Drive-in Delights

When I came across a blog post recently that featured Weber's Famous Root Beer in Pennsauken, New Jersey, I knew it was a place I had to check out. It's a drive-in that serves burgers, milkshakes, and most importantly, root beer floats. Since it's close to where my grandparents live, the three of us stopped there on a sunny afternoon for my very first drive-in experience.

This was not the first time my grandparents had been to a drive-in, so they had an easier time handling their floats than I did. While I love the concept, it is a bit challenging to eat a float filled to the brim while sitting in the car. Drive-ins were really popular in the 1950s and 1960s--A&W Root Beer had over 2,000 of them by the 1960s--so I'm guessing that with experience, you must get more adept at in-car float-eating. Hopefully I'll be working on that skill again in the near future.

Heading to Headhouse Square

The Library of Congress's undated file photo of the Headhouse

I had read a blog post about how great the Headhouse Square farmer's market was and I decided to check it out today. I had walked through the square for the first time earlier this week on my way to dinner at one of the country's top vegan restaurants, Horizons (which I really enjoyed--I need to figure out how to make pan-seared tofu!). After having brunch on South Street today, I walked all the way down to Society Hall to the market. Once I got to around 7th, it felt like walking through a beach town--a visual overload of signs, lots of cheap clothing shops, and a variety of delicious junk food options.

Then, suddenly, South Street opens up at 2nd st into Headhouse Square. Located a block from the Delaware River, the market there opened in 1745 to supplement the existing market on Market Street. "Headhouse" refers to the firehouse structure at one end of the market which was built in 1804. In the late eighteenth century, supposedly Dolley Madison and Martha Washington shopped here.

The market finally reopened there last summer, and it's one of the best I've seen--and I've checked out my fair share of markets. There's still cobblestone on the street and it does feel a bit like going back in time. Let's hope there was fudge as good as what I bought yesterday when the founding mothers went shopping there!

Buying indie, eating locally

I was just reading the beginning of Bill Bryson's nostalgic new biography, and he reminisces about "the glory of living in a world still free of global chains. Every community was special and nowhere was like everywhere else." I hope Bryson got to walk around the city a bit when he was here last month to give a talk (his voice, fyi, is suprisingly high), because a bit of that glory remains.

Today I had wonderful food, and I didn't have to enter a single chain store. Nor did I have to go out of my way. I picked up a chunk of pecorino fresca and a loaf of ciabatta at the market a few blocks away, fresh tomatoes a block from there, and went home to make a sandwich. On my way to campus I grabbed a chai latte at an indepedent coffee shop/art gallery. Then, for dinner, I ate at White Dog Cafe, a restaurant that specializes in locally produced goods, with a group of alums from my high school.

As I've mentioned in an earlier post, Slow Food is a big deal lately, and Philly is a great place for it. There's a group here that helps people find locally-grown food, plus a website with a similar purpose called Farm to Philly. There also seem to be farmer's markets all the time, including one on campus.

I've also found it pretty easy to find independent places (more likely to have local products, and better for the community to begin with) here; they predominate in my neighborhood. It's not the 1950s, but hey, I'm quite happy to have a Trader Joe's near by, too.