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Dishes from each of the four stops on the tour (photos by M. McClellan for GPTMC)

Have you ever wished for a friend who was deeply in the know about Philadelphia and its food scene? You know, someone who could walk you around and point out four or five of the city’s most perfect bars, bites and sweet treats. Well, do we ever have a couple of guys we’d like you to meet. Partners Eric Matzke and Robert Weinberg are the owners of Philadelphia’s City Food Tours, and they spend their days introducing Philadelphia residents and visitors to this city’s diverse and delicious food scene.

Recently, Eric and Robert teamed up with Philly Homegrown to devise a tour that focuses on the more local aspects of Philly dining. They’ve carefully mapped out a four-taste itinerary that hits on some of the best cheeses, breads, fruits and vegetables that spring forth from our rich, Delaware Valley land.

This Philly Homegrown City Food Tour is a limited-time opportunity. It is being offered just three Saturdays, so get your tickets while you can. The dates are November 27, December 11 and December 18, from 3 to 5 p.m. Tickets cost $35 and can be purchased here.

For more information about the tour, check out these blog posts from Messy and Picky, Madame Fromage and Phoodie. They all attended a special media edition of the tour and have shared their experience. There’s also a slideshow of photos from that first tour after the jump.

Philly Homegrown Tour presented by City Food Tours
November 27, December 11 and December 18, 2010, 3-5 p.m.
$35 per person

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The BlueCross RiverRink is open for late-night skating on weekends, with 8:30 and 11:00 p.m. sessions. (Photo by G. Widman for GPTMC)

The Blue Cross RiverRink, Philadelphia’s only public outdoor ice rink, will open its 17th season on Philadelphia’s waterfront at noon on Friday, November 26th with an official ribbon cutting by Philadelphia Fire Commissioner Lloyd Ayers and 93.3 WMMR’s Pierre Robert.

The opening celebration salutes Philadelphia public safety heroes, with $1 from each paid admission donated to the Hero Scholarship fund, a college fund for the children of policemen and firefighters killed or disabled in the line of duty. Opening Day activities, noon to 5 p.m., include interactive displays and workshops by the Police and Fire Department special units, plus games and prizes sponsored by CW Philly.

Located on Columbus Boulevard at Market Street, the RiverRink features an outdoor Olympic size rink overlooking the Delaware River, and an indoor heated facility with a snack bar, game room and more.

With a live DJ on weekend nights, skating lessons and sled skating for people with disabilities, the RiverRink is the perfect way to enjoy the great wintertime outdoors.

Blue Cross RiverRink
Columbus Boulevard at Market Street
www.riverrink.com

The north entrance to the Headhouse Square shambles (photo by R. Kennedy for GPTMC)

The following is an excerpt from a blog post by local restaurateur and caterer Steve Poses. This is one in a series of features he’s running on area farmers’ markets. To read the full text on his blog, click here.

With the exception of any day at Reading Terminal Market, a summer’s Sunday at Headhouse Farmers’ Market is Philadelphia’s best food shopping experience. And for pure physical per-square-foot concentration of food-shopping ecstasy, it is unrivaled. There are good reasons for this.

photo by S. Poses

Headhouse is located on 2nd Street, between Pine and Lombard, at the south side of Society Hill, adjacent to Queen Village. The headhouse was built in 1805 and originally housed a volunteer fire department. The Shambles, the covered arcade, is an English name for a collection of butcher shops.

The Headhouse Farmers’ Market grows out of long market tradition. But its success today is due in large part to the uniquely supportive demographics of Society Hill and Queen Village. Though Society Hill is the least dense of Center City’s neighborhoods at 12,867 citizens per square mile, Queen Village has a density of 23,616 that rivals Rittenhouse Square at 26,081. It’s against this demographic backdrop that the Headhouse Farmers’ Market operates each Sunday.

Most neighborhood farmers’ markets are laid out single file, under tents along a sidewalk strip. By contrast, the Headhouse market, operated by The Food Trust, sits within the shambles with tables lining both sides. The covered arcade provides a more intimate and compressed physical experience. At the same time, the absence of mismatched and low-hanging tents provides a more consistent, open and accessible market.

