The Fair Food Farmstand has moved into their spacious digs along the 12th Street side of the Reading Terminal Market and Friday their having their official Grand Opening.

Starting at 10:30 there will be various speakers including food and nutrition writer Marion Nestle as well as a tasting reception.

Head down and celebrate with them.

Also, check out these links for more on the new Farmstand:

Fair Food Farmstand Move Update [Messy and Picky]
New and Improved Fair Food [The secret is salt]
Now Open: The Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market [Meal Ticket]
Fair Food Farmstand [Official Site]

Come out to the Reading Terminal Market tomorrow evening to support Fair Food and the Fair Food Farmstand. There will be lots of great food, drink music and prizes.

The party will feature artisan chocolate, local cheese, fresh bread, beer and spirits.

Raffle prizes will include gift certificates from Southwark, Tria, the Reading Terminal and Cosmic Catering among others.

Tickets are available from the Farmstand (inside the Market opposite the Metropolitan Bakery) for $10 or at the door for $15. Money raised will go to the farmstand which is moving to the 12th Street side of the market and expanding in size by over 100%. The new space will have refrigeration and  a wider selection of produce.

The fundraiser runs from 6:30 to 9pm.

See more details after the jump.

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Rick Nichols details the Fair Food Farmstand that aims to take over Rick’s Steaks location at the Reading Terminal Market.

So by spring – if Fair Food nails down its end of the financing – it will move from the market’s deepest interior to its big-windowed “front door” along 12th Street, its baskets of potatoes and parsnips and fiddlehead ferns reminding passersby that, yes, though an Amish rib stand and Golden Bowl Chinese, Pearl’s Oyster Bar and Bassett’s Ice Cream counter look out on the sidewalk here, this is still – in its DNA and best aspiration – part farmers market, and not just a place to eat lunch.

Making a stand [Philadelphia Inquirer]

Rick’s, the cheesesteak stall in Reading Terminal Market that was at the center of an ugly, embarrassing and very public tenancy battle with market management – a battle which ended up in court and which owner Rick Olivieri ended up losing – now stands empty. 

There was talk – which turned out to be just that – that Tony Luke’s, another local cheesesteak slinger – would be muscling into the location once Rick’s got the boot. Since then, though, not a peep on a potential tenant. Well, until now. Just who is in negotiations for the space? Read on after the jump.

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This week we hear that some prices are going up and some prices are going down at the Fair Food Farmstand, but the real news is that someone laid an egg. An emu egg!:

The most unusual new product at the Farmstand is without a doubt the EMU EGGS from Boody Mill Emu Ranch in Sewell, NJ. Just one of these gorgeous dark teal eggs is the equivalent of 8-12 chicken eggs and can be cooked in all of the same ways – they have a light flavor and cook up fluffy. Rather than cracking your eggs, Marcus at Boody Mill suggests that you blow out the contents (using the old-fashioned method of making small holes at either end and blowing through one) in order to preserve the unique shells. These shells can be displayed ‘au natural’ or used as an artistic medium for etching and painting – there are numerous websites with instructions on how to do this.

An interesting twist on Easter brunch!

Fair Food Farmstand [White Dog Community Enterprises]

Will you be food shopping this weekend? If you’re interested in doing it in a fresh-and-local fashion, the Fair Food Farmstand is the place to go.

They’re stocking some interesting new local cheeses that we had the opportunity to sample yesterday, including a “blue cheddar” that marries the savory and stinky qualities of both varieties of cheese, plus a mild, addictive “Telford Tomme” both from Hendrick’s Farm in Telford. Local cheeses haven’t been quite up to snuff, at least compared to the other milk products that come from Pennsylvania cows like this and this, but Sarah Cain, co-manager of the Farmstand, tells me that’s all about to change, based on her recent visit to the PA State Agriculture conference. Local farmers are hiring cheese consultants (like this guy) and learning the finer points of artisan cheesemaking.

If you’re dying to snap into a Slim Jim, but are grossed out by what might be inside, you could give one of their new organic beef sticks from Countryside Organics in Quarryville a shot – they’re made from grass-fed animals and are nitrate-free.

Fair Food Farmstand [White Dog Community Enterprises]

The Fair Food Farmstand in Reading Terminal Market has a slew of selections for your cooking pleasure this week, including broccoli rabe chicken sausage from Griggstown Quail Farm, Seven Stars Farm biodynamic yogurt and in an intriguing new cheese:

Make sure to ask for a sample of the remarkable English-Style Cheddar from Otterbein Acres in Newburg, PA. John and Lena Fisher make this cheese by hand with raw milk from grass-fed Jersey cows. In accordance with English tradition, the cheese is covered in lard and wrapped in muslin, then aged in their underground cellar for four months. The result is both sharp and earthy, rich and complex. 

Lard. Who doesn’t love it?

Fair Food Farmstand [White Dog Community Enterprises]

This week the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal Market has Country Time Farm nitrate-free sausage on sale for $4.50/lb, raw whole milk from Kingfisher Dairy and — just in case you can’t eat your greens in adult form — teeny-tiny micro-greens from OH Produce! in Kempton.

Celebrity sighting at the stand! Author Michael Pollan stopped by last week while in town for his speaking engagement at the Free Library. Farmstand manager Sarah Cain reports that Pollan interacted with both the stand volunteers and one very lucky Hubbard squash.

Fair Food Farmstand [Official Site]

If you’re the sort that enjoys food shopping and then, uh, cooking, check out the Fair Food Farmstand at Reading Terminal Market. This week they’re stocking raw-milk cave-ripened cheeses from Valley Shepherd Creamery, chicken pies from Griggstown Quail Farm and organic kale and sweet potatoes from Landisdale Farm.

We love the Farmstand, but prefer to purchase items there that don’t involve turning on a stove, like Betty’s Tasty Buttons and Pequea Valley Yogurt. Eating local and being lazy are not mutually exclusive.

Fair Food Farmstand [Official Site]