Eating Alabama

Slow Food, in collaboration with Farm to City, will present a free screening of the essay-style food documentary, Eating Alabama, on Monday, May 6 at 7 p.m. at The Rotunda on 4014 Walnut Street in West Philadelphia.

In search of a simpler life, filmmaker Andrew Beck Grace and his wife, Rashmi, return home to Alabama where they set out to eat the way their grandparents did – locally and seasonally. They quickly realize that nearly everything about the food system has changed, and eating local is not as easy as it used to be. Peppered with Grace’s thoughtful narrative and touching family anecdotes, Eating Alabama is a story about community, the South, and why food matters.

In a Q&A with the filmmaker, Grace speaks about the innate implications of food as it affects families, farmers, and communities.

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2nd Annual National Bike Challenge Begins May 1

 

Today is May Day, the official start of The National Bike Challenge, a nationwide effort to increase bicycle ridership through camaraderie and friendly competition. The Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia (BCGP) is the organizing advocacy group for the Philadelphia region, returning to the role it served last year, which was the National Bike Challenge's inaugural year.

Participants use the event website to log the miles they ride from May 1 until September 30 and it automatically tracks miles ridden, calories burned, and CO2 emissions saved. The competition part comes from ranking participants individually, by team, workplace, community and state. Bicycling-related prizes are awarded monthly. All bicycle trips, both commuting and recreational, count towards a user's totals.

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Kids These Days: New local goat cheeses are springing up all over

story and photos byTenaya Darlington. A wedge of Gotogetagoat from Valley Creamery in Long Valley, NJ.While an east coast winter can put any local foods operation into hibernation, the region’s goat-cheese makers have been quite busy. Valley Shepherd Creamery opened a cheesemaking operation and grilled sandwich stand in Reading Terminal Market, and Cranberry Creek hired Paul Lawler (formerly of Fair Food Farmstand) as their full-time cheesemaker to develop a new line of goat cheeses at their state-of-the-art facility in the Poconos. Add to that the recent World Jersey Cheese Awards for nearby artisan dairies Keswick Creamery and Hidden Hills, and it seems that eastern Pennsylvania is starting to get its dairy due.

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Seeds With Deep Roots: Heirloom seeds keep alive memories of people and place

illustration by Kirsten Harper

by William Woys Weavers

As far back as I can remember, I have always been surrounded by seeds. During my preschool years, I farmed with my grandparents, and it was my Grandfather Weaver, with his acre or so kitchen garden in West Chester, who raised me at his knee.

My grandfather ran an accounting business, but his heart was in plants. He started collecting seeds in the early 1930s from relatives in Lancaster County where he was born. Before long, his entire property had become a botanical showplace, with fruit trees, bee hives, a pigeon house for racing pigeons (which provided manure for the gardens) and all sorts of wonderful things no one sees today, like Pineapple Rhubarb with yellow stems.

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Architectural Walking Tours Kick-Off Saturday, May 4

photo by Flickr user pwbaker

The Preservation Alliance for Greater Philadelphia will launches the 2013 season of its award-winning Architectural Walking Tours Saturday, May 4 at 10 a.m. with a tour of Littlest Streets Fitler Square and a special tour for Jane Jacobs Walk, an annual commemoration of the birthday of the great urban thinker Jane Jacobs (1916-2006).

The event will start off with a brief "birthday party," followed by a FREE guided walking tour of Littlest Streets Fitler Square. Meet at the center of Fitler Square, 23rd & Pine Sts. Jane Jacobs Walk is a program of the Center for the Living City, a nonprofit organization created by friends of  urban activist and writer Jane Jacobs (The Death and Life of Great American Cities), who championed the interests of local residents and pedestrians over a car-centered approach to planning. www.janejacobswalk.org. The organization celebrates Jacobs' life and legacy by helping people organize walks in their communities around the time of Jane's birthday in early May.

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