June | 2017 | Jenn Hall

Paste Food: The Casserole Stands Eternal

June 12, 2017 by jennhallwrites

This has been a challenging, no good, difficult 2017. Sure, sure, there has been positivity along the way. (Its persistence is shocking, isn’t it?) Yet there have been plenty of just-plain-tough days, too. And when things are low, when they come just shy of bottoming out, there is a dish I return to for solace: The Casserole. Spoken aloud, the words are an incantation. They bring my best friends into the kitchen when I’m pushing against the empty, a lifeboat […]

Categories: essay, food & drink • Tags: essays, recipes

Edible Jersey: Growing the Next Generation of Jersey Farmers

June 12, 2017 by jennhallwrites

Rose Robson always follows this rule: If a crop crosses her path more than once, she investigates. This is how the fourth-generation farmer discovered pawpaws, a greenish tree fruit that has tropical notes of banana, mango and citrus. First, they came up in a Rutgers organic agriculture class she was visiting. Then she read about them in Modern Farmer. Within a year, Robson had a grove of 90 trees in Wrightstown, which she tends along with flowers, field crops and peaches. […]

Categories: food & drink • Tags: farming

Edible Philly: Road Trip – LBI Like a Local

June 12, 2017 by jennhallwrites

The story of Long Beach Island, better known among NJ local as LBI, is a story of the water. As you cross the Route 72 Causeway, the view opens up in stages. There are the salt-marsh homes of Beach Haven West, some still bearing Sandy’s scars. There is the strange absence of the bayman’s shack that used to hold court in the reeds. Finally, the vista opens onto a union of water, land and sky. Even for locals, the landscape strikes […]

Categories: food & drink, travel • Tags: road trips

Edible Jersey: In the Kitchen – Local Eating with Blue Moon Acres

June 12, 2017 by jennhallwrites

Growing up, Ashley Lyons Putman’s lunchbox wasn’t quite like the other kids. When you’re the daughter of organic farmers Jim and Kathy Lyons of Blue Moon Acres, Lunchables don’t make the cut. “So I’d take out this big, black orb,” Ashley says with a laugh. Brown rice balls filled with pickled plum paste were common. While she fared poorly in lunchroom trades, Putman learned about healthy food early on. That made her and her brothers adventurous and mindful eaters. Read more… […]

Categories: food & drink • Tags: farming, interviews

Jenn Hall

2019 Best American Food Writing Notable.

Monthly Archives: June 2017

Paste Food: The Casserole Stands Eternal

Edible Jersey: Growing the Next Generation of Jersey Farmers

Edible Philly: Road Trip – LBI Like a Local

Edible Jersey: In the Kitchen – Local Eating with Blue Moon Acres