“We should have parties to catch them, but, unlike many other countries in the world, the U.S. doesn’t have a food culture that is informed by natural cycles,” says Gabriel, Founder and Managing Director of The Home Grown Institute.

On Sunday, June 30, Gabriel will run an Up Close & Personal Workshop at The Home Grown Institute to educate participants about these natural cycles and modern-day homesteading (indoor composting, aquaponics, backyard chickens, beekeeping, kombucha-brewing), as well as the facts, challenges and cultural perceptions of eating insects. Participants will cook and taste cricket dishes like spicy sautéed cricket fritters with a nutty dipping sauce with Chef Glenn Bergman, General Manager of Weavers Way Co-op. (Fun fact: Crickets are arthropods, just like shrimp.) Registration for the four-hour workshop (1 to 5 p.m.) is $29 plus a $10 materials fee prior to June 9. The price increases to $39 +$10 on June 15. After June 21, a late registration fee kicks in, and the cost is $49 + $10 for materials.

Gabriel acknowledges that eating insects has a high “yuck factor”; she feels it, too, and will be eating insects for the first time alongside the workshop participants. But she wants to examine why we say “yuck.”

“What's disgusting and what's delicious depends more on your culture than your stomach,” Gabriel writes on The Home Grown Institute blog, quoting the 2009 film Bugs for Breakfast. Those who are game to eat insects may find that it takes effort to overcome their aversion, to acknowledge and shift cultural habits, and to understand why and how eating insects could be valuable, and even enjoyable.

The workshop is running alongside the Big Bugs exhibit at Morris Arboretum in Chestnut Hill (April 1 – August 31). Both The Home Grown Institute and the Arboretum believe that eating insects is not just a novelty for the adventurous eater, but a sustainable way to feed the earth’s growing population, a nutritious way to feed the body, and a kind and instinctual way to work with our native food supply.

Those who attend the Up Close & Personal Workshop at The Homegrown Institute will be invited to be docents for the Arboretum’s evening Bug Crawl: Food & Drink Pairings for the 21st Century event on Wednesday, July 17.  The docents will challenge guests to examine and reconsider their food culture beliefs.

“There has to be early adopters,” says Gabriel. “Somebody’s got to try it first.”

For more information about and to register visit: http://www.thehomegrowninstitute.org/Events

More information about the Big Bugs exhibit at Morris Arboretum can be found at http://www.business-services.upenn.edu/arboretum/events_big-bugs.shtml

– Jane Jacobs

Hidden City Preview PresentationThe Hidden City Philadelphia (HCP) team convened last Sunday with an official preview party to provide dinner guests with an intimate overview of their 2013 festival schedule. Held at The Philadelphia Water Works on the banks of the Schuylkill, the preview party offered guests a chance to collectively revel in the building anticipation of the Hidden City Festival starting Thursday, May 23.

The Philadelphia Water Works Restaurant proved an appropriate space to celebrate the previewing of the 2013 festivities. Beginning the evening’s presentation, restaurant owner and HCP supporter, Michael Karloutsos, described how the “Philadelphia Water Works Restaurant is the poster child for hidden city” - a once vacant building whose master renovation started with a dream.

On this spring morning, photographer Jen Britton and I were tagging along with Joanne Donohue, Manager of Land Restoration for the Schuylkill Environmental Education Center, on a wildflower (“spring ephemeral,” if you want to sound like a botanist) tour.

Executive Director Julie Slavet says that the TTF Watershed, which covers 30 square miles of Philadelphia and Montgomery Counties, is “one of the most challenged in terms of runoff.” Because much of the Tacony Creek runs through Northeast Philadelphia, it accumulates sewage and other urban pollution, which makes its way into the Delaware River.

Honorees at Wednesday’s event will include Central High School 10^th grader Aliyah Patterson, who volunteers regularly at events throughout the TTF communities. Slavet says, “Aliyah came to us all on her own, and she’s gotten really excited about the watershed and the environment. We think she’s wonderful – the great kind of environmental leader that we want to support.”

The Abington School District will also be recognized for its partnership in building a riparian buffer at its Junior High School, which sits near the headwaters of the East Baeder Creek. As school districts cover extensive areas of land in suburban Pennsylvania, Slavet says, “We feel like this is a really good start working with this particular school district and recognizing them.”

The Watershed Milestones Reception will feature a silent auction, Yards beer, Chadds Ford wines and cheese from Valley Shepherd Creamery. Tickets are $40 in advance, $50 at the door.

