A few summers ago, I stood face to face with a few vegetables that scared me.  I love to eat almost all veggies, but I have met a few I didn't know how to prepare.  As I looked at the vegetables on my counter, one scared me because it looked like it would stand up and walk away on one of its many skinny little arms, the other because I...

A few summers ago, someone sent me a recipe for a simple cucumber and peach salad. This was a recipe that combined two ingredients I never thought would like each other. Didn't one belong atop lettuce, and the other beneath a crumb topping? How could these crispy and sweet tastes coexist? Hesitantly, I chopped a garden-fresh cucumber. Even more uncertainly, I sacrificed a sweet, juicy peach. Wouldn't it be better...

As America celebrates its Independence Day, I find myself in another county where hamburgers, hot dogs and barbecue sauce are not too easy to come by. I can’t say that I can complain though, because this country has some pretty amazing food. My husband and I are visiting some friends in Provence, in the south of France at the moment. Even though we’re pretty far up in the mountains, we...

When it comes to produce, I'm kind of a snob. Produce items - like corn and peaches - that I eat in the summer as if they were the only food that existed pretty much have no place in my kitchen when they are out of season. This week, I skeptically tried some southern-grown corn on the cob and a Carolina peach. I admit, I was expecting rubbery corn and...

One of my favorite photos on the Wolff's Apple House Web site is the picture that tops the "Recipes" page.  It depicts Kenneth and Gennie Wolff, the third generation owners of Wolff's Apple House, in Spring 1955.  On a blanket spread in the midst of their orchard's picnic grove, Gennie Wolff kneels, overseeing the picnic details.  Her husband, Kenneth, sits next to her. Six Wolff cousins sit in the foreground,...

I've always wanted to be a farmer, or at least a gardener. My parents were raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia and New Jersey and always dreamed of having a place to raise their kids where they could actually see the stars at night and could learn about nature and the responsibilities of taking care of land. They had the chance to live that dream when they purchased a 20-acre abandoned...

For the second time this year, I’m meeting with one of the Wolff clan in the living room of Ken and Gennie Wolff.  Their house sits right across from the recently cultivated Sunny Brae Farm. I have spent a fair amount of time gazing out at this plot of land. Peter Wolff has great plans for this property and we all hope to see it growing fruit and produce again...

Last week, my husband and I stopped into a local sandwich place for a bite to eat.  I was hungry for salad, and selected this particular salad because the words "chick-pea" were in its name.  When we settled down to eat, my husband took a glance at the chick peas, piled so high you could practically sled down them, and said, with a twinkle in his eye, "But I thought...

When you walk into Wolff’s this time of year, a sea of vibrantly colored flowers greets you. Some of these plants are ready to go in the ground, like Pansies and cold-tolerant annuals like Alyssum, Diascia, Dusty Miller, Lobelia, Nemesia and Snapdragons. Other early season perennials are also waiting for their turn in the dirt, like Lithodora, Papaver and Pulmonaria, and some plants need to stay on your windowsill until...

I was probably about six the first time I can remember my mom baking her own pizza dough.  After that, it became a family tradition: Friday nights were pizza nights, and her homemade dough, stretched to the corners of a cookie sheet, formed the basis of creations the family sometimes helped to make. This week, my sister came to stay with me and treated my husband and me to her...

If you have dreams of planting a garden this year, you can start now by planting seeds indoors and getting started on planting onion sets (partially sprouted onions in a paper bag.) In order to get the best results for your onion sets, we recommend following these instructions: To Produce Big Onions: Select a sunny location Plant in early spring (as soon as the soil can be worked) Mark rows at...

There is a narrow dirt road that runs along the edge of the Wolff's modest Sunny Brae farm. Mostly inactive now, this road used to be heavily traversed by tractors and various farming implements. Currently, three generations of Wolffs live along this stretch. Ken and Gennie, third generation Wolffs, live just across from the farm. Their house has two large windows that once overlooked great apple orchards that stretched as...

  This time of year, I often can't resist making apple crisps or apple pies, even though the holidays have passed. I surround tender apple slices with layers of flaky pastry or oats, like a fortress of sweetness. Last night for our dessert, though, I attempted something different: a very simple apple bake. This recipe realizes that apples are delicious enough to be a dessert almost all by themselves. It keeps...

Over the nearly 5 years my husband and I have been married, we've learned to fit things we enjoy into our budget and find ways to make "home dates" special. Here are a few ideas of some of our favorite meals. Simply Elegant Home Cooking Ideas  When my husband and I were first married, money was pretty tight (we still don’t like to splurge often, especially around busy holidays like Valentine’s...

For me, as a bookish writer whose idea of exercise is a long walk or a slow jog, the big game this weekend isn't about sports.  It isn't even about the commercials or half-time. I'm not gonna lie.  It's about the food. It's about being with friends, too, but friendship is best enjoyed around a creative  food and drink spread. In celebration and anticipation of all the friends each of...

I know this girl that hates mushrooms. It doesn't surprise me. She hates a lot of the foods that I love. But as I add the finishing touches to latest batch of Cream of Mushroom Soup, I can't believe what I'm hearing. This soup has everything. It has butter, leeks, shallots, Porcini mushrooms, delicate local white mushrooms, thyme, lots of cream, and Madeira. I'm standing over the soup and inhaling...

I fell in love rather late in life.  We met at The Goddess and Grocer, a Chicago restaurant that was then so small it just had one long, family-style table.  I ordered a California Dreaming sandwich and instantly fell headlong in love with what an avocado can add to a sandwich. It's been a while since I've visited The Goddess and Grocer, so I have to keep my love for...

