If you own some scary or creepy books or books with themes like fall, Halloween, harvest, leaves, pumpkins, etc., you can donate them for this cool Halloween event. This year, All Hallow’s Read is organizing a book hunt for spooky books hidden in Woodlands Cemetery. The event will take place on Saturday, Oct 20. After the hunt, there will be an opportunity to read the books and share them. The idea of All Hallow’s Read was created by author Neil Gaiman, who suggested that people should give each other scary books on or around Halloween.

There are several locations in West Philly where you can drop off your books:

Walnut West Library (40th and Walnut) – drop your book in the regular donation box
Lucien E. Blackwell Regional Library (52nd and Chestnut) – donation box is located in the children’s section
Locust Moon Comics and Movies (34 S. 40th Street)
Bindlestiff Books (4530 Baltimore Ave)
House of Our Own (3920 Spruce Street)
Woodlands Mansion (40th and Woodland Ave)

Donations are accepted through October 15. For more information and to learn about how else you can help at this event, please visit this page.

The new Ramen Bar (Facebook page) on the 4000 block of Locust Street makes pretty good ramen, but I’m not convinced the awesomeness of the broth is enough to overcome my disappointment with the experience of dining there. Certainly the place is attractive: it’s packed with young people and the wooden tables, classy utensils and open kitchen give the feel of an authentic Japanese noodle bar. The hard, clean, high-ceilinged environment (and two TVs and a loud sound system) also means you have to shout a lot, which can be invigorating. And of course the place is new, so the service is bound to improve. However, the food and the prices will probably stay the same.

My friends and our daughters went as a group of six and were seated quickly at about 6:15 on Sunday night. The bar isn’t serving yet, but we weren’t drinking. We ordered several kinds of ramen and a couple of appetizers. The seaweed salad ($5) was bright green but barely seasoned and the shrimp shumai ($6) was almost as good as Trader Joe’s frozen shumai, but not quite. I was underwhelmed by the Takoyaki ($6), fragments of octopus balled up in fried dough and served with what tasted like fast food barbeque sauce. We would have been better off skipping all three.

We chose from a variety of ramen, plus optional, separately priced toppings including Ajitma ($1 marinated boiled egg – perfectly cooked) and Chashu ($3 marinated pork – just OK, not so easy to chew). Both the vegan and non-vegan versions of Veggie Miso Ramen ($8) featured rich, deliciously flavored broth. The noodles were bouncy and filling, and the vegetables mostly great, but we thought the corn niblets were weird. The signature Tonkotsu (pork bone) Ramen ($10) and its spicy cousin Kara Kara Tonkotsu Ramen ($12) were very satisfying, and will seem even more so on a snowy winter night. I was definitely happy with the ramen, and really happy about that yummy marinated egg.

For dessert, the kids ordered ice cream; they found the green tea ice cream ($5) too bitter (though I liked it). The red bean ice cream ($5) was sweeter. In the end, five bowls of ramen, one unremarkable fried rice entree, three appetizers, and three dishes of ice cream set us back $117.76. If the food and service had been impeccable, I would feel better about the prices. But the sad, meager appetizers, random service, and especially the automatic 20% gratuity (for a table of six) made me feel like I was missing something. And I realized that what I was missing was Tampopo (269 S. 44th Street), which is less fancy but more accessible if you are looking for ramen, seaweed salad, and green tea ice cream.

Ramen Bar is currently cash-only. Lunch is served from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and dinner from 4 to 10 p.m.

– Jen

Here’s a great campaign that helps improve our neighborhoods. Philadelphia Parks and Recreation’s tree planting initiate, TreePhilly, engages property owners, business and community residents to improve their communities by planting and maintaining trees. The fall campaign is underway now and residents can sign up until October 19 to receive their free trees.

This fall, residents are eligible to receive up to two free trees per address. Last spring, West Philly residents ordered hundreds of trees, per information provided by Parks & Rec.

To register for your free tree, please go to www.treephilly.org, or contact Erica Smith,
Tree Philly manager, at 215-683-0217 or email: erica.smith@phila.gov with your request.

Note: You have to be a property owner in order to be eligible and plant the trees in the ground in your private yard space, not in the sidewalk outside of your property.

Update: Nibbler is still missing. Here’s more information directly from the cat’s owner:

“Nibbler has been missing from 49th & Larchwood since July. Numerous reports of possible Nibbler sightings range from 50th to 46th, and from Baltimore Ave to Pine St. Nibbler is a male, and was about 22 lbs when he went missing so this is pretty big cat. He had a collar and tag when last seen, but that may have slipped off. He has black spots on his back, a black tail, and white underbelly. His humans miss him very, very much and believe he is still wandering around West Philly. If you think you have seen him please let us know. Nibbler is micro-chipped.”

Please call Doug at 215 909 2334 if you’ve seen Nibbler.

Spring’s Craft Fest was a big hit.

The fall installment of GO WEST! Craft Fest is coming to the historic Woodlands cemetery this Saturday (Sept. 29), bringing over 50 super crafty vendors and their work. You can find all kinds of handmade stuff at the festival – artworks, cards, prints, clothing, ceramics, jewelry, natural bath & body products, toys, edibles and more. With holidays coming up, the Woodlands this Saturday is the place to be (don’t forget your holiday shopping list). You can check out the vendor list here or visit the event’s pinterest board.

Besides the vendors, there will be live entertainment and fun for the whole family. Here’s the schedule:

Noon: Perseverance Jazz Band, swinging NOLA-style standards
1 p.m.: The Citywide Specials, an authentic bluegrass band
2 p.m.: Jay Sand of All Around This World, engaging world music for kids and their families
3 p.m.: Tinycircus, aerial flights of fancy presented by Tangle Movement Arts

So come support local small, independent businesses this Saturday (rain date – Sunday, Sept. 30).

A plan to keep middle school students in the Powelton Village neighborhood closer to home got a significant boost yesterday.

The Philadelphia School Partnership (PSP) awarded a $215,000 grant to devise a plan that would add a fifth grade to Powel Elementary, which is currently K-4, and create a new middle school in the neighborhood. The grant marks the first time that PSP, which manages a philanthropic education fund, has invested in a public school in the city.

“The Powel community has long imagined an expansion of our current program to include fifth grade, and the opportunity for our students to attend a high-quality middle school in our neighborhood,” Powel principal Kimberly Ellerbee said in a statement.

PSP awarded the grant to a consortium that includes Powel, Science Leadership Academy (SLA) and Drexel University. Drexel President John Fry sits on the board of directors at PSP, which has raised about $50 million in grants for private and charter schools. As a vice president at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1990s Fry was a key architect of the changes in the neighborhoods around Penn, including the creation of the University City District and the Penn Alexander School.

Officials from SLA, a top magnet school in the city, will consult on the creation of a middle school.

The Inquirer‘s Kristen A. Graham reports that members of the School Reform Commission approves of the plan in concept. The SRC, which is currently considering another round of school closures, would need to sign off on adding a grade and a new middle school.

Powel hopes to add the new grade by next fall and the middle school could be open as early as the fall of 2014.