Spring holidays. Lenten Fish Fry suppers start at several locations today – the Riegelsville Fire Co. and the Columbia Fire Co. in [...]]]> Spring, spring, spring! At the risk of bringing on a March snowstorm, I am thrilled to welcome signs of spring. What are they – in food terms? Read on.

Spring holidays. Lenten Fish Fry suppers start at several locations today – the Riegelsville Fire Co. and the Columbia Fire Co. in Lambertville – and will continue right up to Easter. The Stockton Farmers’ Market has fish and chips on Fridays too. On a similar note, many folks celebrated Fastnacht this past Tuesday by eating yummy donuts. This tradition, observed by many Pennsylvanians of German descent, is about using up fat and sugar before Lent.

This coming Thursday is the greenest of all green Spring holidays, St. Patrick’s Day. Many restaurants and bars are of course celebrating this. Too many for me to research and put on the calendar! Go out and enjoy!

Next weekend, will be the Jewish holiday, Purim. While the story is definitely Jewish, many of the customs – dressing up in costumes, imbibing adult beverages, and eating good food – will remind others of Carnival. Who knows? Jews have lived in many countries and cultures over the last two thousand years. Maybe it just looked like too much fun to ignore. If you’re into making the holiday’s famous cookies, Hamentashen, look up my post from last year. There’s a recipe and photos of each step. Hag Sameach (happy holiday)!

Another sure sign of Spring? Ice cream parlors all over the county are reopening. Yippee! oWowCow Creamery in Ottsville, Chubby’s Dairy Barn in Plumsteadville, Dilly’s Corner in Centre Bridge and Uncle Dave’s in Yardley, to name a few. If I haven’t mentioned one of your favorites, see our post on ice cream places in Bucks County, and give them a call to see if they are open yet.

To market, to market. This Saturday, the Wrightstown Farmers’ Market will hold one of it’s winter mini-markets from 10 to 11 am at its regular location, 2203 2nd Street Pike, next to the Wrightstown Township Municipal Building (just north of Newtown). Pre-orders are encouraged but not necessary. See their website for information. (If you are coming from Richboro via Route 232, know that 2nd St. Pike is closed for the next month between Worthington Mill Rd. and Swamp Rd.)

The New Hope Farmers’ Market will also have a winter market this Thursday, March 17, at their new location, just next to the Eagle Diner on Route 202 (same location as the New Hope Flea Market). The market will be open from 3:30 to 6 pm. Come on by!

Coming up next weekend, is the 2nd Annual New Hope-Lambertville Restaurant Week, starting Sunday, March 20 through Friday, March 25. Participating restaurants are offering great deals. The week-long promotion includes a $29.95 Prix-Fixe Fine Dining or $19.95 Prix-Fixe Casual Dining at 27 restaurants in both New Hope and Lambertville. Visit the New Hope Chamber website for more details.

Save-the-date. Saturday, April 16th yours truly will be the featured guest and guide at a Spring Farm-to-Table Dinner at Crossing Vineyards in Washington Crossing. Just spoke last week with the caterer at the winery, Emily’s Café & Catering, to plan the menu. It is going to be delicious, filled with locally sourced food (yes, even in April!). The five-course gourmet meal will of course be paired with Crossing Vineyards’ internationally-acclaimed wines. For more details and to sign-up, go to their website.

For more details on any of these events, please go to our full calendar, Food Events in Bucks County. Have a lovely, warm weekend – and don’t forget to turn your clocks ahead. Daylight Savings Time begins on Sunday.

Friday, March 11:

• Stockton Farmers’ Market, Stockton, NJ [11 am - 7 pm]
• Beer Tasting @ Phillips’ Fine Wines, Stockton, NJ [4 - 6 pm]
• Fish Fry @ Riegelsville Fire Company, Riegelsville [5 - 7 pm]
• Lenten Fish Fry @ Columbia Fire Co., Lambertville, NJ [5 - 7:30 pm]
• Friday Wine & Music @ Hopewell Valley Vineyards, Pennington, NJ [5 - 8 pm]
• Spaghetti Dinner @ Delaware Valley Fire Co., Erwinna [5:30 - 7:30 pm]
• Barbara Trent @ The Centre Bridge Inn, New Hope [7 - 11 pm]
• Kindle Cafe Supper Club @ Rojo’s Roastery, Lambertville, NJ [7:30 - 9 pm]
• Opus One Wine Dinner with Roger Kissling, Stockton, NJ [7:30 - 10 pm]
• All That Jazz – Jazz Night @ Crossing Vineyards, Washington Crossing [8 - 10 pm]

