planting the seeds

Once again my foodie world & green worlds have overlapped. This past week I started culinary classes at The Restaurant School in philly. Nothing fancy, just a 6 week course on knife skills, basic sauces, etc. As I drove up to 42nd & walnut, I had a bad case of nerves. First day of school, ugh. Will the cool kids like me? But upon arriving I noticed a gentleman with a similar look of nerves & confusion (where the heck is the door???). We made fast friends. We were both early, out of breath from all the steps & in our totes was an over-abundance of kitchen tools.

As we started the preliminary chat about why we were here & how we like to cook (on a wing & a prayer), I found out he works for Fairmount park in the construction division. One thread of the conversation lead to another & I asked about community gardens in the park, another interest of mine. He said many gardens have come & gone because a facilitator/organizer really needs to helm these projects to keep the momentum going. But apparently there is or was a huge garden in the northwest part of the park. Not sure if the neighborhood is still considered koreatown but he & his crew watched the hardworking bunch harvest a cornucopia of foreign vegetables. Pretty cool was his final word on the subject before we were whisked into serious kitchens to perfect our cookery skills.

Further I went into this garden meets girl conversation (in my head, people!) while checking the Fair Food Farmstand website this very morning. If the picture of the fresh produce wasn't enough to get me seeing green then it was the shout out to urban farmers. The dept of parks & recreation is looking for a greenthumb to operate & manage small plots of commercial, chemical-free farms in Fairmount. The projects goal is to foster sustainability & urban agricultiral businesses in philly while supporting Philadelphia Food Chapter & Greenworks Philadelphia. Now there's a garden for the communtiy!