Local Food

Here's some good news to go with your breakfast coffee. That coffee, and a breakfast built around it, should be costing you a lot less this week. Consider the classic eye-opener: black coffee, orange juice, an egg and toast with margarine. The make-at-home cost for that modest but all-important meal comes to just 25 cents. Impossible? A quarter just doesn't go that far anymore? Generally speaking, it doesn't. Smart shopping is the way to make it happen. The trick is to find the supermarket specials like the ones we found this week and last - the eggs at 49 cents a dozen, the orange juice at 99 cents a half-gallon and the coffee priced as low as $2.79 (and widely at $2.99)

One of the longer and more perplexing strikes in Philadelphia's food industry ended yesterday when 825 warehouse workers and truck drivers returned to work at the Fleming Cos., a food wholesaler. The 13-week strike had left hundreds of area supermarkets scrambling to find sources of groceries. Fleming supplies Thriftway, Shop 'n Bag and Genuardi's supermarkets. It operates distribution centers in Northeast Philadelphia and in Oaks, Montgomery County. On Aug. 3, a few days after their contract expired, 300 drivers represented by Teamsters Local 500 walked off their jobs.

With the demand for emergency food in the region up 31 percent over last year, two hunger relief agencies - Philabundance and the Food Bank of South Jersey - joined The Inquirer yesterday to launch a food drive. The increased need for food comes at a time when food supplies are down 26 percent over last year, said Bill Clark, Philabundance executive director. Inquirer publisher Brian P. Tierney said in a statement that "our region is hurting and we want to help. " The food drive is a "meaningful way for our locally owned company to give back to the community that has supported us for so many years," he said.

Eve Minson had challenging careers in advertising and education, but what she loved more than anything else was working the soil. Now, at 53, she makes her living - in the most holistic sense of the word - growing vegetables, flowers, and herbs on a rented swath of heaven that she calls Just One Seed, a field of barely 1 1/2 acres in rural upper Bucks County. Her equally enterprising neighbors, Marc and Joanna Michini, raise hogs, lambs, chickens, turkeys, and rabbits on another rented parcel carved from the 120-acre Come Along Farm, about a mile from the Delaware River in Tinicum Township.

From the windows of her fourth-floor office at City Hall, redevelopment director Sandy Forosisky can see the front of 99 Cent Dreams, the 38,000-square-foot value store at the center of what has long been a languishing downtown. Starting in March, that view will change. The Landis Avenue dollar store is slated to be converted into a year-round public market, selling local produce, meat, seafood, specialty items, and prepared food. With it, Forosisky is hoping the city's center will change, too. The $5.62 million project, which Forosisky calls a "mini Reading Terminal," is the foundation for a $59 million city makeover.

Brad Kielinski performs volunteer work the same way he plays sports - with every body part moving furiously. Except his mouth. The senior at Kennedy-Kenrick High goes all out, all the time, whether he's playing soccer or basketball, running and jumping in track and field, or helping out at the Patrician Society of Central Montgomery County, which is located in Norristown. Whenever he's asked, and even when's not, Kielinski can be found at the Patrician Society's emergency food cupboard.

With the confidence and swagger of an experienced eater, Marc Bruno approaches the counter at Jim's Steaks on South Street and orders Cheez Whiz with. Between bites into the soft roll full of chopped steak and Cheez Whiz - with grilled onions - he deliberates on its innards. "Notice how they put the cheese on first? I think it makes the cheesesteak drier than Pat's Steaks because the cheese is absorbed in the bread. " Bruno, who moved to Wallingford from Manayunk less than a year ago, is no ordinary cheesesteak fan. He is regional vice president for Aramark's business services.

All you need is shampoo - or so you say. You go to Target, ignore the giant red shopping carts at the entrance, and dart to the health and beauty aisle, determined to stay focused. The next thing you know, you're at the checkout juggling a snowman doormat, a Captain America kiddie T-shirt, a box of Cheerios, and a stash of paper towels big enough for a bomb shelter. You are Target's dream customer, and there are a lot of you out there. But now the Minnesota retailer wants you to drop by more often, so it has come up with new bait it's testing across the Philadelphia area before launching it nationwide.

When Bob and Leda Muth started their business in Gloucester County eight years ago, there weren't many farmers like them. They set up a community-supported-agriculture (CSA) enterprise in Williamstown that sold memberships to people interested in getting fresh produce every week. Today, more than 400 members each spend $250 to $639 - depending on their plan - to pick up supplies of vegetables and fruits over 16 weeks. Hundreds of others are on a waiting list to join. Across the region, a growing number of CSA farms, many of them certified organic, are taking root as consumers look for locally grown produce at prices that are often less than those in the supermarkets.

A global giant that dishes out food and drink to Olympics athletes, sports fans and schoolchildren will likely add the Chester County Prison to its client roster. The Chester County Commissioners today are expected to award a $795,101 food service contract for the prison to Aramark, the low bidder for a job that has been done by county employees. County Government Services Director Wayne Rothermel said the county can expect $132,000 in savings next year by contracting out the service, primarily due to the economies of scale a company as large as Aramark can offer.