May Is Here To Stay

It looks like a decent weekend weather-wise and lots of good food and fun to be had. Check out our online calendar, Food Events in Bucks County for more details. Here’s the run-down:

Friday, May 15th:

• Wine Concert Series at Shady Brook Farm,  6 – 9 pm, Yardley. Weather permitting. Free admission. Jerry Watkins will be the musical entertainment.
• Wine 101 with Eric Miller, Chaddsford Winery Tasting Room & Wine Shop, 7 – 8:30 pm, Peddler’s Village, Lahaska.

Saturday, May 16th:

• Doylestown Farmers’ Market, 7 am – Noon, Doylestown 
• Carversville Day, 10 am – 3:30 pm, Carversville Square, Aquetong & Carversville Roads, Carversville. Read about it on our post below.
• Ham Dinner at First Baptist Church, 4:30 – 7 pm, Lambertville.
• Film & Discussion: “Food Glorious Food,” 5 - 10 pm, ACME Screening Room, Lambertville.  

Sunday, May 17th:

• Breakfast at Sellersville Fire House, 8:00 am – 1 pm, Sellersville.
• Breakfast at Riegelsville Fire Company, 8 am – 2 pm, Riegelsville.
• Sunday Funday: Car Show, Shady Brook Farm, Noon – 4 pm, Yardley
• Open Hearth Cooking Demonstration, 1 – 4 pm, Pennsbury Manor, Morrisville.
• Tips on Pairing Food and Wine Workshop, 5:30 – 7:30 pm, Crossing Vineyards & Winery, Washington Crossing.

Have a sweet weekend!

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Cookies and Carversville

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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Tidbits: Lumberville General Store Opens

Shuttered by the effects of several floods and construction on River Road, the Lumberville General Store  and village meeting place is open for business once again. Read more in the Bucks County Herald story.

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The Pineville Tavern: The Right Recipe

Bucks County Taste has moved! You can read this post on our new site.

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?”

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