Eating locally is a topic near and dear to my heart.  I come from a small town of farms in Maryland, where my next door neighbors supplied us with fresh produce and my best friend kept us stocked with eggs. Moving to Philly was a concern for me because I was worried about being able to get produce from local farmers, as the city isn’t exactly blooming with corn feilds ; ) Being a Vegetarian, its crucial that you eat the best fruits and veggies you can find, so you can reap the nutritional rewards.  Thank you for devoting your time to keeping those farmers on their feet, and also thanks for spreading the Slow Food word!

It’s interesting how easy it really is to eat locally here in Philly.  The local farmers and people who care about good, safe food make it a snap to find nearly anything we might need.

Now if only I could find locally grown oats....

Thanks for posting about this cheese, Nicole!  It was perfect timing, because on Wednesday I was bequeathed some extra basil by a farmer after a market, and I decided to try making/freezing pesto for the first time.  A lady from Salumeria actually stopped by the Farmstand on Friday morning during my volunteer shift, to drop off some figs for us to enjoy, so I was able to alert her that I was curious about the Hendricks Parmesan.  She told me to come by later and sample it, which I did, and also bought some for my pesto.  She said it would probably make a more creamy and complex pesto than a standard Italian parmesan would do, and thankfully I was only making a small pesto batch so I could splurge!  (I don’t have a lot of experience with pesto, so I can’t provide helpful thoughts for comparison with other pestos, but it was certainly tasty when I sampled it before freezing.)

Have you ever tried roasting a chicken with parmesan rinds?