Food

After serving as a teenage Army sergeant during World War II, Alfred Ciccotelli returned to South Philadelphia to help his parents run their grocery store at Seventh and Montrose Streets, two blocks east of the Italian Market. It was a modest-enough life that he lived above the store with his parents, who had emigrated from the regions of Abruzzi and Campania. But in 1963, he founded what has become the nationwide Italian food importer and distributor of Cento Fine Foods, headquartered in West Deptford, a firm that now employs more than 150 workers.

Immerse yourself in different cultures on Saturday from noon to 5 p.m. and celebrate Philadelphia's 10 Sister Cities at the Sister Cities Park International Festival. Event festivities include dancing, music, cooking demos, and hands-on activities. There will be cultural activities and performances throughout the day. The Italian Council's Luigi Scotto will sing, the Guang Hua Chinese School troupe will dance, and Taiko drummers will enrich with a Japanese percussion show. Guests can even get a French language lesson at 3:05 p.m. Other activities include a Cameroonian fashion show and Israeli, Polish and Korean dance performances.

This is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat of May 8, 2013: Craig LaBan: Welcome to the Food Truck edition of our chat! I have two of my favorite food truck owners cohosting: Kiki Aranita from Poi Dog Philly, a Temple-based cart serving Hawaiian snack foods, and Alan Krawitz of Say Cheese Philadelphia, one of the "pioneers" of this generation of food trucks, whose Drexel-based truck specializes in variations on grilled cheese and...

Instead of helping people who have fallen on hard times, Pennsylvania made it harder for them to get food stamps, and hundreds of families may be going hungry at times as a result. The state imposed an assets test to determine food-stamp eligibility a year ago. Since then, nearly 4,000 households have lost or been denied benefits after being deemed too wealthy. Another 111,000 households were rejected for failing to provide proper documentation for the test. Advocates for the poor say the assets-appraisal formula being used by the state Department of Public Welfare does more harm than good.

NEW YORK - Pet food isn't cheap. Americans are expected to spend $21.3 billion on pet food this year, up 3 percent from $20.6 billion in 2012, according to the American Pet Products Association. Walk through any pet shop and you can see why. Store shelves are stocked with high-end meals, from organic cat food to frozen raw dog food. While pricier options might have less filler and more protein, and can be healthier, they are not always necessary, says Liz Hanson, a veterinarian at Corona Del Mar Animal Hospital in Newport Beach, Calif.

The lunch-hour rush is under way at the convoy of food trucks that line Spruce Street near the University of Pennsylvania campus. From inside the cramped Chez Yasmine, Jihed Chehimi is serving gourmet street fare from around the globe - heaping salmon sandwiches sprinkled with caviar, homemade couscous, and cups of Indian red lentil soup - all with a side of conversation that occasionally turns to the science of AIDS. For more than two decades, the Ph.D. in viral immunology was an HIV/AIDS researcher, first at Penn and then at the labs of the Wistar Institute, where the senior scientist explored innate and adaptive immunity.

It's the "trucker's" moment in Philadelphia's food world now - especially when it comes to lunch. That's when some of the area's most exciting new food options are making the scene, rolling in on four wheels with a griddle full of creativity and an entrepreneurial dream. Channeling a Shane Victorino craving for Super Spam musubi? Check. Tiny Poi Dog at Temple University is your new Hawaiian snack shrine. In need of stunningly rich peanut butter ice cream sandwiched between double chocolate chip cookies?

A trio of food trucks will be pulling up to the Camden waterfront every Friday at lunch beginning May 10 and continuing throughout the summer. Organized by the Cooper's Ferry Partnership waterfront development corporation, "Food Truck Friday," as it's being called, is drawing interest from a variety of gourmet trucks around the region, including the three that will start next week: deli-on-wheels Reuben on Rye, Cupcakes 2 GoGo, and Lil' Trent's Treats...

One year ago this week, Pennsylvania tied eligibility for food stamps to the assets people possess. Since then, nearly 4,000 households have lost or were denied benefits because they had too many financial resources, according to the Department of Public Welfare. In that same time, many more people - around 111,000 households - were denied benefits because they failed to provide proper documentation for the asset test. Advocates for the poor now say that by weeding out a relatively small number of people with too many assets, the Department of Public Welfare made getting food stamps so complicated that deserving low-income people became inundated by paperwork and lost their benefits.

Here is an excerpt from Craig LaBan's online chat of April 30, 2013: Craig LaBan: With the spring weather blooming, it's my cue to lighten up with salads like this one from Zea Mays Kitchen truck, which focuses on creative uses for Native American ingredients. It didn't make into our food-truck story, so I'm glad to give it a shout-out. In big restaurant news from the Insider , some exciting new projects coming to the burbs have been announced: Josh Lawler of the Farm and Fisherman is the latest big Philly name to head to South Jersey, with plans to take over Andreotti's Viennese Café on Route 70 in Cherry Hill with a larger and more casual F & F Tavern and Market, targeted for the fall.