Community supported agriculture is a new way to expand the read of organic farms

By Carl Sigmond

In 1998, after applying pesticides to her 37-acre farm in West Brandywine, Pa. for 10 years, Karen Vollmecke wanted to convert to organic growing practices.
“I came to the conclusion that the use of chemicals was a never-ending cycle,” Vollmecke said, “and that wasn’t leading to the health of our land and property.”
Vollmecke, who along with her mother owns Vollmecke Orchards & CSA, publicized her desires to create a healthy product and protect her land. She looked for like-minded consumers in her area. Upon finding a small but committed base, the family decided to create a community supported agriculture (CSA) program and sell “shares” of their harvest ahead of time.
“When we first started, most people didn’t know what it was all about,” she said. For the first few years, the family had difficulty getting enough people to sign up.
Now, Vollmecke says, she and her mother operate a 160-member CSA, and “our waiting list is often as deep as our membership.”
Vollmecke is one of a growing number of farmers across the United States who want to develop a more direct connection with their consumers. Sparked by the popularity of the local foods movement, there is also a growing demand on the part of consumers for the freshness and variety of vegetables that come with being members of a CSA. Community supported agriculture emerged from these desires.
A form of direct marketing, CSA is a system in which consumers pay for a portion of a farm’s harvest up front, before the growing season even starts. The farmer then knows how much to grow and has the resources to plant and cultivate the crops.
During the harvest season, the consumers, or “members,” receive a “share” of the crops each week in return for their prior commitment. The consumers also share the risks with the farmer by agreeing to receive equal parts of that season’s harvest, no matter how big or small the yield.
The Robyn Van En Center at Wilson College in Chambersburg, Pa. has been monitoring the growth of CSAs for the last 10 years. In 2001, the center took over hosting a national CSA database from the United States Department of Agriculture. According to program manager Christine Mayer, the database contained 600 CSAs in 2001. Now, she said, close to 1,500 CSAs are listed.
“It’s almost tripled in 10 years,” Mayer said. She added that the actual number of CSAs in the U.S. is probably much higher, because the center’s database is voluntary.

The idea grows locally

Mayer said that 18 CSAs in the database service Philadelphia and many more service the greater metropolitan area.
CSAs are an “opportunity for consumers to get very fresh produce and have a bit more control over where their food is coming from,” said Bud Wimer, founder and farm manager of Wimer’s Organics, a 200-member CSA in East Earl, Pa.
After working on Paradise Farm in Paradise, Pa. for five years, Wimer created his CSA in the spring of 2009 to develop a more direct connection with consumers. Continue reading →

The grand plans and busy life of Luz Jimenez, owner of Los Gallos Restauran

By Olivia Haber-Greenwood

Ask Luz Jimenez a direct question, he will answer you directly.
“Do you believe in the American Dream?”
“Yes.”
Looking around his bustling grocery store and growing restaurant, where a young Mexican couple feed their toddler bites of quesadilla next to chatty FBI agents with full sleeves of tattoos, it does feel awfully believable, tangible, tastable.
Los Gallos, a taquería and Mexican grocery located at the corner of 10th and Wolf Streets in South Philadelphia, is the successful result of the hard work of its hustling owner and his family..
“I’m here 14 to 16 hours a day,” says Jimenez, 31, who has owned Los Gallos since he opened it a year ago. The front half of Los Gallos is a grocery store; the back half is a taquería with just six tables and a handful of newspaper reviews mounted on the walls. Jimenez is seated at the table that abuts a fruit hutch hung with paper mache pears and oranges, and displays pineapples, avocados, limes, tomatoes, and jalapeño peppers arranged in wicker baskets.
Wearing a blue sweater and baseball cap over his dark hair, he greets each person that walks past the fruit to sit down at a table. He is affable, gregarious, always moving. A charmer who can slip between Spanish and English in mid-sentence.
He says to a young man with piercings and skinny jeans selecting a glass bottle of Jarritos soda: “Hola, amigo, que dice?” meaning approximately: “Hey, man, whad’ya say?”
Three Anglo men in sweatshirts walk in and sit at a table next to the counter.

