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Italian day laborer with basket of beans she has just picked. Seabrook Farms, Bridgeton, 1941. / Marion Post Wolcott (Library of Congress)
Good morning, everyone!
My son's back at college, serious and tragic events are happening in New Jersey and the world, a big pile of long-delayed house projects awaits my attention, and all I can think about is what to do with the latest batch of tomatoes from the backyard garden.
It's a problem for me about this time every year, when my farm town-suburb is teeming with life: Field workers silhouetted against morning mist as they pick bell peppers and the first butternut squash; narrow lanes flanked by walls of corn we'll be eating in early September; kids getting the last of their summer ya-yas out before school starts.
And in farmer's markets, grocery stores and backyards, it's a riot of red tomatoes, bouquets of basil, cucumbers, lettuces, and pumpkin vines just starting to get their groove on. It makes me want to cook.
My late father used to tell us stories about being a boy in the 1930s, and how each summer he'd spend a few weeks "camping" at a farm near Swedesboro with my grandmother and aunts as they escaped the South Philly heat to make some extra money picking crops.
As the Depression worsened, the photographer Arthur Rothstein documented these groups for the Farm Security Administration. His captions talk the about women "from the Italian section of Philadelphia" and others who in those days pulled the food from the ground here.
Rothstein spent time with Black farmers at the Eighty Acres community in Glassboro, crop dusters at Seabrook Farms in Bridgeton, cherry pickers in Millville and oystermen in Bivalve, documenting working and living conditions. (Rothstein's photos, along with thousands of other Depression-era images of New Jersey by photographers including Dorothea Lang and Carl Mydans, are all available here, searchable by county, and it's a rabbit hole I highly recommend.)
My father got misty-eyed remembering running through fields playing tag with the farmer's kids, and when I go out to the garden in the morning and take a deep breath of tomato vines and earth, I can almost feel him standing next to me.
And then I can hear him asking what I'm going to make with all those tomatoes, or if I feel like frying that eggplant or roasting it, or wondering how much more zucchini we can eat before we all turn green.
Like a lot of you, I love reading the stories we publish on NJ.com about new restaurants opening and I hate hearing about old ones closing. But confession time: The older I get, the more I'd rather cook something myself and dine at home. Our NJ Takeout Stakeout videos make my mouth water on the regular (seriously check out that Pakistani hot chicken!), but you're much more likely to find me in my own kitchen, trying my hand at chicken karaage. Over in our Jersey Eats group on Facebook, we spend a good bit of time debating which pizza is best -- I mean, it's Jersey -- but the photos being shared tell me a lot of us are not only getting dinner on the table every night, but turning it out. Come by sometime and let's talk about what you're cooking with all of Jersey's bounty.
Also this week, catching up with a former Jet, but is it a cheesesteak?, the return of high school sports, the milk crate menace, and upstream, red team: COACH HACK: Remember Christian Hackenberg? The former Jets quarterback and fellow Penn Stater, is done with pro football and is now following his bliss in South Jersey (aren't we all!). Our Darryl Slater caught up with Hackenberg and it's a story you'll cheer. Don't miss it.
JUST CALL IT TASTY: As a native Philadelphian, I remain unconvinced that the juicy, frizzled beef-and-cheese on a poppyseed Kaiser roll at the fabled Donkey's Place in Camden is properly called a cheesesteak (sorry, Bourdain). But whatever you call it, it's a damn good sandwich and the expansion of the Donkey's empire is good news for your taste buds. 'TIS THE SEASON: If it's the week before Labor Day, it must be time for high school sports. And how lucky are you to have the state's best team of reporters following all the boys and girls teams you care about? Get all the coverage here, and sign up for the free newsletter! THE LATEST FOOLISHNESS: Just do us all a favor and don't try walking across a mountain of milk crates, OK? You're not Super Mario, for one thing, and hospitals and urgent cares already have enough to do without removing shards of plastic from your body when you fall. Because you will fall. SCARLET KNIGHTS FOR DAYS: Rutgers football kicks off Thursday against Temple, but soccer is underway and our sports reporters, columnists and photographers are all over it. And don't miss our Rutgers Sports News newsletter -- sign up for free here. Finally, while I was off last week, Pete Genovese unleashed his massive, statewide project documenting The Greatest Thing About Every Town in New Jersey. You know I represent South Jersey, so I was hoping he wouldn't scrimp on the best part of state and I wasn't disappointed! What's the best thing about your town?
P.S.: More sfogliatelle than Christopher Moltisanti can shake a stick at.
P.P.S.: Speaking of that bakery scene from The Sopranos, I hear Joseph Gannascoli, who played Vito Spatafore, was in North Wildwood checking out the sandwiches at Antney's Grub recently. Have you spotted any famous faces at the Shore this summer?
Amy Z. Quinn Audience Editor
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