Winter came early to the east coast this year, painting over October's vibrant palette and turning everything white.  That's the thing about winter that can really start to get to me: the way that color drains out of the landscape when the sun is shut behind clouds or the ground is hidden in a few-days-old snow. One thing that helps me to beat the winter doldrums is to go to...

I sat across from my cousin's nine-year-old son this Thanksgiving.  A big platter of cranberry sauce gleamed on the table between us.  Greedily, we both stared at it. "Well, my friend," I said.  "Looks like there's half for you and half for me." "Not if I get it first," he said. Cranberry sauce is one of the delights of the holiday table.  With New Jersey's cranberry bogs so close, this...

Down the road from here, a shop selling Christmas trees presents a sign to the passers-by announcing, “Have a real Christmas. Buy a real tree.” This concerns me. If a true Christmas means having a real tree, then every Christmas I celebrated as a child was a fake. And I’m not the only kid whose parents decorated a fake tree. My friends did, too. While having a real tree was...

In my apartment's tiny kitchen, the whole room warms up when a pot simmers on the stove top.   This is one reason I love to simmer soup and stew this time of year.  The other reasons are more universal:  the chance to load a bowl full of vegetables, the frugality of re-purposing odds and ends from the fridge, the sense of security I get from a freezer full of extra...

At this time of day, the palest shade of yellow becomes white. It is a white like ivory or the cooked white of an egg. It is the glorious flesh or white curd of the aborted floral meristems. It is the white of cauliflower, the white of the species Brassica oleracea. And to eat this plant is to eat a delicacy once embraced by kings. To roast it in a...

Did you ever visit a museum gift shop as a kid?  Did you ever beg to have an adult buy you a geode: one of those round sandpapery rocks that look homely on the outside, but reveal crystals inside when you smash them with a hammer? That’s how I think of the sweet potato: the geode of the produce world. Sweet potatoes are magic.  Imagine the first person who decided...

Any way you look at it, a farm is a business--a livelihood for those interested in growing large quantities of food to sell. But the business of farming varies greatly. In many cases food is grown because it is profitable. People need food. It's as simple as that. Once in while however, a farmer grows something because he or she thinks it tastes really, really delicious. Frank Wolff (grandfather of...

Think of your favorite soup... What does it smell like? What does it taste like? What texture does it have? Is it uniform and velvety on the tongue? There is no correct answer to these questions. Actually, I would venture to guess that there are as many different answers as there are people reading this. What is it about soup that so beckons us to retreat from our daily wanderings...

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Have you ever tasted a Wolff family recipe?  Maybe you’ve sampled one of the family recipes that our chef, Chuck Smith, crafts for our own prepared foods line: the fresh tomato salsa that fills our fridges all year round, or the guacamole that delights customers in summer and fall. But have you ever made a Wolff family recipe at home?  If you’ve had the chance to sample any of the...

As I walk across the Wolff's parking lot, it occurs to me that it has been raining for days. It makes the atmosphere of the market a little damp, but that doesn't stop the crowds from visiting the store in search of apples. I suppose it's part of the experience. It isn't often that you can pick up an apple from a bin and know that all this crazy weather...

Fireflies.  Volleyball.  Sandy toes.  Lemonade.  Grass poking through a picnic blanket.  Campfires.  Corn on the cob.  All of these bring summer vividly to mind, and fresh, locally-grown corn on the cob, with its buttery-sweet crisp crunch, is one of the perfect tastes of summer.  Summer may be coming to a close, but all the way until late September, corn is at its best.  Every day, it comes to us fresh,...

There’s this sandwich my grandmother makes. It’s easy to build and very delicious. It starts with perfectly ripe tomatoes. When the summer heat first yields vine ripe tomatoes in earnest, you simply slice them, lightly salt them, and stuff them between two toasted pieces of white bread that have been slathered with mayonnaise.  This sandwich has a healing quality. And during that long summer of 1993, the summer before I...

Did you know Pennsylvania produce has its own month?  At Wolff’s Apple House every month is a month to celebrate produce, but in August it’s official!  This year is the sixth year running that the Commonwealth has designated August as Pennsylvania Produce Month. It makes sense—the quality and availability of locally grown produce is at its absolute peak throughout the month of August.  Almost all the Pennsylvania produce our customers...

In one attempt to remove refined sugar from my family’s diet, I decided to make my own frozen desserts instead of purchasing pre-made ice pops. Many frozen ice pops in the supermarket include corn syrup and high-fructose corn syrup in the ingredients. And while there is much to be said for the nostalgia that goes along with devouring these icy confections by the pool, frozen desserts are very easily made...

It’s peach season right now at Wolff’s Apple House!  Beginning in early July, our store manager, Brian Bednarz, begins to hand-select the best New Jersey peaches available from local farms.  New Jersey is famous for its peach orchards, and since it’s warmer earlier there, the earliest peaches you’ll find in our produce bins come from New Jersey.  Within a few weeks, we begin to add peaches from nearby Pennsylvania farms. ...

Edward Behr, author of The Artful Eater, believes that the best apple you will ever eat is a stolen one. In my case, the best peach I have ever eaten was stolen from a neighbor’s fruit tree on a hot July evening in 1992. So fragrant and sweet, it tasted like...like...sunshine, like youthfulness, like summer. It remains, to this day, one of the finest culinary moments in my life. That peach tasted the way a peach should...

If you’ve visited wolfsapplehouse.com in the past, no doubt you’ve noticed our new look!  On July 15, 2011 we launched our new website, which reflects the authentic beauty of our century old store, makes it easy to find quality information about our products and vendors and in-season fruits, vegetables, food and plants.  It brings the best of what our customers love about Wolff's Apple House to the web! The website...