Hola amigo!
“Hey guys, how’s it going?” Jimenez welcomes them, speaking English with hardly a trace of an accent. “Thanks for coming in.” They nod and smile back, turning to the menus that Lupe, his cousin, puts in front of them.
“Everything here is made from scratch,” says Jimenez, moving his hands across the green table top like an umpire calling a runner safe as they slide onto home plate. This call is black and white, his standards for Los Gallos are not negotiable.
If a tomato is served in this establishment, Jimenez can vouch it was chopped that very day. He starts each day early in the morning, working in the kitchen with this brothers and cousins doing prep work for the food that will be served later.
“What I have tried to do here” he says, “is something a little different. I want people to have a reason to come here.”
Is the aroma of Mexican sausage and spices that you can smell wafting up the street a block away not reason enough?
“This is mostly an Italian neighborhood,” he says, “and, I’m not going to say,” he pauses and glances at two Latino guys drinking coffee at the adjacent table, “I’m not going to say they’re racist. But sometimes, it feels like that. I used to hear people walking by, saying ‘This is an Italian neighborhood’, you know?”
Jimenez wasn’t much fazed by the frosty reception. He set about getting his neighbors inside Los Gallos. “I tempted the Italians to try my food. They said they wanted some hard shell tacos like at Taco Bell.” He laughs, shaking his head.
“I said, ‘no, this is better than Taco Bell,’ they said ‘No, I don’t think so, Taco Bell is real Mexican food, this is crap!” But, he is happy to report, he won a lot of them over. Continue reading →

More and more vegan food establishments are popping up in Philadelphia

By Stephanie Trott
Amidst the sea of cheddar cheese sauce and soft pretzel salt lies a select group of culinary gems in Philadelphia. Long known for its cheesesteaks, hoagies and pizza pies, the city is now home to a steadily increasing population of vegan restaurants, bakeries, and coffee shops.
“Philly has a really big and growing vegan population,” said Sweet Freedom Bakery owner Heather Esposito, citing four other establishments in Center City alone. “It’s going to be one of those things that start coming up more and more. Everyone makes so much of it.”
In this piece, we will profile three of the vegan businesses in the city. Sweet Dreams bakery, Horizons Restaurant and the Grindcore House coffee house.
Sweet Dreams, 1424 South Street
Owned and operated by Esposito and business partner Allison Lubert, Sweet Freedom is a vegan (dairy-free, egg-free, casein-free) and kosher bakery, serving goods void of gluten, soy, corn, peanuts, and refined sugars. The organic bakery opened in January 2010 is located on South Street just west of Broad.
Esposito, who received her Master’s degree in Counseling in 2004 from Philadelphia Biblical University, worked in mental health counseling before realizing her passion for food. After two years in private practice, she decided to delve into the culinary world after discovering the impact diet had on clients.
“When I was counseling I started to realize both with my clients and also with myself how much of a difference diet and lifestyle make,” Esposito explained. “You can make changes in people relatively quickly when you change diet and lifestyle in comparison to just doing therapy.”
Esposito decided to go to culinary school while still counseling, and attended the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2007 and the Natural Gourmet Institute for Health and Culinary Arts in 2008, both located in New York City.
Esposito, 36, cites her own health concerns as another reason for opening Sweet Dreams. “I’m hypoglycemic and very sensitive to gluten, and so I really wanted to start creating items that I could eat, she said.
Sweet Freedom serves a variety of baked items including cupcakes, cookies, and donuts, as well as cakes and pies. Also featured are weekly, seasonal, and holiday specials.
One of the biggest problems Sweet Freedom has encountered, said Esposito, has been finding sources for the ingredients for their baked goods. “You have to make sure all of the things you’re getting are ‘-free.’ It was definitely a lot of research and took a lot of time.”
Most of the ingredients are purchased from the West Coast, said Esposito. “We would love to be more local, but there’s nothing on the East coast.”

In addition to those with food sensitivities, the bakery also has a steady following of Philadelphians who are simply in the market for a sweet treat
“We want to have products that anyone would eat and not be able to tell the difference,” she said. “You can’t really tell the difference.”
Although the bakery has only been operating for about a year, Esposito said that they have expansion plans, including a possible cookbook and opening a second location.
“We definitely want to be able to serve as many people with food allergies as possible, who can’t have typical baked goods,” she said.

Horizons, 611 South Seventh St.
Eight blocks East of Sweet Freedom lies Horizons, a restaurant opened in 2006 that uses local and seasonal ingredients to create one-of-a-kind vegan fare.
Working alongside co-owner, executive chef, and husband Rich Landau, Philadelphia native Kate Jacoby serves as Horizon’s pastry chef and manager. Whether working directly with ingredients for menu items like Pumpkin Cheesecake or managing the front of the house, Jacoby’s food ideology is an ever-present motif of this modern vegan venture.
Continue reading →

The Eiselen Bakery in Roxborough has been a family business for 100 years.