Supporters can also donate via the TTF website, volunteer at events, or join the Board of Directors. Visit http://ttfwatershed.org/ for more information or to sign up for email updates. 

The designers are “over-age, under-credited” youth, or students who lack the appropriate number of school credits for their age and intended grade. These students are often on the verge of or have dropped out of school, for a range of reasons including; financial instability, failing grades, parenthood, or bullying.

With only roughly half of Philadelphia students graduating high school on time, there is a moral and economic imperative to educate and inspire struggling students towards personal sustainability as working adults. El Centro del Estudiantes, or El Centro as it is called for short, is an alternative high school in the Kensington section of Northeast Philadelphia that caters to students who have dropped out of traditional high schools. The academic program is experience-based, with students earning 80% of their credits through community internships with local businesses and nonprofits. These experiences give them exposure to a variety of professional fields and help them build skills for their futures. El Centro opened in 2009 through a partnership between Congreso de Latinos Unidos and Big Picture Philadelphia, a national nonprofit that has opened alternative schools across the country including the first local one in 2005 in Camden, NJ.

The member artists of the Mt. Airy Art Garage (MAAG), a community center of creativity for the arts in Northwest Philadelphia, saw this project as a natural extension of their first rain barrel project. In May 2012 the Mt. Airy Business Improvement District (MABID) was the first Philadelphia neighborhood association to receive 15 rain barrels from the Water Department to be used for sustainable practice within our Northwest community. MABID reached out to the Mt. Airy Art Garage (MAAG) to create a partnership, and they turned it into both sustainability and art.

The event, sponsored by the American Hiking Society, takes place every year on the first Saturday in June. Friends of the Wissahickon is joining with REI Conshohocken for the event in an effort to raise awareness of and care for the trails in Wissahickon Valley Park. REI is a national outdoor retail co-op that has been a partner for the event for over ten years. Friends of the Wissahickon has been working to advocate and care for the Wissahickon Valley since its founding in 1924.

Trail work begins at 9:30 a.m. and continues until 12:30 p.m. Meet at the parking lot at Kitchen's Lane, down Wissahickon Avenue in Mt. Airy. Register with FOW Volunteer Coordinator Eric Falk at falk@fow.org or 215-247-0417 x107.

The program also strives to be educational, helping people learn “what they can do with the produce and with things that are grown nearby that they’ve never seen,” said CCGC Executive Director Mike Devlin. Much of the produce is bought wholesale from the Camden City Garden Club’s Urban Farm on 3^rd and Beckett Streets, as well as a CCGC board member’s farm in Sewell, NJ, Duffield’s Farm.  CCGC, through their USDA Entrepreneurial Gardening Program, is also enabling Camden Community Gardeners to sell their surplus harvest to the Mobile Market to make a profit. 

The Mobile Market was funded by a $63,000 grant from the Walmart Foundation.  Its partners include NJ Senator Donald Norcross, county and city officials from Camden, and the NJ Department of Agriculture. The Mobile Market program is operated by the Camden City Garden Club, which also runs the Camden Children’s Garden CCGC manages 120 community gardens in Camden and produces $2.3 million worth of produce each year, feeding 12% of the city’s population. 

The Mobile Market plans to make stops at various community centers and housing facilities.  “We’re going to go to the people,” said Mike Devlin.  Tracy Nyszczot, of Camden Children’s Garden Public Relations explains that the Mobile Market program “will establish a key contact with each organization/housing area at each stop that will provide a handout flyer in English / Spanish to advise when we are coming.” Interested Camden Residents can sign up for the email list at http://bit.ly/11fpfBp. A finalized scheduled will be available here: http://camdenchildrensgarden.wordpress.com/mobile-market.

Join Hidden City in previewing this year's exciting lineup of Festival sites and artists, purchase your Festival passes, and learn more about Hidden City Philadelphia.

Tickets are $10 for advanced purchase and $15 at the door. All proceeds benefit the Hidden City Philadelphia Festival 2013. To purchase tickets visit hiddencityphila.ticketleap.com/kickoff or learn more about the Festival at festival.hiddencityphila.org.

"The far northeast is disproportionately represented in the farmer’s market scene. There's probably 40 markets going on in the city and most of them are within ten miles of each other in Center City, South and West Philly," he says. "The closest market to me is still eight miles away, and people just won’t travel that far. I really wanted to start a market close to where I live."