Saturday, March 12:

• Stockton Farmers’ Market, Stockton, NJ [9 am - 3 pm]
• Wrightstown Winter Farmers’ Market, Wrightstown [10 - 11 am]
• St Patrick’s Day Celebration @ Crossing Vineyards, Washington Crossing [12 - 6 pm]
• Wine Tasting @ Phillips’ Fine Wines, Stockton, NJ [12 - 6 pm]
• Beer Tasting @ New Hope Beverage, New Hope [3 - 7 pm]
• Second Saturdays, New Hope [3 - 9 pm]
• Dinner @ Cafe Blue Moose, Buckingham (address provided with reservation) [7 - 9 pm]

Sunday, March 13:

• Breakfast Buffet @ Richland Twshp Fire & Rescue, Quakertown [8 am - 1 pm]
• Stockton Farmers’ Market, Stockton, NJ [10 am - 3 pm]
• Ham Dinner @ Sellersville Fire House, Sellersville [11 am - 5 pm]
• St Patrick’s Day Celebration @ Crossing Vineyards, Washington Crossing [12 - 6 pm]
• Winter Wine Concert Series @ Shady Brook Farm, Yardley [1 - 4 pm]
• Pairing Wine and Chocolate @ Crossing Vineyards, Washington Crossing [2 - 4 pm]

Monday, March 14:

• Evening in the Colonial Kitchen @ Cock n’ Bull, Lahaska [5 - 9 pm]
• Wine 101 – Class #2 – Types of Wine, Washington Crossing [6:30 - 8:30 pm]

Tuesday, March 15:

• 2-for-$25 Tuesday @ Vintage Grille, Doylestown [4 - 10 pm]
• Kitchen Knife Skills and More, Horsham [6:45 - 9 pm]

Wednesday, March 16:

• Pierogy Wednesdays @ St. Anne Ukrainian, Warrington [9 am - 12 pm]
• American Legion Meals on Wednesdays, Quakertown [11:30 am - 9 pm]
• Complimentary Beer Tasting @ the Copper Leaf Grill, Buckingham [5 - 9 pm]

Thursday, March 17:

• New Hope Winter Farmers’ Market, New Hope [3 - 5 pm]
• St Patrick’s Day Party @ Pineville Tavern, Pineville [4 - 11:30 pm]
• Pasta Dinner @ New Hope-Solebury High School, New Hope [5 - 6:30 pm]
• Sushi Night in the Wine Cellar – The Inn at Lambertville Station, Lambertville, NJ [6 - 10 pm]

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Everything—and I [...]]]> Have you ever had a Bucks County Biscotti? If not, you don’t know what you’re missing. As I write, I’m eating one of their Classic Anise Almond and it’s delicious. Subtly sweet with tiny anise seeds that give a little punch of licorice flavor and great texture. They’re really outstanding.

Everything—and I mean everything—that happens at Bucks County Biscotti is the result of the work of husband and wife team, Karen Riley and Craig Silbert. Amazingly, they are the sole employees. So baking, packaging, distribution, marketing—everything is done by these two.

I was welcomed into their beautiful 18th Century home in Hilltown—“The House that Cookies Built,” as Craig says—and learned how their success is the result of their hard work, dedication and passion for putting out a consistently great product.

Both have a background in food: Karen in baking and Craig in sales. They’ve lived in many places, but moved to Bucks County in 1990 from Manhattan. (Craig made a wrong turn on a sales trip and ended up in Doylestown, fell in love with it and they soon were living there.) Karen started making a variety of baked goods for the Doylestown Farmers’ Market and eventually some restaurants in town. Then a baby came along.

As is usually the case when a baby arrives, plans changed. Karen couldn’t keep up with the demand of fresh baked goods every day and decided to concentrate on biscotti—which have a much longer shelf life than other baked goods (about 60 days).

The business started in earnest in 1993, they moved to their current site in ‘95 and Craig joined full-time in ‘97. The rest is twice-baked history.

In their first year, they were named Best of Philly by Philadelphia Magazine. They’ve also been honored with 5 mentions (high honors) and 2 gold stars (highest honors) in a blind taste test conducted by Santé, a national food and wine magazine for restaurant professionals.

