Photo: Neal Santos / www.nealsantos.com

If you’re looking to score locally-grown veggies to round out your grocery shopping this week, stop by Farm 51 this Thursday to purchase organic food goods—and support West Philly farming—from its weekly produce stand.

Opened in May, Farm 51’s farmstand operates every Thursday from 4:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. on the educational urban farm and market’s site at 51st and Chester Streets. Currently, the farm will have its fresh, organically grown kale, collards, lettuces, herbs, carrots, radishes, flowers, beets, and eggs from its chickens available for sale, and will introduce honey from its bees, tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash, melons and more, later in the season. The produce stand, in operation since the farm officially opened four years ago, will close in late October.

Farmstand costs, which are marked by bag and bunch, range from $1 to $6 in order to remain affordable for the farm’s immediate residents, said Philadelphia City Paper Staff Photographer/Associate Web Editor Neal Santos, who runs Farm 51 along with founder Andrew Olson. The farm only accepts cash at its stand but is working on equipping itself to also accept SNAP, Santos told West Philly Local.

Proceeds from the farmstand will go towards paying Farm 51’s junior gardeners, who staff the single farmstand, as well as supporting its garden and “all of its critters,” said Santos. In addition to the West Philly location, Farm 51 will also host a stand at Philadelphia’s Open Air Market at 23rd and Arch Streets, where it’ll sell its organic cut flowers and Santos’s photography.

“The plan is to consistently provide fresh, affordable and locally grown organic produce to our customers,” Santos told West Philly Local. Farm 51 plans on holding open farm days for guided tours in the near future. “We also hope to create more of a meeting and community space in the parts of the garden that are not growing space for pop up events.”

–Annamarya Scaccia

Neighborhood grocery store Mariposa Food Co-op with over 1,500 local members began accepting youth member applications last week. If you or some of your family members are between ages 14 and 17, this is a great opportunity for you/them to become a member-owner of a community-run business and to learn about the cooperative economy. By becoming a Mariposa member, our young neighbors, just like adult members, can participating in decision-making about the co-op through voting, earn a 5 percent shopping discount and receive other member benefits.

Interested youth or parents/guardians are asked to stop by the store located at 49th and Baltimore Avenue to pick up a membership application. By the way, youth member equity is only $5. For more information please visit: https://www.mariposa.coop/

Last month, Aljazeera became the latest offering in the burgeoning African/Middle Eastern food scene developing on the 4400 block of Chestnut Street. The latest eatery to take over 4403 Chestnut Street, former home to the short-lived Sudanese joint Al Khartoum Echo, might be also West Philly’s first-ever Middle Eastern buffet.

Owned by Samir Kassem of Upper Darby’s Falafel Exotic Cuisine, Aljazeera features an all-day, all-you-can-eat Halal spread of Middle Eastern staples like moussaka, yellow rice, stuffed zucchini, chicken curry, and beans with lamb meat for a flat price of $10.95. But guests visiting the new restaurant won’t taste dishes from just one Middle Eastern nation. According to the 48-year-old Kassem, who also acts as cook and manager, the daily-changing buffet menu represents the flavors of all countries in the region (he said he named the buffet Aljazeera, which means “The Island” in Arabic, for this fact.)

When West Philly Local visited Aljazeera yesterday, we had found ourselves standing in a dressed-down joint with a few tables and chairs, a simple buffet set up, and a few local residents chatting away. We had a chance to sample some of those buffet dishes upon the owner’s request and found ourselves noshing on hearty (albeit a tad greasy) home-style delicacies with just the right amount of salt, and a subtle but lingering kick. In the words of Kassem: It’s like your mama’s cooking. Continue Reading

We have some good news and some bad news for those who were anticipating a new date in July for the Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll after it was cancelled last week due to rain. The merchants have not been able to agree on a reschedule date so there will be no stroll until September, according to University City District’s Mark Christman. The next (and only) scheduled Stroll this year is on September 12, 2013 and we hope that the weather will be more favorable for this popular community event next time.

