Since we just moved into a new apartment this month, I’ve been slacking on grocery budgeting. Our fridge shelves look roomy and the potatoes, yogurt, and leftovers that do occupy the shelves are so decayed they look like science experiments gone…
A friend of mine says that if you visit Vermont in July, you have to lock your car, not because people will steal things but because they will fill your car with zucchini. She promises she isn’t joking. When I…
Lynn Burkholder is used to improvising. Until he was fourteen, he lived as a missionary kid on an Indian Reservation in Northwest Ontario. His wife, Lynne, paints a picture of a Little House on the Prairie kind of childhood: the family hunted for food…
Theories about the best ways to grow gardens abound. Do you have to start seedlings indoors? Does it matter whether the moon is waxing or waning when you plant? Will watering plants during the heat of the day burn them? Will playing music,…
Cooking for potential in-laws is a true test of culinary courage. It’s a time to hope all goes smoothly in the kitchen. But for Sheila Kline, a small-business owner from Birdsboro, a breakfast mishap that happened while she cooked for her…
Now and then I’ve been inspired to take cooking classes. Sometimes, walking past a bustling kitchen store, I’d hear laughter rise on a night it hosted cooking classes, or I’d sample fresh homemade cheese crafted by a friend who attended…
Maggie Nesciur owns an unusual business. She leaves her New York City home early in the morning—4 a.m. sometimes—drives miles away from the city and picks fruit all day. Then, she buys the fruit, returns to the city and sells…
Last year at this time, my husband and I had just moved back to Berks County from a far-off city. We returned just in time for strawberry season, and I realized that for the five years we lived in the…
One of the things I’ve come to love about living in Berks County is that people around here do amazing, skilled, accomplished things but treat those things as “no big deal.” They make soap, raise chickens, nurture abundant gardens, bake…
Say you’ve just walked up to the dairy case at Weaver’s Orchard and picked up an 8 ounce block of aged Honey Brook Cheddar from September Farm, one of Weaver’s vendors. You’ve noticed the cheese’s ingredients– milk, cheese culture, rennet, and…