But can it remain in the family? A daughter explores the options

By Dana Eiselen
The door bell chimes as I walk into the bakery. Heat from the oven defrosts my cheeks of the bitter November air. It is 7:30 a.m., and the store is bustling.
A boy of three or four presses his nose and hands on a glass case, staring down a cupcake. The cases are filled with piping hot pies, cinnamon buns, Danish and donuts. Freshly baked rolls are piled up on tables for sale. Cellophaned cookie trays dot the store with sprays of color.
A customer walks in behind me. “It smells wonderful in here,” she says. I take a deep breath, though the wonderful smells are not new to me. For 21 years I’ve been walking into Eiselen’s Pastry Shoppe in Roxborough; long ago I became immune to its sweet smell.
It is the price I pay as the baker’s daughter.
I squeeze my way past the customers, give a nod to my sister, Allie, who is taking an order, and make my way to the back of the bakery.
Mom is decorating a cake. Dad is adding ingredients into the Hobart mixer. They both look up.
“Happy Thanksgiving,” says Mom. Dad just smiles as I put on my red apron.
There is an unspoken understanding that this Thanksgiving at our family bakery could be the last.
My father’s salt-and-pepper hair is lightly dusted with flour. Reading glasses, smudged with butter cream, hang around his neck. His “white” apron is a Rick Eiselen original – it’s spotted with evidence that he’s already been working for several hours: a brownie’s dark fudge, blue icing from a Happy Birthday cake, and the molasses of pecan pie.
I turn toward the store, ready to man my usual post as manager.
“We could use you back here, Dana,” says Dad.
He limps towards me, his body gently tilts to the right as he rests his hand on bench to bench for support.
In the unforgiving fluorescent lighting, he looks all of his 67 years.
Eiselen’s Pastry Shoppe is a full-line retail and wholesale bakery, making over 300 different products from scratch. My father takes pride in being able to make “whatever the customer wants.”
“In Northwest Philly, we’re the only bakery left like this,” he says. “There are niche bakeries that sell just cupcakes or just specialty cakes, but we put it altogether.”
We are known for custom cakes. My father was one of the original celebrity super bakers, he says. Cakes from Eiselen’s have been made for Philadelphia icons from The Phillies to the Mike Douglas Show and for landmarks such as the Philadelphia Museum of Art. They’ve been featured in movies, TV commercials, and at Tom Cruise’s birthday.
For 50 years, Eiselen’s has sat tucked away in the Ivy Ridge Shopping Center on the corner of Ridge Avenue and Domino Lane in Philadelphia’s Roxborough section, though this location is relatively new compared to the business’ colorful 114-year history in America.

Back to Germany

The Eiselen line of bakers extends back to the early 1800s in Germany. My great- grandparents emigrated from Germany in 1886 and opened two bakeries in South Philadelphia. My grandfather and then father continued the baking tradition. Our roots run deep.
Eiselen’s Pastry Shoppe went on to be Philadelphia’s first supermarket bakery for The Baltimore Market on Broad and Cheltenham, and later opened locations in Oak Lane, Erdenheim, Devon and lastly, Roxborough.
“In fourth grade, the teacher asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted to be a baker like my dad. Little did I know I’d still be in it,” he laughs. Continue reading →

Haverford College had apathetic fans until the Squirrel Squad came along

By Raffi Williams

When most people think of college sports, they picture large stadiums with raucous ans who refuse to sit for the entire game. They see students with their faces and chests painted screaming as if every extra decibel they reach is another point for their team. It’s loud, it’s emotional, and it’s the college experience.
Mike Troup, a senior at Haverford College, pictured this voracious scene, too. Sadly, fans like the ones of Troup’s dreams did not exist at his college, where the crowds at varsity games were sparse and the sounds muted. .
Troup, a former college lacrosse defensemen, decded to do something about it. In the fall of 2009, after two years of lamenting about the lack of fans at games, Troup started the Squirrel Squad; a Haverford College sports fan organization. The Squirrel Squad’s goal was to be a Division III version of Duke University’s Cameron Crazies, by “raising school spirit and fan participation in sports at Haverford,” says Mike Troup.
School spirit and fan participation were at dismal levels before the Squirrel Squad. Kiley Norton a Haverford College senior and lacrosse midfielder, fondly remembers his days in high school when what “seemed like the whole school was out to support the team.” He continues, “My sophomore year [at Haverford College] we hosted a game for the second round of the NCAA tournament and the opposing team had 3 times more fans in our stands than we did.”
It was not just the lacrosse team that noticed the lack of support. Lauren Kemph, a senior and former field hockey player, says, “Our bleachers used to be empty… only filled by parents.”
Senior athlete Max Hjelm says, “I used to get more excited to play away games since I knew more fans would be there.”
Even without fans, Haverford College sports teams were good. The 2008-2009 school year saw Haverford College win the Centennial Conference in volleyball, go to the NCAA tournament in men’s lacrosse and volleyball as well as qualify for the Centennial Conference playoffs in softball, baseball, men’s tennis and men’s lacrosse. “At Haverford College we had a lot of good sports, but not that many people went to the events,” says Troup.