Click here to continue reading this post at Just In at Homegrown

Steve Poses is founder of Frog Commissary. A local restaurateur, caterer and author, it’s his goal to increase home entertaining. Steve’s latest book, At Home by Steve Poses: A Caters Guide to Cooking and Entertaining, was released in 2009. It’s the inspiration for At Home Online, a website and blog designed to make home entertaining as easy as possible with tips, guides and recipes. Click here to subscribe to his e-newsletter. Steve can also be found on Twitter as @SPoses. Click here to follow him.

Theatre Exile, Philly’s “dependably unpredictable” (but always excellent) theater company is set to open their season with a show that would be hard not to love: the intriguingly titled That Pretty Pretty; or, the rape play.

The show is about two ex-strippers on a murderous, revenge-fueled road trip. Jane Fonda, along with 80’s music and culture, is their muse, guiding them as layers “peel away in a striptease of revelations.” Sounds crazy. Sounds sexy. Sounds fun. It will be all that, for sure. But in Theatre Exile’s hands it’s bound to be a whole lot more.

Sheila Callaghan’s acclaimed play is darkly comedic, and is about a whole lot more than strippers on a mission. It examines ideas of identity, storytelling, fantasy and authorship. And, as we’d expect from Theatre Exile, it is rife with complex and scintillating language, dialogue, and linguistic fun. Directed by Artistic Director Joe Canuso and starring some well-known Philly actors, That Pretty Pretty is sure to be a rollicking evening of provocative theater.

“That Pretty Pretty; or, the rape play”
November 17th-December 5th
www.theatreexile.org

Christ Church Neighborhood House
20 N. American Street
www.christchurchphila.org

John Folinsbee's 'Trenton Platform', 1929 (Photo courtesy Woodmere Art Museum)

The Woodmere Art Museum is hosting a new exhibition, now through March 6th, exploring the landscape work of Philadelphia native John Folinsbee (1892–1972).

The exhibit offers a fresh perspective on the revered New Hope painter’s life and career, revealing his contributions to the development of modern art as a movement in America.

Visitors will experience Folinsbee’s paintings of the Bucks County region’s iconic scenery—rarely, if ever, seen since their creation. The works focus on the mills, factories and steel-truss bridges that lined the banks of the Delaware River; Folinsbee was drawn less to the more traditional pastoral views that his compatriots made famous with their Impressionist landscapes, than to the stark beauty of barns, quarries and slag heaps.

The exhibition also affords patrons the opportunity to see the recent renovation of the museum’s grand Kuch Gallery, designed by influential Philadelphia-based architects Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and free for students and children.

Woodmere Art Museum
9201 Germantown Avenue
www.woodmereartmuseum.org

At the Herr's Snack Factory (all photos by M. McClellan for GPTMC)

Herr’s Snacks are ubiquitous in the Philadelphia area, so much so that when I think potato chips, I think Herr’s. Recently, several of us from uwishunu HQ had the chance to drive out to the Herr’s Snack Factory in Nottingham, PA and see how all their chips, pretzels and other snack mixes are made.

The first thing you should know is that this tour wasn’t exclusive to us. Monday through Friday (they’re not open weekends), anyone is welcome to visit the factory and see how their favorite snacks are made. If you grew up in this area, you may have gone on the tour as a kid. They have a number of informed and helpful tour guides who will happily take you through the viewing areas and explain just how it is that they can bake up to 4,000 pounds of pretzels per hour.

Another thing you’ll discover while on the tour is the deep level of commitment that Herr’s has to running an efficient and green factory. They capture the heat that escapes from the frying process and re-channel it into the facility. All the oil used during frying is recycled and any waste product is gathered and taken to the Herr Farm, where it is incorporated into the feed of the livestock. Additionally, they are diligent about sourcing their ingredients as close to home as is possible.

