Cheese Shop

The Italian Market mystery is solved. For six months, the question on Ninth Street was: What was Sal doing behind those boarded windows? Sal Auriemma, co-owner of the family cheese shop, Claudio's, had bought the building next door and was renovating it behind closed doors. But Auriemma deflected all the questions. So everyone wondered. But now they know. Now everyone knows. The new store is finally open and the answer is obvious: Sal was getting his fresh mozzarella-making machine ready.

Tucked away down a narrow Old City alley, the garden patio behind Wedge + Fig is one of the loveliest local pocket hideaways in which to while away the last warm days over panini and salad. Formerly a cheese shop (and a bakery before that), this light-bite boutique from one-time sailmakers Kirk Nelson and Lisa Ruff features the culinary talents of Rebecca Torpie, the former chef-owner of Flying Monkey. There are baked goods reminiscent of her cupcake days (lemon bars, macaroons)

If Deena Podolsky's Narberth cheese shop had been closed during the Christmas season, it might have meant the end for her business. "If we weren't (allowed to operate), I was not going to open the store again," said Podolsky, proprietor of The Cheese Company, 217 Haverford Ave. But the shop did reopen at the end of November, nearly two months after gasoline contamination from a neighboring gas station forced the closing of the cheese store and two adjacent businesses, Sun Cleaners and Medi Discount store.

When Natalie Nenner started frequenting the Ardmore Farmer's Market several years ago, it was on a tip from her mother-in-law, who told her she could find quality French food there. Eventually, she also picked up a few quality French friends. Nenner, formerly of Paris, found that the market was becoming something of a hot spot among local French immigrants. When Nenner started shopping at the market, she met a French butcher who invited her back for more than just subsistence.

A hammer-wielding man accused of a string of holdups in six Delaware County communities was arrested yesterday in Upper Darby Township, less than two hours after he had robbed a cheese shop in Radnor Township, police said. Joseph James Jamison, 29, of the 300 block of Fairfax Road, Drexel Hill, was charged with multiple counts of robbery and related offenses stemming from holdups in Upper Darby, Radnor, Clifton Heights, Aldan, Lansdowne and an attempted robbery in Springfield, police said.

A Drexel Hill man was sentenced in county court Tuesday to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail for threatening cashiers with a hammer last fall in a series of robberies committed while he was high on cocaine. Judge Joseph F. Battle gave Joseph J. Jamison, 29, the county prison sentence, plus one year of probation and longterm drug treatment after jail. Jamison pleaded guilty to nine robberies, one attempted robbery and a drug possession charge. He could have been sentenced to 23 months in jail on each of the 10 felony charges.

Butcher Charles Cannuli, whose father staked out a place along the Italian Market's bustling Ninth Street corridor with a meat and poultry shop in 1927, remembers the days when he and his father couldn't serve shoppers fast enough. "We used to have them lined up waiting to come in," Cannuli reminisced yesterday. "We don't have that anymore. " Cannuli's House of Pork and House of Poultry, like other shops in the market, have seen business wane in recent years. But many merchants hope that the decline can be stemmed, now that the city has provided $700,000 to rebuild the street's craggy curbs and sidewalks, re- lay the asphalt and replace the aging gutters.

The Tredyffrin Township Zoning Hearing Board reviewed an application from Villanova Cheese Inc. to allow the takeout of ready-to-eat foods from its new location in the Paoli Shopping Center. John and Susan Fissinger, owners of Villanova Cheese, plan to open the new shop July 15, and said operations will be similar to those at their shop in Villanova. Township manager Joseph Janasik said a cheese shop is permitted as a retail store in that shopping center, but there is a "problem with the takeout portion of the operation.

From the time she was a little girl, food writer Patricia Wells knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. "I remember at 7 years old standing at the blackboard and writing 'Journalist,' " said the author of the recently released "The Provence Cookbook. " (Harper Collins, $29.95.) "I knew that I always wanted to write for newspapers. I'm not sure whether it's that I just wanted to see my name in print, or to be able to ask questions that other people couldn't. The food and the journalism came together much later, though.

It was high time, I was notified over the weekend, to just cook the darn rabbit. He was taking up valuable freezer space, burrowed between the split-top hot dog buns and the stewed heirloom tomatoes of September. The rabbit was a Vermonter, purchased on our summer visit to West Glover. He was pink through the Cryovac; and as hard as tombstone granite. And he wasn't going easy into that pot. First, he set off a foraging expedition. Then he instigated a series of encounters that, in retrospect, appeared aimed at seasoning the cook, if not necessarily the cooked.

