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.
- Gallery: Forgotten and unforgettable foods
- Flavors Not Forgotten
It is a fine time to review the inventory in the local larder, our vintage foodscape eroding in spots, the scents of our street food overshadowed too often by the cheesesteak. A number of the flavors, indeed, are headed for oblivion. But, in the nick of time, a curious reversal has occurred - a seemingly spontaneous countertrend.
For a second helping of vintage regional foods, try these sources:
Ice Creams
Bassetts
Reading Terminal Market,
12th and Arch Streets 215-864-2771, bassettsic.com
- With gourmet treatments and extras, chefs are hitting the lowly food out of the ballpark.The possibilities of the classic American burger having been if not exhausted, certainly exhaustively explored (I give you the excessive foie gras-laden Whiskey King eight-ouncer, adorned with maple bourbon glazed cipollini, Rogue bleu cheese, and applewo
- A big-box store brings its values to the marketplace.By the end of rush hour Monday, the aisles at the big Target on City Avenue near the ramps to I-76 East were waking up - boxed pizzas getting restocked, gaps in the Great Wall of Soda being meticulously plugged.
- The brew sold by Drew Crockett is a fine addition to the street food heaven on wheels along 38th St.The food trucks that stretch along 38th Street near the western edge of Penn's campus provide an antidote to - no, make that a repudiation of - the sad-sack food-court fare that lurks in greasy shame just blocks to the east.
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Nowhere is it written how to comport oneself upon having been unhorsed right in the middle of a victory lap.
- At his Gemelli, Clark Gilbert is serving road-tested classics to a walk-in crowd of Narberth locals.Clark Gilbert isn't promising the moon at Gemelli, his new bistro at the edge of Narberth, on rowhouse blocks once called - when the town was Irish-er - "the Italian section."
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On the Side: Steve Poses @ home
- The caterer and creator of the iconic Frog and Commissary restaurants has gone electronic. His new venture links a household cookbook to the Web.On the Side: Within minutes, Steve Poses' rules for home entertaining - for boosting it 10 percent! - were going out the window of his apartment above Rittenhouse Square, swan-diving toward the fountains and dog-walkers below.
- Daniel Stern's MidAtlantic is an Amish trip: How about a little crab in your scrapple?Merely farm-to-city concepts having achieved the status of what-else-is-new?, perhaps the time is ripe for MidAtlantic, which at 37th and Market (on the ground floor of a sterile ice cube of a Science Center, no less) is taking a slightly different bite of that chestnut.
- The art of the cocktail, with the finest bourbons and rye, is revived at Village Whiskey.Now let us toast Village Whiskey, a wall of hard stuff, shaded rich amber and rosy copper, rising behind the bar, more bourbons here (54 and counting), and rye, Canadian, Irish and Scotch than you'll likely find - well, maybe you can find a few more at Bourbon, the bar (now two bars), in D.C., but that pretty much covers it.
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On the gun-shop sign, a cop has fired the same pistol into the same silhouette of the same bad guy for years, announcing the presence of Colosimo's, the longtime provider of sidearms to the police - and eventually to any Tom, Dick, or Harry who wanted to carry, regardless, it now appears, of legal status or apparent criminal intent.
- At Stephen Starr's new Pizzeria Stella, they're setting the pie bar high, from the crust on up.Passersby could not help but notice last Sunday that the shuttered Cosi at the corner of Second and Lombard was suddenly set off by a flared skirt of red-and-blue Cinzano tables, giving the sidewalk a romantic whiff of Roman holiday.
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