I had just handed a piece of paper with a secret written on it to a girl in a top hat, coat tails, and the face paint of a sad clown. On this night, I was begrudgingly convinced to attend a one-woman show at Baltimore Avenue's Studio 34. The unapologetically pretentious play insisted on participatory art, requiring viewers to anonymously jot a secret on their admission ticket to gain entry. The secrets were tossed in a hat to later be redistributed and read aloud by the audience. Some were confessions of unfaithfulness, others of bottled anger. The slip of paper I pulled from the hat read, “I love hot dogs.” Looking around at the crowd of neo-crunchy, biker chic twenty-somethings, it's safe to guess animal friendly eating is a concern here. The secrecy of this guilty carnivorous pleasure made it clear, I've landed in a vegetarian/vegan mecca. And I love it.
Eight months ago I had never considered living in Philadelphia. I was settled in Brooklyn, half way to the ten-year marker of being an official New Yorker. But with no particular catalyst other than the perpetual disappointment of my bank account's balance, I started shopping for a new city. A former Brooklynite friend invited me to visit West Philly with promises of, among other things, substantially lower rent. After a handful of days exploring the city and crashing on his couch, I was converted. A few weeks later, I piled my belongings under a Chinatown bus in route to cheaper pastures.
Leaving Brooklyn, my primary concerns were being able to get around Philadelphia without a car and how my vegetarian diet would fair against the city of the cheesesteak. Fortunately, Philly puts New York City to shame in frequency and functionality of bike lanes. Now I can peddle from one side of town to the other free from the near death experiences that characterized my old life. And the food, well, for once being dubbed the fattest city in America this place has come a ways. Sure cheesesteaks haven't gotten any healthier, but conscious eaters have options, especially those of us in the vicinity of Clark Park.
Despite chilly rain or mounds of snow, loyal locals patronize the open air market year round for seasonal produce. For the weary-of-the-elements type, Mariposa, the nearby community run food co-op, provides plenty options of ethical and local goods. Of course with any co-op, you have to be willing to work a few hours a month (organizing, stocking shelves, and so forth) to gain membership. For now, you can't call it more than a food pantry, but soon they're expanding to a new location with five times the space (more on that in the weeks to come).
There are two reasons at the root of my newfound love for Philly: the aforementioned cheap rent and tofu hoagies. The Fu-Wah tofu hoagie has to be in the running for world's most iconic $3.80 vegetarian sandwich, or at least the subject of a heartfelt haiku, villanelle, limerick, something. It's that good. But I'm a sandwich guy, so I suppose I'm biased. The best part, my too-hip-for-their-own-good friends back in Brooklyn were completely unaware of the existence of such a sandwich. It's actually a derivative of the Vietnamese Banh Mi, with Fu-Wah's version on a soft roll rather than the traditional crispy baguette. For something closer to the original, try Q.T. Vietnamese Sandwich in Center City.
But I'm still mending a few heartbreaks from the move. I've yet to find anything that compares to Park Slope's Tea Lounge, and the neighborhood pizza joints continue to disappoint (Royal Pizza thumbs up; Colonial and Best House thumbs down). I also used to eat an absurd amount of tacos from a certain delicious taco truck back in Brooklyn, and I miss the authenticity of dusting off my Spanish to order food. But Honest Tom's truck at Clark Park has vegetarian options and uses local ingredients, so it's an upgrade in the bigger picture.
Good food or bad goes beyond taste. There are countless external factors that go into filling your plate, but your palate doesn't always detect the pollution and cruelty of industrial meat or the fossil fuels burned in transporting non-seasonal produce. The good news: there are also great people, like Honest Tom and the folks at Mariposa, working to create awareness around the type of food you can feel good about on every level. So consider this my homage to the progressive microcosm growing in Philadelphia. I've found myself in a place that I always wished Brooklyn would be. Goodbye Brooklyn. Hello Philadelphia.
Trevor Dye is a freelance journalist covering all things thrifty, diy, green, and vegetarian. He resides in West Philly and moonlights as a yoga teacher. His work has appeared on Brokelyn.com.
Article photograph from su1droot, via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Veg' Head" photograph from dustinj, via Flickr (Creative Commons), "Philly" photograph from camardella, via Flickr (Creative Commons).