The Squirrel Squad was created to change the attitude towards going to games. To do that, Troup worked on creating a fan culture.
The first step was tio come up with a name. The Haverford College team name is the Fords. Most teams’ mascot is the Black Squirrel. “The alliteration, just popped in my head and it was too good not to use,” says Troup.
With a catchy name decided upon, Troup had to figure out how he was going to change the fan culture of Haverford College. He knew he had to make the games more appealing.
“The only game [before the Squirrel Squad] that people went to was the Swarthmore basketball game. It was also the best fan experience of the year,” Troup says. “I want to get every game to be like that.”
In order to increase the fervor around sports, Troup made Squirrel Squad t-shirts. “Part of the problem was that there were almost no fun Haverford athletic gear that was not team specific.”

Fan uniform

The Squirrel Squad t-shirts filled the clothing void. The bright red t-shirts have a drawing of a muscular squirrel with a large “H” on its chest. The simple color scheme allows for the shirts to blend together when placed side by side. The fun graphic made the shirt appealing to students. The shirt became a ‘cool,’ item to own on campus.
Over 300 shirts were purchased during the last order, an impressive stat for a school of 1,200. The latest incarnation of the shirt is a muscular squirrel dressed up as Uncle Sam. “The shirts are supposed to be like a fan uniform, allowing [the fans] presence to be better felt.” Continue reading →

A Profile of Laura Kemper, Bryn Mawr’s assistant athletic director

By Sarah Fischer

The phone rings and Laura Kemper answers. Her tan face, speckled with freckles, becomes serious as she begins a series of interrogations.
“Is Heidi okay? Are her pupils dilated?” There is a pause.
“Well, can you check?” Another pause.
“Anyway, your ski gloves are on top of the dresser…or maybe in the attic on one of the bins”
Before she hangs up, she gives a final reminder:
“Look if one pupil is bigger than the other, or if she has crusted up blood in her nose”
After hanging up with this caller from home, Kemper apologizes and explains.
“It’s my dog Heidi. I’m checking her for a concussion.”
Kemper, assistant athletics director at Bryn Mawr College, routinely checks for concussions — but not usually in dogs. She works with the Bryn Mawr athletes to “manage prevention and care of injuries”
Kemper, 32, describes her job with a care and eloquence that shows how seriously she takes her job.
“I provide emergency first response care to the athletes…I evaluate and treat as needed. That includes sprains, joint and muscle, contusions, wounds, and concussions.”
In addition to this job description, Kemper also is the faculty liaison for the Bryn Mawr College Body Image Council and coordinator of Bryn Mawr’s Fit Club, an initiative to encourage Bryn Mawr students to work out amidst their busy academic schedule.
Kemper calls these jobs her “three primary responsibilities,” but her dedication  make it so much more. Kemper holds a deep passion beyond any job description.

Laura the Giver
Before coming to Bryn Mawr College in the fall of 2007, Kemper held a variety of jobs, most of which involved her background in athletic training..
After graduating from Hofstra University with a degree in Athletic Training and going on to graduate school at University of Delaware for a masters in Exercise Physiology, Kemper returned home to Connecticut. There she worked per diem at Wesleyan University as a trainer and a personal trainer at Health Trax.
Health Trax, Kemper explains, was not the “typical meat head type gym.” The gym attracted an “older, conservative type crowd.” Health Trax enforced a dress code, too, which banned spandex and midriffs.
Kemper explains that the dress code promoted a healthier body image, an idea that Kemper had long studied in undergraduate and graduate school. (Kemper knew that she wanted to incorporate body image into her career, but wasn’t sure where that fit in)
At Health Trax, Kemper worked with special populations, including athletes, children, and people with medical restrictions such as cancer. Continue reading →