Another great way to try some of the best food in the area – though not for $1 – is the 9th University City Dining Days, which kicks off July 18. Some 29 West Philly restaurants are participating in the event and taking reservations now. As always, you can select a dining option that works best for your palate (and your wallet!) out of the list of restaurants participating in the “3 courses, 3 prices” promotion – a pre-fixe three-course dinner special for $15, $25 or $35. The list includes both most popular dining destinations, like Dock Street Brewery or Jose Garces’ Distrito, and newcomers, such as Han Dynasty, Harvest Seasonal and Doc Magrogan Oyster House. The restaurants that range from craft beer bars to celebrity chef restaurants to cozy BYOBs to international cuisine are now taking reservations.

Photos via Universitycity.org.

To check out the list of participating restaurants with downloadable menus and to make your reservation, please visit: http://www.ucdiningdays.com/ Note: prices are for dinner only and do not include tax, gratuity or alcohol, and reservations should be made directly through the participating restaurant. University City Dining Days will run until Aug. 1, 2013.

As you may know, a new version of Rx will return this summer when new owners and chefs Ross Scofield and Danielle Coulter reopen the restaurant at 4443 Spruce Street in mid-July.

Under the new moniker Rx The Farmacy, the culinary couple and The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College graduates will revamp the once-busy corner BYOB that closed in 2011 into a home-style farm-to-table eatery. Their brunch, lunch and dinner menus will feature a smorgasbord of fresh ingredients tapped from Pennsylvania and New Jersey farm networks, and sausage and bacon made in-house. They’ll also steer away from GMO-saturated products, opting for peanut oil instead of the much-maligned corn and canola oils.

In other words: box pasta and frozen fish need not apply.

Don’t expect the “farm-to-table” catchphrase to monopolize Rx The Farmacy’s attention, though. It’s more of a lifestyle than an attraction—a hushed marriage between local, healthy, sustainable food and the laid-back dining experience. But if you consider Scofield’s childhood in Woodstown, New Jersey, this inconspicuous approach makes sense. After all, growing up in South Jersey’s farming community meant harvesting fresh vegetables right in his Greek family’s own backyard and using them in every meal. Continue Reading

Photos by Dylan Moore.

UPDATE (6/12/2013): The Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll has been postponed until July, 2013 due to heavy rain and thunderstorms forecast for this Thursday, according to an announcement on the University City District’s Facebook page posted this evening. We’ll post more information about the new date as soon as we have it.

The Baltimore Avenue Dollar Stroll, the highly-anticipated annual event celebrating local businesses where most things are just a buck, is returning this Thursday, June 13. The stroll begins at 5:30 p.m. (it is always a good idea to get there early to avoid the crowds) and a record-setting 35 businesses will offer $1 deals along Baltimore Avenue, between 43rd and 50th Streets.

Besides the long-time participants, like Milk & Honey, Dock Street Brewery and Firehouse Bicycles, there will be some newcomers who recently opened shops in the area, including Little Baby’s Ice Cream and The Green Tambourine. This Dollar Stroll also showcases new parklets at Fu-Wah and Little Baby’s Ice Cream and the new pedestrian plaza at 48th and Baltimore.

In addition to storefront businesses, food trucks and vendors such as Jimmies Cupcake Co., Sunflower Truck Stop and Lil Dan’s will also be selling $1 items along the avenue. Also, don’t miss live music and entertainment: XPN favorite, The Fleeting Ends will perform live at 46^th and Baltimore, along with fire artists and street performers such as the Give & Take Jugglers. There will be also giveaways, face painting and balloon artists.

If you can’t make it this week there will be only one more stroll this year, on September 12.

Check out the flyer below for more details on what businesses are taking part in Thursday’s Stroll and what they are offering. For more information about this event, visit: http://universitycity.org/baltimore-ave-dollar-stroll

Click to enlarge.