They have 7 varieties: Classic Anise Almond, Lemon Poppy, Espresso Chocolate Chip, Ginger Cherry, Cranberry Walnut (Karen’s favorite), Chocolate Hazelnut and Chocolate Dipped Classic. They also make 2 seasonal flavors: Chocolate Peppermint—dark chocolate chunks and peppermint candy pieces, dipped in chocolate and rolled in more peppermint candy pieces (available Dec. 1-Dec. 24) and Pumpkin Pecan (available late October-Thanksgiving). Incidentally, I’m now eating one of the pumpkin cookies—very yummy. Delicate pumpkin flavor, perfectly seasoned.

All their biscotti are made with the finest all-natural ingredients, no preservatives. But that’s only part of what makes these some of the best biscotti you’ll ever taste. These are truly homemade cookies. And you can taste it. It’s why so many people say, “These are just like my grandmother’s biscotti!” when they first taste them. Karen hand-cuts every one of them (in a typical week, they bake 8,000 to 10,000). The chocolate covered varieties are hand-dipped. They’re all hand-packaged. And they’re hand delivered by Karen and Craig.

A faint scent of anise was in the air as they showed me around their production area, in a building next to their home. Although the mixers and oven stood silent on this day—it was a delivery week—I could imagine the buzz in there during a baking week.

Karen's cutting board worn by thousands of knife strokes.

The long shelf life allows the biscotti to be baked one week and delivered the next. Coffee shops and specialty stores from Manhattan to Washington, D.C. carry Bucks County Biscotti (Whole Foods Markets in the mid-Atlantic region, as well.). Pretty much every place that sells their product was first convinced to do so when Craig showed up on a cold call and won them over with samples.

Locally, you can find Bucks County Biscotti at Pasqualina’s Italian Market & Deli in Blooming Glen, Casa Casale and House of Coffee at Peddler’s Village, Jamie Hollander Gourmet Foods in New Hope, Lilly’s Gourmet and the County Theater in Doylestown, Main Street Java in Souderton and Down to Earth Café in Perkasie.

They also have a “farm stand” where you can buy a bag of cookies right on the side of the road in front of their home/bakery. How great is that? They tell the story how they once gave some cookies to a driver delivering ingredients. Now every so often they’re woken in the middle of the night by a truck’s air breaks. It’s this same guy heading home from a long day of driving, but not before stopping for his biscotti fix.

OK. I couldn’t help myself. Now I’m eating a Chocolate Dipped Classic. More crumbs in the keyboard, but oh, that’s so tasty.

This is more than a story of really delicious cookies. It’s the story of dedication, passion, hard work and commitment to community. It’s the story of two people (who really didn’t want their picture taken) who are, in Craig’s words, “creating memories” through those really delicious cookies.

Bucks County Biscotti
10 W Creamery Rd.
Hilltown, PA 18927
888-391-3667
…and on Facebook

Go eat and enjoy! (And look at the cute bunnies, too, Mark says.)

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Friday, May 15th:

“My favorite part is when everyone brings their entries to the cookie booth in the morning,” says Howard Barsky, [...]]]> Calling all cookie masters! Here’s your chance to compete and show off your best. Carversville Day is this Saturday, May 16th and in addition to a host of fun activities, there will be a Cookie Contest.

“My favorite part is when everyone brings their entries to the cookie booth in the morning,” says Howard Barsky, Cookie Chairperson (great title), who has been running the Cookie Contest for the last six or so years. “Everyone is very proud of their cookies. It’s very sweet and old-fashioned.”

How does it work? Contestants must bring 4 dozen cookies to the Cookie Booth between 8:30 am and 10 am. The best cookie is decided by popular vote (the cookies are sold as a fundraiser) and the winner receives a cookie jar made by local artisan Nan Kirstein. A celebrity judge chooses winners in four additonal categories: best presentation, best brownie, most healthy and most chocolate-y.

In case you’ve never been, Carversville is a beautiful little village just northeast of Doylestown. The main square is at the intersection of Carversville and Aquetong Roads. Every year the village comes together and puts on a grand day including food, crafters, music and the Pet Parade (at noon).

This year the Pet Parade will actually be a parade. “The whole day is centered around it,” says Barsky, “but the best part is the awards at the end. It’s kind of customized.” As an example, he tells about the year that one dog, wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt, got the “Jerry Garcia Memorial Award.”

In addition to cookies, there will be  hot dogs and hamburgers, pulled pork, grilled shrimp, and the famous Carversville Inn crab cakes. There will also be more crafters this year, and live music in the morning and afternoon.

