SINCE 2014, THE FREE LIBRARY OF PHILADELPHIA’S Culinary Literacy Center has been a hotspot for innovative food education. Every month’s roster of classes is rooted in the center’s mission to advance literacy through food. In some cases, that’s literal. Since 2015, the Edible Alphabet program has welcomed English language learners, including immigrants and refugees, to the library’s kitchen classroom for free six- to eight-week courses that blend culinary and language lessons. People from around the world prepare a shared meal, led […]

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Marcello De Feo grew up in a South Philly Italian household. His mother, Santa Bianca, came to America from Abruzzo when she was a teenager. “I’m first-generation Italian,” De Feo says. “My Nonna lived with us from when I was born.” Looking back, she looms large in his food memories. Each day, Nonna Paola would pack his school lunches. “I didn’t realize how spoiled I was. I’d go to school and my lunch was this amazing roll with things like […]

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IN THE U.S. ALONE, MORE THAN 52 MILLION TONS OF FOOD ENDS ITS JOURNEY IN A LANDFILL EACH YEAR. That’s more than a waste of food. Deprived of oxygen, a single head of romaine can take up to 25 years to decompose, producing climate-warming methane in the process. Yet, with recent innovations, that food may be put to productive use—even if it’s not on the plate. In the shadow of Newark airport, a new chapter in the state’s food-waste recycling […]

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Roughly once a month, employees from Nespresso’s North American headquarters in Manhattan board a bus and take the 60-mile journey to rural Sussex County. With the city in the rear-view, skyscrapers give rise to an open landscape defined by lakes, postage-stamp downtowns and hilly green vistas that stretch into the distance. It’s a far cry from their normal 9-to-5 digs. Yet this isn’t just a team-building exercise. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. On a farm and warehouse near Route […]

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Given the state of the Philly restaurant scene, it’s not easy to convince folks to cross the bridge for food. Lately, though, there are plenty of delicious reasons to hop on the Speedline to Collingswood, New Jersey. It’s not just for Joey Baldino’s Zeppoli, a draw for nine years running. (Though let’s be real: That’s reason enough to visit). A new guard of restaurants delivers both style and range, making this South Jersey suburb a destination in its own right. Read […]

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Style With a bright-blue interior, cheery with sunshine-yellow chairs, this casual South American spot opened in December in the former home of a Rocket Fizz franchise.  The scoop With Que Ricas (“how rich”), Sahar Soleymani pays soulful tribute to her mother’s Venezuelan roots. Her broad smile is always on display in the open kitchen.  Read more… Published in the February 2020 issue

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Owners Dory and Christine Chamoun opened Dory’s—an ode to chef Dory’s Lebanese roots—last summer. Nearly 80 percent of the ingredients are imported from Lebanon, including spices, tahini and pickled turnips. The menu is large and offers many tempting choices. Where to begin? Read more… Published in the January 2020 issue

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At a time when restaurant design has neared aesthetic ubiquity—we’re looking at you, Edison bulbs—it is refreshing when a space bucks the trend. To enter Shana’s Wild Fig in Blackwood (which opened in November) is to encounter a different take on American hospitality. Eye-popping pink accents abound, feminine down to the feather-stuffed bud vases. Velvet ropes set off tables in the front room, where an upright piano is perched beneath a beaded chandelier. A rehabbed Louis XV couch offers front-row […]

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