July 4th grill recipe combines everything good about baked potatoes and potato skins

I love baked potatoes. I love potato skins. I just don’t love the time it takes to make them when grilling. So my friends and I, while sitting around after a day of grilling, tried to come up with a recipe that would give us what we wanted without the hassle. I don’t drink and they do so as the beer flowed so did the ideas.

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Tags: recipe | potatoes | grilling |

Ebensburg and surrounding area’s growing local food scene

WPSU’s recent episode of “Our Town” featured a visit to Ebensburg. Part of the episode looked at the food scene and featured an interview with Penn State Altoona employee and part-time pastry chef Julie Fether. I recently chatted with Julie and learned more about a growing local food movement in Blair and Cambria Counties.

When Julie Fether moved back to her hometown of Ebensburg from Oregon, she wasn’t anticipating a thriving local food scene like she had in Oregon. But what she discovered was a growing local food community in her old stomping grounds.

Fether has become part of that local food scene herself. Along with her role as a project coordinator for the Center for Community-Based Studies at Penn State Altoona, she works part-time as a pastry chef at the Ebensburg destination restaurant, Amichi’s Ristorante. She notes that Amichi’s is not only a fantastic fine-dining experience but also a place to eat local. “They work very closely with couple of local farms,” Fether said. “They also buy from the Johnstown Farmers Market and the Ebensburg Farmers Market. The perk of working there is local farmers will come with produce and give out samples.”

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Tags: Ebensburg | Potatofest | Amichi's | EverydayGourmet |

Your Local Food Weekend for June 28 and 29

Pesto tastings at Tait Farm, a real live bison at the Bellefonte Farmers Market, the final June free wine and cheese tasting at Mt. Nittany Winery, and great live music at Gamble Mill Inn.

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State College couple takes action to help those in need with Giving Garden

Two members of the Mount Nittany United Methodist Church have led an effort to create a “Giving Garden” on the church grounds to help address the issue of hunger in our community.

Robert and Joanna Jones of State College got a double dose of inspiration from the documentary “A Place At the Table”, about food shortages in the United States, and a TED Talk by fashion designer and activist Ron Finley about guerrilla gardening in South Central Los Angeles. So, they decided to take action themselves and help address our local food shortages here in Central Pennsylvania with local food from a garden on the church grounds.

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Tags: gardening | localfood | volunteers | foodshortage |