But most of all its an opportunity to taste a bit of village life. “Carversville is a pretty amazing place,” shares Barsky, who is also the town dentist. “It’s a great community, and I feel honored to be a part of it.” His favorite aspect of the day is just getting to see everyone in town.

“It almost doesn’t matter what happens,” he says. “Just spending time with people makes the day great.”

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In fact, the Pineville [...]]]> When you walk into the Pineville Tavern , a couple of things hit you right off the bat. It’s warm. Everyone – staff and customers – seem to be in a good mood. There’s a buzz of people enjoying themselves. And it feels like it’s been this way forever.

In fact, the Pineville Tavern has been around since 1742 (see its Web site for more history). It sits at the intersection of Route 413, and Pineville and Township Line Roads, straddling two townships, Buckingham and Wrightstown, in central Bucks County.

Like a lot of good things, what seems natural and effortless has a lot of intention and hard work behind it. As regulars at the Pineville, or PVT, we were curious as to how the staff was doing it and what got them there.

To find that out, you have to go to Andrew Abruzzese, owner of the PVT for the last twenty years. It was our pleasure – Andrew is a wonderful storyteller – to sit down with him and his son, Drew Abruzzese to talk about their history and their future.

“Cooking has always been a passion of mine,” says Andrew, almost as soon as we start. It began when he was a young boy, helping out in the kitchens of his grandmother and aunts, and at neighborhood events in the Italian section of Baltimore, where his mother was from, and then South Philly, his father’s childhood home. Both families’ roots go deep into Italy, his mother’s from Naples, his father’s from the mountains of Abruzzi.

His father’s father was a chef, his aunt was a chef, his father a “natural” cook. On his mother’s side of the family, his aunts catered and sold baked goods. You get the picture. Andrew comes from food.

But he was also inquisitive. He spent a lot of time hanging at everyone’s elbows to learn all he could about cooking. “I knew I could get anything out of any cook if I helped clean up,” he says. “I became an expert at cleaning up.”

That passion continued into his marriage in 1976, when Andrew became the “one who cooked dinner,” and then after the kids came along (Drew, then Phillip), entertaining for friends and family.

It wasn’t until 1988 this love of cooking and entertaining took shape in the form of a restaurant. And it almost didn’t happen. Originally, Andrew’s plan was for a family-style restaurant, designed with help from his friend Jim Hamilton (of the Hamilton Grill in Lambertville) in a property further south on 413. The deal fell through, and while sitting at the bar of the Pineville Tavern, crying in his beer so to speak, an idea was born. Joe Turner, then owner of the PVT, said, “Why don’t you buy this place?”

It turned out Turner had a sale lined up that had also fallen through. Andrew approached his accountant, who not only gave his blessing but became a partner. Roger Bonner, an up-and-coming chef Andrew had recruited from the Warwick Hotel in Philadelphia, came on board. Jim Hamilton helped design an expansion of the dining room, and the Pineville started a new chapter in its history.

As we sat and talked, Andrew’s and Drew’s philosophy became clear. “To me the recipe was simple,” Andrew says. “There are four things you need for a successful restaurant. Good food, served by really nice people, in a comfortable atmosphere, for a fair price. Those four things will get you through good and bad economies.” Woven through all four criteria: consistency.

Andrew & Drew Abruzzese

Consistency. Drew, Andrew’s 25-year-old son, has been working full time at PVT for the past three years, but he also spent most of his childhood working every corner in the restaurant. He inherited his father’s passion for food, and his eye for consistency. As soon as we settled in at a table, Drew started scanning the room. Was the lighting right for lunch? The music level? He joked about what his father would notice when he joined us. How about the picture light on his great-grandfather’s portrait on the wall behind our table? Would Dad notice it wasn’t on? (It turned out Andrew first noticed the music, which Drew had turned down so we could record the interview.)

That’s the level of detail with which the Pineville Tavern is run. When Andrew first bought the business, he and his wife, MaryLou, had a paint contracting business (which they still run today). Not knowing how things were done in the restaurant industry at the time, Andrew was shocked at the lack of consistency.

“When we ordered french fries sometimes, I would taste them and they would be different,” Andrew recounts. “So, I’d ask Roger, ‘What happened?’” “Oh, they substituted a different brand,” he’d reply. The food supplier said such substitutions were common.

“Not in my restaurant,” was Andrew’s response. “I don’t care if they’re cheaper, if you can’t provide me with what I ordered then I’ll find somebody else.”

