself to a new cookbook every year and this year I'm so excited by "My New Orleans" by John Besh. It's a huge beautiful coffeetable book with fantasticphotographs, but what impresses me the most is his mission to save the rituals, incomperable local ingredients, and what makes New Orleans different from getting muddied by post-Katrina influx and disorganization. With sections on celebrations like the Feast of St. Joseph and Revillion, features on strawberries (from the North Shore strawberry festivals), creole tomatoes, figs, seafood and odd items like mirlitons you'll find out alot about New Orleans you didn't even know. The writing is beautiful. Besh grew up in Slidell, LA and trained in restaurants there and in Europe, fought in Desert Storm and returned to the area to settle with his family where he runs several restaurants, so the stories are personal and the photos feature family and people he knows from the city.

I was most impressed with the section on the Vietnamese community and the new Urban Farm Besh is supporting, a 28 acre farm being developed by the community to allow locals to farm, hold a market and sell to local restaurants. Besh also raises his own hogs and cattle in town for use in his recipes. His comittment to local food is a huge asset to rebuilding a sustainable local economy that benefits the residents of New Orleans.

Last year I picked up these two cookbooks at the Big Blue Marble bookstore next to Weaver's Way co-op in Mt. Airy

Sweetie's Pie Diner

I can't explain how excited I was to see the words "pie diner" decorating the door of a building being renovated at 19th and Spring Garden streets and they finally opened a couple of weeks ago. The place lives up to the name, they not only are a diner that specializes in pie, but local sourced gourmet pie with the most unusual and delightful combinations. I got a day old sample of an apple cake that was fabulous, then came back later that day with coworkers to taste a lemon pie. They also had plum, chocolate, pumpkin, more kinds of pie than I could remember. It was a memorable experience.

What I also love is that they have items like beet salad, savory pies for lunch, weekend brunch and get their supplies from local farms. It's a pie diner done right and the morning crew is really sweet. I stopped in again last week for coffee and tried a ginger scone. I think this might become a regular stop for me.

Oh, and the prices are so reasonable in comparison to other neighborhood coffee places! $2.25 for a slice of pie!