Rick Nichols is a Philadelphia native (a product of rowhouse Mayfair) who moved as a child to Lower Bucks County and later to New England. He graduated from the University of North Carolina and worked on the newspaper in Raleigh. After a Nieman Fellowship at Harvard, he joined The Inquirer in 1978. He was for many years a member of the Editorial Board, and has several journalism awards.
His column “On the Side” appears Thursdays in Food, and his column “Food” appears in the Sunday Image section.
Video: A chat with the owner of Queens Farm at the Head House farmers market.
Series: On the Side | The Kitchen Diaries, a tour of Rick's new kitchen.
With fond memories in mind, a fan reckons the rise and fall of "skillful tableside preparation."
Now let us consider how a presumably innocent come-on can create a misunderstanding, and a bit of heartache - or let us just leave it at a twinge of disappointment.
It was the start of Week Two one day last week for Martin Hamann, 25 years in the mythic kitchen at the Four Seasons Hotel, now suddenly and a little disorientingly stepping into the role of top chef at the Union League, the brownstone club on Broad Street.
- The scarlet sign points the way to Prohibition Taproom, telling you all you need to know.The sign, at a glance, is as archetypal as it gets, neon-red and aglow in the postindustrial night that settles dark as a raven on silent North 13th Street, south of Spring Garden.
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On the SideCan the Italian Market be saved?
- Its very roots - humble, cut-rate curbside sustenance - could be the salvation of a revitalized Ninth Street Market.If you linger on South Ninth Street long enough, it can come to have the feel of a boulevard of broken dreams - and not just because trash bags are heaped on occasion at the very base of the "Italian Market" signpost.
- A Winterthur exhibit sets out the history of silverware, its exquisiteness and excesses.On the final day of October, as a million or two Phillies fans celebrated in the city's streets, a far quieter event was unfolding at Winterthur, the museum at the unimaginably grand du Pont country estate near Wilmington.
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Very soon - possibly as early as today - City Council is going to vote on a bill that asks big chains like Wendy's or Applebee's to level with their customers: to post the number of calories in their meals in plain sight.
- The retro tin alone makes these Irish groats irresistible. Take the time, and you may never go Quaker again.Perhaps it is the packaging, John McCann's steel-cut Irish Oatmeal, unrepentently retro in that black-and-white, bemedaled tuxedo of a tin, as sturdy - and weighty - as a quart of old-time wood putty.
- A walk beyond the Parc, south of SouthOn a Tuesday evening, it can be subdued in the understated bistros and cafes that lay claim to the corners south of South Street where the western edge of Queen Village gives way to Bella Vista.
- A Japanese interloper joins the parade of newcomers to the resurgent S. Philly avenue.On a recent Wednesday evening beyond the Roman fountain that spouts (and sings Sinatra) on East Passyunk Avenue, you could behold the miracle of the fishes. A hip sushi cafe called Izumi had flung open its big, inviting windows, creating a gawker delay on the sidewalks after work: sushi on East P'unk?!
- Free Library's nifty little cafe.You will find the sliver of hope called the H.O.M.E. Page Cafe across the rather hangdog lobby of the Free Library.
- Metropolitan Bakery's bread biz, good-carb, hands-on and wholesome, rises again.It is 15 years now since James Barrett started baking his extraordinary European-style breads in Fishtown, an artisan baker, a fish out of water at the time, baking bread, for goodness' sake, in muslin-lined willow baskets. You could see the floury stripes on the finished loaves, snowy furrows on brown winter hills.
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October was beginning to show its true colors last week, the occasional maple firing up, the mornings - a couple of them, at least - hinting of frost, the nip of uncertainty in the air: It was hard to see apples stacked up without a vision of 1929.
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