To please the eye, and palate
My eye would always light as a child on the chipped redware pie plate in the corner cupboard, my parents' names scratched forever in the glaze. That same pottery - one of the earliest folk arts of the Pennsylvania Dutch - captivates me to this day. And I've vowed this year to get up to the old stone schoolhouse in rural Reinholds where since 1962, Ned Foltz (who at 67 is cutting back) has used local clays in his treasured, hand-thrown homages to those pieces of tradition.
My eye would always light as a child on the chipped redware pie plate in the corner cupboard, my parents' names scratched forever in the glaze. That same pottery - one of the earliest folk arts of the Pennsylvania Dutch - captivates me to this day. And I've vowed this year to get up to the old stone schoolhouse in rural Reinholds where since 1962, Ned Foltz (who at 67 is cutting back) has used local clays in his treasured, hand-thrown homages to those pieces of tradition.
Foltz's platters, bowls and lidded pots are sold at Village Pottery in Intercourse, among other shops, and will be on sale at the workshop from noon until 3 p.m. Dec. 1 and 2, and roughly those hours each Saturday until Christmas. Hint: You can show up as early as 8 a.m. to check out the selection. Foltz redware, most pieces between $85 and $125, North Peartown Road, Reinholds (off Route 897 about 7 miles north of the Reading-Lancaster Exit on the Pennsylvania Turnpike). 717-336-2676. www.foltzpottery.com. (1)
Sure, you can get ingredient-centric recipes off epicurious.com. But see how thrilled you make someone with the gift of a Web site. For its sheer amibition and range - and recipes as diverse as braised red cabbage and apples, Polish bigos, or warm bay scallops, red banana and clementine salad - I'd be a lot happier getting local girl Aliza Green's latest kitchen aid (weighing in at more than 1,000 pages), drawing on her chefing in Philadelphia's trendier kitchens, her personal, home-style favorites, and old Jewish cookbooks. It's an unabashedly fat, laptop tome, vetted by one of the city's tried and true culinary originals.
Starting With Ingredients: Quintessential Recipes for the Way We Really Cook, Aliza Green, Running Press, $39.95 (at bookstores, or amazon.com). (2)
When Harry Young, Brewerytown's legendary candy-maker, died last year, hard-core customers worried that his magical holiday clear toys might be gone for good. But, remarkably, 90 percent of his collection of antique Victorian molds has been procured by the brothers Berley - Eric and Ryan - who are making fresh batches of the glassy, sugar-candy stags, heroic sailing ships, and Santas in their Old City digs. In Harry's memory, I'm reserving the usual place of honor on my mantel.
Handcrafted clear toys, small, $3 each; large, from $9 to $25, the Franklin Fountain, 116 Market St., 215-627-1899. www.franklinfountain.com. (3)
West Chester chocolatier Christopher Curtin is piling up national accolades for Eclat Chocolates, his obscenely luscious, oozingly caramel-filled truffles and superb ganaches. Some of them speak sotto voce of Earl Grey and lavender, but the star anise, Balinese long pepper, and the calvados, especially, burst with startling flavor. The chocolate is from single-origin beans Curtin custom-blends in the back of his West Chester storefront. (Note: The preservative- free squares have a two-week shelf life; the caramel truffles, a month.)
Eclat Chocolate, 20-piece box, $28.50; 12-piece box, $18.50, 24 S. High St., West Chester, 610-692-5206. www.eclatchocolate.com. (4)