British Squash & Philly Jam

Jennifer settled onto a sunny bench in Washington Square and untied the plastic sack on her lap. She withdrew a bottle of Schweppes, a container of tuna, and a bag of bagel crisps. She’d stopped at Old Nelson on her way to the park to pick up the cracker-spread combo. “I’m not a big sandwich person,” she said, pulling open the bag of New York Style Bagel Crisps.¹

Her one o’clock lunch break was well earned; that morning, she’d used a CRM database to compile a list of contacts for an e-blast to promote an upcoming career fair. (She’s a sales manager at the Philadelphia Inquirer/Daily News and oversees the customer database.) She ended up with 850 contacts tagged with ‘HR’ or ‘recruitment,’ and was pleased.

“That might not seem like a lot to you, but those are highly customized contacts,” she said. “Some might be duplicates, but who cares!” She threw her hands in the air. “I decided, I’m going to lunch to celebrate.”

Jennifer wore a white and green polka dot sweater, a long khaki skirt, gray 50s-style sunglasses, and practical sandals. Recovering from an ankle injury, today’s walk to the park was the longest she’s managed in three weeks.

She took a sip of Schweppes pink grapefruit seltzer. “It reminds me of the Orange Squash from England,” she said. Squash is the British English word for concentrate, she explained. “We used to drink it when I went to visit my aunts and uncles.” They’d pour a bit of the concentrated citrus syrup in the bottom of a glass and then dilute with seltzer water.²

These days, Jennifer concocts a different type of concentrated fruit. Her and her husband run Fifth of a Farm Creations, a side-gig jam company. About once a month they load up with fruit and head to the Greensgrow Community Kitchen to spend the day making preserves. Their flavors, which they sell to MOM’s, and at the Church Street and Clark Park Farmers’ Markets once a month, are named after Philly neighborhoods: Strawberry Mansion Jam, Old City Quince Butter, and Point Breeze Tomato Jam.

They source fruit locally when it’s in season. “We use mint grown in our garden to make our mint jelly,” Jennifer says. Right now, she’s excited about the tart cherries ripening at Weaver’s Orchard in Morgantown. They’ll use them to make her favorite flavor: Fairmount Cherry Jam. 

It’s the flavor that inspired her to start the business. “Growing up, we had a sour cherry tree in our yard,” she said. “I had this fond memory of making jam and giving it to people for Christmas – and that's still what I do.”

Jennifer prefers her jam atop toast with peanut butter -- you won't catch her eating a PB&J at lunchtime.

¹ You may remember the New York Style Everything Bagel Chips: a sturdy, savory dipper and the perfect beach snack. They came in a wax-lined paper bag and were irresistibly seedy and salty, and left a nice greasy sheen on your fingertips. Caving into the anti-fat fad, New York Style re-branded them as bagel crisps – and touted ‘Twice Baked, Never Fried,’ among other gloomy health claims. As with Lays Baked!, we miss the original.

² Black currant squash made international headlines in 2016 when Kumbuka the gorilla escaped from his enclosure at the London zoo and drank 5 liters of the undiluted drink. Turns out, it’s part of the gorillas’ daily beverage selection – they are fed diluted squash along with cold fruit tea.

Una Bella Vista

Each spring, Philly’s Italian Market sets up a rollicking two-day block party. The music is loud, the people-watching spectacular, and the food plentiful. In search of lunch, one might walk the eight-block festival and consider a porchetta sandwich or ravioli, barbacoa tacos or tamales, skewered grilled quail or papaya salad. (‘Italian Market’ is sort of a misnomer these days; in the 1980s and 90s, immigrants populated the historically Italian neighborhood with Vietnamese, Cambodian and Mexican restaurants.)

Natalie and Hope, first-timers at the festival, were strategic: “We sat for a while and watched other people eat, and then decided what to eat,” Natalie said.

They chose Dibruno Brothers’ spinach arancini and chicken meatball hoagie, and made a tentative plan to return for Esposito’s massive porchetta sandwich. At a table set up a comfortable distance from the throngs on 9^th street, they had a prime view of the festival’s main attraction: the Greased Pole Competition.

It’s an old, offbeat Philly tradition: people attempt to shinny up lard-sheened pole to reach sharp provolone, sausage, gift cards and cash hanging from the top. Some competitors form teams that meet to practice throughout the year; others join hodgepodge groups recruited by the MC on the day of the festival. A crowd assembles around the piazza on 9^th and Montrose Streets to cheer and fling their shirts to the top climbers to use as grease rags.

No joke.

“That’s the way…”

“His hands are all up on his butt!”

“His arms are going to give out!”

Natalie and Hope scrutinized a team of six – two at the base of the pole gripping each other’s forearms, two climbing to stand on their shoulders, and two steadying ankles and boosting butts with both arms.  

“We’ve been watching this for a while,” Natalie said. “It’s the same group – they keep getting a little higher.” But the dangling prizes still hung 30 feet in the air, untouched. The MC, sporting a #GuidoLive t-shirt, tried to cajole a few more volunteers from the crowd.

“I think it’s the Breathalyzer,” Hope said. She suspected that passing the BAC test – a policy put into place two years ago – had deterred many.

Natalie laughed. “When I met up with her this morning, she had a pineapple with rum in it.” Blue Corn Restaurant serves piña coladas in hollowed pineapples.

“An excellent breakfast,” Hope said.

It was her day off. She’d spent the previous week thinning fruit in the rain at North Star Orchards, a farm and orchard in Cochranville known for developing stunning apple varieties. “Apparently the fruit doesn’t taste good if you leave all the clusters,” she told me. Growers typically pluck the diseased and undersized fruit to allow the tree to send its resources to fewer choice specimens.

Hope started working at the farm this spring. Everyday at noon, the entire crew eats lunch together. Hope forages for greens and mushrooms in the woods near the farm to incorporate into her meals.

She’s an urban forager, too.

“There were a bunch of pork skewers in the trash can that she wouldn’t let me eat,” Hope said, leather tassel earrings swishing as she gave Natalie a look.

“I figured there was a reason they were in the trash can.” Natalie says.

Natalie is a front of house operations manager for catering at UPenn. She typically eats lunch with colleagues at Houston Hall. “When we don’t have time it’s a standing lunch with returned hors d’oeuvres from whatever event we’re at,” she said. “It’s the one perk of working in food service – I never have to pay for lunch.”

The two might splurge on a few more lunch bites at the festival, and stick around to watch a dozen pumped bros armed with bath towels storm the piazza.

“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

 The team built a clenched, grunting tower around the pole and in fewer than five minutes, their top climber was throwing sausages to the ground in triumph.