Jenn Hall

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

Edible Jersey: Cape May – Victorian charm plus new energy in the city by the sea

December 1, 2018 by jennhallwrites

One could be forgiven the temptation to descend into Dickensian fantasy when the holidays arrive in Cape May, and not simply by virtue of the town’s annual Dickens Christmas Extravaganza. To walk Cape May’s Victorian-fringed streets, accompanied by the well-placed snowflake and a gingerbread-house backdrop, is to inhabit the metaphoric interior of a snow globe. Everything shimmers as dusk arrives, quaint and lovely. Shops and restaurants bustle, merry and bright. Yet to miss the new energy that has taken hold here […]

Categories: food and drink, travel

Culture: This Pennsylvania Cheese CSA Is Woman-Powered

November 5, 2018 by jennhallwrites

Manhattan cheesemonger Anne Saxelby has famously proclaimed that the future of cheese is female. If so, three Pennsylvania women may be the forerunners that define that future. Standing amid the sloped acres of Birchrun Hills Farm in Chester Springs, the ground heavy from rain, farmstead cheesemaker Sue Miller is in her element. Her herd of Holstein and Jersey cows is near, grazing or strolling to their robotic milker. Also at the farm are her cofounding members of Collective Creamery: Stefanie […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice

Civil Eats: High School Students Run This Dock-to-Table Sustainable Seafood Program

October 23, 2018 by jennhallwrites

On a late-spring Saturday, dock manager Stephen Bardsley held a monkfish high overhead at the Point Pleasant Fisherman’s Dock Co-Operative in New Jersey. Its mottled skin mimicked the color of the ocean floor, and a fishing-rod-shaped antenna dangled from its head. Its sharp teeth formed a gaping subaquatic grin as a group of visitors pushed in. “Little fish swim up, and they can’t even see the difference in color,” explains Bardsley to his guests. Then the fishing-rod antenna becomes a […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice

Gannett / Courier-Post: Lawnside’s Free Haven Farms Cultivates Knowledge

September 27, 2018 by jennhallwrites

It is common to measure a farm’s success by way of numbers. One speaks to the pounds of collards and sun-ripened tomatoes that rise from the soil. One calculates how many people gain access to fresh, local food. Yet the truest measure of impact may be found in the vision cultivated in the next generation. To speak to the children of farmers Micaiah and Dr. Cynthia Hall is to see this principle in action. Wise for a field crew that ranges […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice

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