Tucked away down a narrow Old City alley, the garden patio behind Wedge + Fig is one of the loveliest local pocket hideaways in which to while away the last warm days over panini and salad. Formerly a cheese shop (and a bakery before that), this light-bite boutique from one-time sailmakers Kirk Nelson and Lisa Ruff features the culinary talents of Rebecca Torpie, the former chef-owner of Flying Monkey. There are baked goods reminiscent of her cupcake days (lemon bars, macaroons)

Claire Tomar Meyers, 69, of Wynnewood, an artist and owner of Cellophane, a specialty gift shop, died of complications from a stroke, Tuesday, April, 26, at Vitas Hospice in Darby. For almost 20 years, Mrs. Meyers and her cousin Connie Silverman operated Cellophane in Narberth and later Wynnewood. They assembled gourmet-food gift baskets and provided party favors wrapped in cellophane with a bow. The store teamed with a florist to provide decorations for weddings and parties. Mrs. Meyers used her artistry to paint butterflies or other themed decorations on boxes anchoring balloons and she painted whimsical designs on rocking chairs for children's gifts.

It was high time, I was notified over the weekend, to just cook the darn rabbit. He was taking up valuable freezer space, burrowed between the split-top hot dog buns and the stewed heirloom tomatoes of September. The rabbit was a Vermonter, purchased on our summer visit to West Glover. He was pink through the Cryovac; and as hard as tombstone granite. And he wasn't going easy into that pot. First, he set off a foraging expedition. Then he instigated a series of encounters that, in retrospect, appeared aimed at seasoning the cook, if not necessarily the cooked.

When Betts McCoy whipped up her first flavored cheese spread at her Villanova Cheese Shop in the early '70s, few noticed or made much of its being all-natural. Since then, an expanded line of those spreads has become the core business supporting the family's second and third generations. And the all-natural content and fine, fresh taste of Betts cream-cheese spreads may just be the first thing that customers take note of when they find it in gourmet shops and in chains such as Genuardi's (Betts' first big customer 10 years ago)

In the mild beginning - not all that long ago - America's artisan cheese-makers were preoccupied with simply re-creating the European basics. And like novices dutifully rehearsing a repertoire of compulsory moves, they produced a plethora of politely fresh goats, gentle goudas, creamy camemberts, tangy cheddars, and proper blues. In the last five years, however, there has been an emergence of considerably rowdier cheeses, thanks in large part to the growing enthusiasm for washing and aging (the curds, that is, not the cheese-makers.

From the time she was a little girl, food writer Patricia Wells knew what she wanted to be when she grew up. "I remember at 7 years old standing at the blackboard and writing 'Journalist,' " said the author of the recently released "The Provence Cookbook. " (Harper Collins, $29.95.) "I knew that I always wanted to write for newspapers. I'm not sure whether it's that I just wanted to see my name in print, or to be able to ask questions that other people couldn't. The food and the journalism came together much later, though.

The Italian Market mystery is solved. For six months, the question on Ninth Street was: What was Sal doing behind those boarded windows? Sal Auriemma, co-owner of the family cheese shop, Claudio's, had bought the building next door and was renovating it behind closed doors. But Auriemma deflected all the questions. So everyone wondered. But now they know. Now everyone knows. The new store is finally open and the answer is obvious: Sal was getting his fresh mozzarella-making machine ready.

When Natalie Nenner started frequenting the Ardmore Farmer's Market several years ago, it was on a tip from her mother-in-law, who told her she could find quality French food there. Eventually, she also picked up a few quality French friends. Nenner, formerly of Paris, found that the market was becoming something of a hot spot among local French immigrants. When Nenner started shopping at the market, she met a French butcher who invited her back for more than just subsistence.

Butcher Charles Cannuli, whose father staked out a place along the Italian Market's bustling Ninth Street corridor with a meat and poultry shop in 1927, remembers the days when he and his father couldn't serve shoppers fast enough. "We used to have them lined up waiting to come in," Cannuli reminisced yesterday. "We don't have that anymore. " Cannuli's House of Pork and House of Poultry, like other shops in the market, have seen business wane in recent years. But many merchants hope that the decline can be stemmed, now that the city has provided $700,000 to rebuild the street's craggy curbs and sidewalks, re- lay the asphalt and replace the aging gutters.

A Drexel Hill man was sentenced in county court Tuesday to 11 1/2 to 23 months in jail for threatening cashiers with a hammer last fall in a series of robberies committed while he was high on cocaine. Judge Joseph F. Battle gave Joseph J. Jamison, 29, the county prison sentence, plus one year of probation and longterm drug treatment after jail. Jamison pleaded guilty to nine robberies, one attempted robbery and a drug possession charge. He could have been sentenced to 23 months in jail on each of the 10 felony charges.