Jenn Hall

Edible Jersey: When We Gather – Preserving Family Time at Savoie Organic Farm

May 9, 2019 by jennhallwrites

Farm life evokes romantic visions: Tractor rides at dusk. Landscapes in the saturated tones of summer produce. A breeze always rustling the grasses. The reality? Well, that’s a bit different. Farming is sun-up, sun-down work. Everything is grit and grind, the kind that gets under the fingernails. Carving time for anything other than seeding, weeding, harvesting and marketing is a victory. Still, it makes one philosophical about the things that count: food, family, living a healthy life—and when you get […]

Categories: food and drink, when we gather

Jersey’s Best: Made in Jersey – Connection to the sea inspires artist’s nautical creations

May 9, 2019 by jennhallwrites

We tend to see barrier islands as constant — stationary across bridges — and beckoning the swimsuit-clad masses come summertime. Yet, as with certain creative souls, the nature of a barrier island is to drift. Turn back the clock 20,000 years, and the Barnegat Peninsula on which Lavallette sits lived farther out at sea, near the continental shelf, said jewelry artist, metalsmith and former environmental scientist Jen O’Reilly. “As sea levels rise through melting glaciers, a barrier island’s nature is to retreat […]

Categories: artists and makers

Edible Jersey: Red Bank Road Trip

May 9, 2019 by jennhallwrites

When I was a kid, our first family dog was Molly, a wire-haired terrier mutt with a vague resemblance to a Gremlin and the countenance of an estate heiress. Her namesake was the Molly Pitcher Inn, the 20s-era banquet hotel perched on the banks of the Navesink River and known for its decadent brunches. At the Molly, my single mom waited tables to support my sister and me. I remember her gorgeous as she left for work in a crisp, […]

Categories: food and drink, travel

F-I-N-E Fine (flash fiction)

May 4, 2019 by jennhallwrites

I need to get this computer off me, she says. I can’t tell if I’m sick or depressed. Depressed is sick, I tell her, but she says there’s a difference. She would know.Her mom, and her mom’s mom, and the moms before them, all swirled out into that inaccessible distance. One killed herself. One got committed and clothed in a buttermilk dress. The rest toiled on amid children and husbands, saying everything’s F-I-N-E fine. They repeat it like a mantra. […]

Categories: fiction

Jersey’s Best: Through an artist’s looking-glass menagerie

February 28, 2019 by jennhallwrites

When sharing anecdotes, Paul J. Stankard, 75, tends to find sweetness in things. “This is a sweet story…” he’ll begin with a smile. It’s an interesting quality in a master artist who has spent a lifetime bending glass to his will using fire. Stankard is recognized as the father of the modern glass paperweight, celebrated from the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the Louvre. His glasswork — self-contained botanical worlds — have a time-stopping quality. For the artist, they’re a […]

Categories: artists and makers

Jersey’s Best: Tour de Jersey – Food Tours of the Garden State

February 14, 2019 by jennhallwrites

Before launching On the Town Food Tours three years ago, tour guide Audrey Wiggins of Eastampton was a trend-hunter for a major flavor company. As part of her mission, she devised custom restaurant tours that took in new culinary ideas from multiple angles. “We would sit, and we’d eat and determine how this particular food item could or could not work on their menu,” Wiggins recalled. With that intel, she began to lead food tours in South Jersey for family and friends, just […]

Categories: food and drink, travel

Gannett / Courier-Post: Pita gives rise to a Bitar culinary legacy on both sides of the Delaware

February 4, 2019 by jennhallwrites

It all began with bread. Pita, to be exact. When Mariette and Elias Bitar brought their family to South Philadelphia in the early 1970s — relocating from Northern Lebanon with three young sons in the uncertain years preceding the Lebanese Civil War — the bread that anchored their every meal was nowhere to be found. There was Stroehmann bread, sure, fluffy and factory-made. There were seeded loaves at the Italian Market, dotted with sesame. But fresh pita, painted dark in […]

Categories: food and drink

Edible Jersey: Garden State Wines Command the Spotlight

January 24, 2019 by jennhallwrites

In November, befitting a contest dubbed “The Governor’s Cup,” the awards ceremony for New Jersey’s top wine competition was relocated to a prestigious address: Drumthwacket, a.k.a. the governor’s official residence in Princeton. The timing was right for an upgrade. During the ceremony, nine wineries were honored for reaching new heights during the annual competition hosted by the Garden State Wine Growers Association (GSWGA). Out of 150 wines entered, more than 40 earned 90+ scores in blind tastings. This follows on […]

Categories: food and drink

Edible Philly: InKind Baking Project – Baking a More Welcoming Philly

December 10, 2018 by jennhallwrites

As sunset turned a snowy landscape electric blue on a January Sunday, Julie Donofrio preheated the oven in her bright South Philly kitchen. This particular day would tie the city’s record for cold at just 4°F, pipes bursting in protest across the city. Undeterred, Donofrio, an urban planner at Penn Praxis, prepared the batter for a batch of cinnamon sugar-puff muffins: pouring milk into a clean white bowl, measuring oil and gently breaking eggs. As the muffins baked, cinnamon perfumed […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice

Edible Jersey: Sweet Treats Offer Hope

December 1, 2018 by jennhallwrites

For Tammy Dunwoody of The Art of Cake Studio in River Vale, it goes deeper: It’s a form of tribute. With the launch of her nonprofit, Holly’s Cupcake Bouquets, Dunwoody honors her late sister, who died of breast cancer in May 2017. Along the way, Dunwoody brings a sweet pop of joy to customers and those fighting their own battles with the disease, one photorealistic cupcake arrangement at a time. Read more… Published in the Nov. / Dec 2018 issue […]

Categories: food and drink

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