Injuries happen often at a school where one of of three students are on varsity sports teams

By Jonathan Yu

Drive around the campus Haverford College in suburban Philadelphia long enough and you will notice there are no big football fields, no marching bands, and no cheerleaders.
But that doesn’t mean the small Division III school is not sporty in it’s own right.
Roughly one-third of the 1,200 at Haverford play a varsity sport. And that means that in any given season, varsity athletes – particularly those in high-risk contact sports, such as men’s lacrosse and men’s soccer – suffer an array of injuries, ranging from minor to major. In fact, injuries related to sports are an everyday prospect at the college.
“Most of what we see are minor injuries, aches and pains, due to repetitive use or just the incidental contact involved in sports,” said Curt Mauger, Head Athletic Trainer at Haverford College.
According to Mauger, minor injuries include bumps and bruises, cuts, overuse injuries like tendonitis, and ankle sprains. Treating these conditions can be as simple as using ice and ibuprofen to using corrective stretching techniques.
But from time to time, serious injuries, like ACL tears, concussions, and some shoulder injuries, will sideline players for extended periods of time.
“We do see our share of more significant injuries that require testing, physician’s visits… but because we don’t have some of the very high-risk sports, for example, football, wrestling, ice hockey, we don’t see as many surgeries as some larger athletic departments,” Mauger said.
“We’ve been lucky to not have too many severe, season-ending injuries,” said Cory Walts, Fitness Center Director and Strength and Conditioning Coach at Haverford College.

* * *
Lacrosse player Leks Gerlak never expected to put down his stick so soon.
Gerlak, recruited from a top high school lacrosse program, was only a few weeks into his freshman year in 2007 when he cut hard on his right knee and “felt everything pop out of place.”
“I kind of hobbled over to the sidelines,” Gerlak said. “It wasn’t like it was excruciating pain or anything, so I was like, alright, maybe I just twisted my knee.”

Up until that point, Gerlak never had an injury – not even a sprained ankle. But the next day, the doctor told Gerlak that he had torn his ACL, a major ligament of the knee. The tear ended Gerlak’s lacrosse career.
ACL tears do not happen frequently at Haverford, but they are considered serious injuries, according to Mauger. Surgery is often needed to fix the tear and it usually takes about six to nine months to recover fully.
Most of the post-surgical rehabilitation is done on-site at Haverford. Mauger and two other athletic trainers provide treatment and rehabilitative services to varsity athletes from Haverford’s 23 teams with everything from sprained ankles to ACL tears.
For the past three years, Haverford has contracted with NovaCare, a corporate physical therapy provider, to give students, faculty, and staff access to a NovaCare physical therapist three times per week.
But it is not easy to predict how long a player will sit out due to an injury. Continue reading →

The Headlong Performance Institute teaches not just art, but how to live as an artist

By Pragya Krishna

In the 17 years since they founded the Headlong Dance Theater, Amy Smith, David Brick and Andrew Simonet have had 35 productions, a New York Dance and Production Award, a Pew Fellowship in the Arts, and rave reviews from many newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times and the New Yorker.

Now they have turned their attention to teaching young artists at Headlong Performance Institute (HPI) in Philadelphia. This institute is one of few places in the nation that teaches students trained in one art form – ballet, theater, choir, even writing – about how to mix it naturally with other forms to create ‘experimental performance’. Most of their students are in college.

But while they love to teach, what the three are most proud of is bringing three things to this area: their rich knowledge about how artists can live a good life, their support for the city’s artist community, and their very different brand of ‘hybrid performance’.

Brick, Smith and Simonet form a striking trio – Simonet and Brick are both tall, dark and lean, and could be confused for twins if they dress similarly. Their website jokes about telling them apart: “Andrew is the taller one.” Smith, meanwhile, is small and petite, very much a dancer. They met at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and graduated together in 1990.
“All three of us loved ‘ensemble performance’ – performing with everything we had, our voices, our bodies, our expressions – that’s why we started the dance theater,” said Amy Smith, after a Friday showing of the Institute’s students. “But we also always loved to teach. And then six years ago, we underwent a strategic planning process and decided we wanted to have a larger impact on a smaller number of people.”

The Headlong Founders

HPI, founded in 2008, is located on 1170 S. Broad Street, a block south of Washington Avenue. It admits college students who are taking a semester away from school, and recent college graduates.

Students are attracted not just because of the kind of art form it teaches, but because of the education it offers about living as an artist in today’s world. This isn’t something taught in many art schools. Continue reading →