Posts filed under ‘Extra Credit’
A New Feature on SFTF
a christmas tree made out of delicious kale!
Well, it’s the holiday season, a time of giving, and I wanted to give you all a little present. It’s not much, really. But I think it might make your time spent here on SFTF a little more productive. It’s a new button you’ll find embedded in forthcoming posts (assuming I am with-it enough to remember to put the necessary code in each new post) that says “Spring It!”. This handy button is connected to a site called Springpad that has all sorts of apps (gosh, I hope I’m using the lingo correctly), including putting SFTF recipes on your iPhone or other on-the-go-gadget so you can take it with you to the store and make you’ve got all the ingredients in your shopping cart.
Don’t have such an on-the-go-gadget (don’t worry, neither do I)? This new “Spring It!” button can still be very handy. By using it, you can save all your favorite SFTF recipes (and others from your regular reads) to one online filing cabinet that you can then use to print recipes (yes, finally a print function for my recipes!) and create quick shopping lists that you can then print and take to the market with you the old-fashioned way. There’s also some “productivity tools” that I have yet to explore on the Springpad site that might be of use. If you know of one that you already use and love, please do share it with us so we all know to look for it!
So, hopefully that helps you out a bit. If it doesn’t, just ignore the button. It’s pretty inconspicuous. You do need to sign up for a Springpad account (quick and painless, I promise) to use it. When you click on the button in one of my posts, it will take you to a new page. However, just look closely and find the blue “Spring It and Go Back” link to return to your beloved SFTF.
Keeping Local Alive
Sorry, no food in today’s post. Instead, I have a somewhat urgent plea directed towards those of you that are here with me in Philadelphia and a general “post-it note” for those of you with a “local” mind-set everywhere. I just found out that my favorite of all bookstores is on the brink of closing its doors. Walk a Crooked Mile is a local shop I’ve featured on the blog before. It’s a community institution in Mt. Airy, my neighborhood, and has been a source of countless hours of pleasurable lazy afternoon book browsing for myself and many others. Hearing how the economy has taken its toll on Walk a Crooked Mile reminds me how precious and fragile our local businesses – those that have such “personality” and really contribute to the fabric of our communities – are and how quickly something that’s “been around forever” can suddenly be “closed for good.”
With the holidays fast approaching again, I’d encourage you to start making your shopping lists in a very different manner. Rather than think about what everyone on your list wants in a generic sense, why not make a list of shops in your community that you’d really like to support and then put the names of people you’re buying for next to the shops where you’ll probably find something they like. Then go out and support local businesses by finding unique gifts for everyone on your list in those local stores. I know it can be a little more expensive sometimes, but think about how boring life would be if our only merchants were cheap big box stores and fast food chains. Gift certificates to local businesses are another great way to get your friends and family to go check out the local scene and appreciate all it has to offer. Several stores, including Walk a Crooked Mile, sell their wares online so you’re not limited to giving gift certificates to those folks that live in the same ‘hood as you.
I am going to be doing some early holiday shopping and stock up on some of the excellent gardening and food reference books that Walk a Crooked Mile always has on hand. If you’re in Philly, why not make an afternoon of it – take the R7 to the Mt. Airy stop and have a free cup of tea or coffee and pet C.C. the resident cat while you take in the nostalgic aroma of old books and soak up the puddles of sunshine that always seem to be streaming through the windows at Walk a Crooked Mile. If you’re not in Philadelphia, but have a heart of gold, you can still help keep this beautiful book store in business by making a donation online.
Treasure
Once in awhile, if we’re lucky, we stumble upon heaven right here on this dusty dodgy earth. I found just such a place while I was trotting around southern England last week. Petersham Nurseries is located in a peaceful vale next to the river Thames just outside the London suburb of Richmond. It’s so much more than a nursery though, and thus I felt I should share it with you all. It houses a delightful tea house and a very fine restaurant, both of which serve outstanding local fare, much of which is grown within a stones throw from the table at which I dined. My portion of sweet potato soup and homemade bread with local butter was sumptuous. Scattered throughout the nursery and glasshouses are tables and chairs, many antique and charmingly mismatched, where diners can visit and eat or just have a meditative cup of tea. The details of this treasure trove engaged me for hours. Everything was seemingly perfect and poetic. It’s just my kind of place and I hope you enjoy having a glimpse of it too.
Summer’s Nearly Here
Ah, what a glorious day it was here in southeastern Pennsylvania. How about where you are? I spent all evening in my garden until the darkness nudged me to finally go inside. And now I’ve just remembered that I didn’t share with you my latest travel photos from Puerto Rico. I hope that no one minds when I put up a post of photos unrelated to food. I know you all come here mostly for the food. But pretty pictures are worth a visit too, right? Enjoy and dream of lazy days beside the pool or on the beach. They’re nearly here!
Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention my favorite gastronomic experience in Puerto Rico: the coffee! What amazing cups I had from several of the local grower’s beans. Intense flavor and notes of spice and vanilla, but absolutely no bitter after taste. Maybe that after taste comes from all the fumes when it gets shipped hundreds of miles away… nah, but there is surely a difference between coffee gathered just an hour away and that which comes to us in an airplane.
Recent Comments