Fair prices. Here again Andrew bucked the industry standards. At the time, the prevalent pricing model was to take food cost, add overhead, and triple it to get the customer’s price. But the food ended up costing too much, Andrew felt. “I decided to take the cost of the meat, and triple it.”

He also got a lot of advice, much of it not very good. “One man said, ‘If it’s too cheap, people are going to think it’s not good.’ I thought about that for about three seconds and said, ‘If it’s good…it’s good. What are you talking about?’” he exclaims. “It’s cheap, and it’s good. And that’s kind of our mantra, still to this day.”

Drew concurs. A few years ago when the economy was high, and Bucks County was buzzing along, he pressured his father to raise prices. But Andrew resisted. He knew what was fair, says Drew, and knew the bubble was going to burst. Besides, raising prices went against his business model. “When people start telling me, ‘Andrew, it’s too cheap. You could get two dollars more for everything in your restaurant,’ I say, ‘Good. That’s the way I like it.’”

Now, Andrew says, when other restaurateurs call him to commiserate over the slow economy, and they ask him about business, he is embarrassed. “We’re doing fine,” says Andrew, grateful he’s stuck to his philosophy - and that customers have stayed loyal.

Service by really nice people. In a previous post, we mentioned the Pineville is one of those places where they know your name, and what you drink. For example, there’s the bartender Sue, there for seventeen years and dearly loved by staff and customers. There’s Roger Bonner, the chef, who started out with Andrew twenty years ago. There’s Dan Yingling, the restaurant manager. And all the wait staff, bar staff and hosts who are “like family.” It shows in how customers are treated.

A comfortable atmosphere. Sitting in the Pineville, you’d think the dining room hasn’t changed for a hundred years. To the contrary, a lot of work has gone into creating the atmosphere, but not in the way of today’s corporate restaurants. Many of the pictures on the wall came from one morning’s foray through the Golden Nugget flea market in Lambertville.

Rather than “clean up” the back dining room with it’s ancient cooking fireplace, Jim Hamilton kept it. The walls were treated specially, not white-washed, to give the look of years of soot and cigarette smoke. And the blackboard, with its specials changing daily, has been a mainstay of the PVT since Andrew took it over in 1989.

If you’ve been to the Pineville recently you’ll have noticed the construction going on at the back of the property. A major expansion is underway. First the parking lot will be expanded, adding twenty-five more spaces for a total of seventy plus (a storm water control system must first be installed). Another dining room, seating thirty-two, will be added out back, on the other side of the fireplace, with a six-seat bar and a rear entrance. The kitchen will be rebuilt and a take-out store will be added, as well.

Good food. If you’ve eaten at the Pineville, we don’t have to tell you the food is good and consistent. The menu is varied, and the blackboard specials supplement it. The homemade ravioli are fresh, soft and slightly chewy, with a light marinara sauce (all those hours cooking with his Italian aunts obviously paid off for Andrew). Order a hamburger medium-rare, and it arrives medium-rare, a detail many restaurants don’t bother with.

Whenever possible, the Pineville buys local vegetables. And why not? With so many local farms nearby, it’s a crime not to. Come in during the summer and early autumn to the PVT for a special called, “Freddy’s Tomatoes.” It’s made from Slack Farm tomatoes, grown by Freddy Slack, a few miles down the road in Forest Grove. The deep red tomatoes are sprinkled liberally with blue cheese and red onions with a light oil and vinegar dressing. And asparagus season is almost upon us, so look for that on the daily blackboard too.

Interestingly, the Abruzzeses don’t just talk about their restaurant. They heap praise on their colleagues, as well. Andrew has been a customer of the Kopper Kettle in Feasterville for years. He loves their Buffalo Shrimp and finally got the recipe from the owner. He’ll add the dish to the PVT menu soon as “Kopper Kettle Buffalo Shrimp.” Bowman’s Tavern also got praise from Andrew and Drew (watch for our post on our excellent meals there, soon).

To sum up, I’ll use Andrew’s words. In 1990, Philadelphia Magazine chose The Pineville Tavern as one of the “50 Best Bargain restaurants,” putting the new restaurant on the map. “That made it okay to come into a place with beer signs in the window,” he laughs. And on any given night, you’ll find a busy parking lot filled with vehicles from pick-up trucks to luxury cars to SUVs.

Let us know about your experiences at the Pineville, and please tell us about your favorite taverns in Bucks County.