One of the more delightful aspects of the tour occurs outside the potato chip room. Once you’ve seen all there is to see, your tour guide will don a hair net, dash into the room with a cardboard tray and come out with a generous portion of the freshest potato chips you’ll ever taste. The day we were there they were making the ripple cut chips and wow, were they good.

To see more photos from our trip to the Snack Factory, make sure to check out the slideshow after the jump.

Herr’s Snack Factory
Monday through Thursday, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m., 1 p.m. to 3 p.m.
Friday, 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. (production is typically slower on Fridays)
20 Herr Drive, Nottingham, PA
Tour reservation line: 1-800-63-SNACK
herrs.com
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photo courtesy of Peddler's Village

This Friday, Peddler’s Village will kick off the holiday season with their annual Grand Illumination Celebration. At 6:15 p.m., Santa Claus has the honor of flipping the switch that turns on the display of one million lights. Once the lights are on, festival goers will have a chance to sip hot cider and toast marshmallows over an open fire.

While you’re there, don’t miss the 30th Annual Gingerbread House Competition, also on display at the Village. See more than 100 handmade houses, all crafted entirely of edible ingredients. Admission is free and the houses will be on display through January 1, 2011.

Peddler’s Village Grand Illumination Celebration
Friday, November 19, 2010
41 Peddler’s Village Road, Lahaska, PA 18931
peddlersvillage.com

 
On Saturday, October 30th, the Opera Company of Philadelphia partnered with Macy’s and the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation to produce one of the Knight Foundation’s “Random Acts of Culture” on a grand scale in Philadelphia.

With the Opera Company of Philadelphia as a core, over 650 singers from area choirs, accompanied by the famed Wanamaker Organ — the world’s largest pipe organ — surprised shoppers at the Center City Macy’s with a spontaneous rendition of the Hallelujah chorus from Handel’s Messiah. The performers were clad in plain clothes among the crowds, fulfilling the “Random Acts of Culture” initiative’s aim to bring classical artists out of performance halls into the streets.

Since debuting a few weeks ago, the above video has received a staggering 2.7 million views worldwide on YouTube.

Random Acts of Culture [Knight Foundation]

Pastry chef Monica Glass's motto: 'A day without love, laughter or dessert is a day wasted.' (Photo courtesy 10 Arts)

“I wanted to create an immense, whimsical candy land,” 10 Arts pastry chef Monica Glass said of her new Dessert Bar, available now every Saturday afternoon from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. We think she nailed it.

The dessert menu, a permanent addition to 10 Arts’ standard bill of fare, includes plum ginger yogurt panna cotta, s’mores tarts, macadamia nut brittle, white chocolate pomegranate cupcakes and pumpkin macaroons, to name a few. Guests choose five items for one fixed price of $20. Special dessert packages will also be available, pairing a medley of desserts with a complementary beverage like hot cocoa or champagne.

The ideal afternoon treat for holiday shoppers, Avenue of the Arts theatergoers, and other visitors to The Ritz-Carlton, Sucre provides a sweet complement to Top Chef All-Star Jennifer Carroll’s delectable food.

10 Arts Bistro & Lounge
Broad and Chestnut Streets
www.10arts.com

Homemade apple pie. (Photo courtesy MANNA)

The 2010 MANNA (Metropolitan Area Neighborhood Nutrition Alliance) “Pie in the Sky Bake Sale For Better Health” ends this Friday, November 19th at noon.

Every baked good sold helps to support MANNA, a program that provides nourishing meals to Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey locals coping with life-threatening illnesses. This year, for its twentieth anniversary, MANNA’s goal is to sell and distribute over 10,000 Thanksgiving pies in the Philadelphia area.

You can order online directly from MANNA, or from one of over 200 pie sellers (also listed on MANNA’s website). Three different pies — apple, pecan and pumpkin — and three different cakes — carrot, cheesecake with cherry topping, and chocolate fudge cake — are available at $25 each.

The pie pick-up dates are Tuesday, November 23rd and Wednesday, November 24th. You choose the date and one of the 60 pick-up locations most convenient for you.

MANNA’s Pie In The Sky Fundraiser [Official Site]