
Cheese of the Month: Cranberry Creek Chevre

When GRID grand poobah Alex Mulcahy and I sat down to plot out this magazine’s editorial calendar back in the icy deep freeze that is Philadelphia February, we suspected that when the mercury climbed into the 90s, we’d be ready for a double dose of two of our favorite things: beer and bicycles.
"The world is flat” is a large map of the world I made of found cardboard. It was originally created for the Chestnut Hill Arts Initiative and exhibited in an abandoned car dealership window as part of a series of installations in public venues. Painted with acrylic, charcoal and pencil, it feels to me more like a found artifact than a painting, with all the characteristics and exuberance of a high school geography project. Picasso said, “All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist and grow up.” Perhaps this is my attempt at channeling my child artist.
At the most fundamental level, food is inseparable from farmers. The richness of our seemingly boundless land beckoned settlers across the continent to build the homesteads, farms and ranches that became the cradle of the first American Dream, literally feeding the growth of a young nation. In 1935, the number of farms in America peaked at 6.8 million, just as the population topped 127 million citizens.
Herbal cocktails have evolved beyond the mojito. Why should the garden be any different? All across town, smart bartenders are mixing sophisticated summer elixirs with leaves, flowers, berries and buds of locally grown flora. Since you, savvy gardener/drinker, already have the mint-and-basil basics mastered, we thought we’d help you diversify your imbibe-able herb portfolio. Muddle 'em. Steep 'em. Soak 'em in gin or freeze 'em in ice. These 18 plants will keep you (and your drink) refreshed all summer long.
Resembling a pot of creamy, green-flecked pebbles, the addictive herbed farmer’s cheese made by Sue Miller of Birchrun Hills Farm materializes unpredictably enough to make its every farmers market appearance memorable. Sweet, milky and deliciously versatile, farmer’s cheese is just a bottle of milk and a squeeze of lemon away when you can’t get your Birchrun Hills fix.
San Francisco has never been short on culture—counter or otherwise—but it was the ice cream scene that inspired local musician Pete Angevine while visiting the West Coast last summer.
Cold-brewed coffee has a long and delicious history in New Orleans, a city that can lay claim to even more sticky summer days than Philadelphia. Traditionally brewed at home in old mayonnaise jars with chicory, the concentrated elixir is diluted to taste, sweetened and sipped on porches as a respite from oppressive temperatures.
Peach Pie with Crumble Topping
1/2 recipe of basic pie dough
5 cups sliced peaches (8-9 peaches)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. almond extract
Basic Blueberry Pie
1 recipe of basic pie dough
6 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1 lemon, zested and juiced
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. grated nutmeg
2 Tbsp. butter
1 egg (for egg wash)
Strawberry-Rhubarb Pie
1 recipe of basic pie dough
1 quart strawberries, washed and quartered
1 pound rhubarb, chopped into 1-inch lengths
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
2 Tbsp. butter
1 egg (for egg wash)
For most of my life, I believed that pie was special occasion food, reserved for big family dinners and primary holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas. Because of that, I developed a parallel opinion that making pie was extraordinarily hard. Why else would it be trotted out only once or twice a year?
When Kristian Holbrook named his mixed-milk robiola “Hummingbird,” he couldn’t have chosen a more perfect image. Like its namesake bird, this soft cheese is bright and delicate, with a nectar-like flavor profile that calls to mind vanilla and citrus. At one week, Hummingbird has the consistency of airy cheesecake; at three, the center liquefies and gains pungency.
Over the past several years, smart grid technology has been held up as a way to achieve energy independence, combat global warming and improve grid reliability. Who could be against that? But for most consumers, the smart grid is a nebulous, monolithic technological advancement that has little relevance to their everyday lives. It’s hard for consumers to see how they’ll be able to take advantage of this intelligent network because large utility companies that currently control the electric grid dictate how and when consumers will begin to interact with it. This month, we demystify it.
FACT: Globally, 51,000 to 82,000 tons of cell phone charger waste is generated per year.
PROBLEM: One hundred million cell phones become obsolete each year and, in most cases, so do their chargers. The European Commission has recently solved this problem for residents of the European Union by persuading 10 major cell phone manufacturers to sign an agreement that takes effect this year to make a universal charger for all phones. Unfortunately for those of us living on this side of the Atlantic, without governmental pressure to change, cell phone manufacturers are in no rush to provide the same waste-reducing technology to the American market.
Think of Growing Greener as the massive invisible partner to Pennsylvania’s environmental movement. Hardly anyone has heard of it, and yet the state granting program supports countless local organizations—including the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, Penn Future and The Pennsylvania Environmental Council—with thousands of conservation, recreation and educational projects. Now, as the natural gas industry takes hold, making up to 70 percent of state lands potentially vulnerable to fracking, Growing Greener is running dry. The program’s annual investments of $150 million have been whittled away to just $27.4 million for next year.
The farming collaboration between Marathon Grill and Emerald Street Urban Farm’s Patrick Dunn [Dec. 2010 Grid, Agriculture p.18] has come to fruition in Brewerytown. In March, Marathon Farm hosted five workdays that attracted more than 60 volunteers, who transformed a vacant lot into a promising agricultural haven. On March 21, Mayor Michael Nutter himself hosted a press conference and helped to plant some of the first seeds at the farm’s grand opening.