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

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

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

You know you’re in the presence of a bayman by the way he guns his boat through a channel. That would be with confident speed, moderately alarming to a passenger in a landlocked trade. It’s hard to imagine how many times George Mathis has woven through the serpentine curves from Landing Crick out toward his aquaculture leases in Dry Bay, near Galloway in the Edwin B. Forsythe Wildlife Refuge. Thousands? Tens of thousands? Cutting the engine, Mathis pops one of […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice

“Mother Nature, she’s the boss.” Billy Mayer looks at the bay, his eyes taking on the deep blue hue of the waters where Obes Thorofare and Steelmans Bay meet. “You have to look at the moons. You have to look at the tides. All that knowledge? Nobody is going to teach you that. You can’t describe that. It’s just something that you pick up over time.” Mayer speaks to a primal truth with the poetry of a man who has […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice

Aquaculture is the wave of the future for NJ’s iconic bivalve. We explore the bay in this eight-part series, with additional recipes and how-to’s from Chef Emily Peterson. Writing the Clam’s Next Chapter A Day in the Life of a Bayman New Jersey Clams: Boom and Bust . . . and Boom? New Jersey Clams: Here’s What You Can Do Where to Savor Jersey Clams Hard Clam Aquaculture 101 New Jersey Clamming Memories A Tale of Two States: Hard Clam […]

Categories: food and drink, sustainability and justice