Roadfood Digest

Here's a couple of WFMZ videos from the Allentown Fairgrounds Farmers Market in Pennsylvania.  In this first video, Stephanie Esposito talks to vendors and customers about the price-versus-quality considerations of shopping at the Farmers Market.  In the second video, Joscelyn Moes visits the market to learn more about succotash.  Succotash?  Yes, succotash: a mixture of corn and lima beans!

Those are chicken pies we photographed at the Allentown Fairground Farmers Market.  See our Roadfood.com review here.

Valle Crucis, North Carolina recently sponsored a media tour of the area, and it is paying off.  Tim Cable of WJHL in Johnson City, TN put together a video on the Mast General Store.  You can see it here on his Tricities.com blog Cable Country.  The photo above shows honey for sale, from Michael Stern’s Roadfood.com review of the Mast General Store: “What we liked most, culinarily speaking, were the jars of mountain honey – beautiful, clear, and delicious – available with or without the comb inside the jar. We took home several pints and are reminded of this wobbly old store every time we spoon out a portion.”

Joe Tennis of the Bristol Herald Courier has written a story about Valle Crucis, with a focus on both the Mast Farm Inn and the Mast General Store.  Says Henri Deschamps, owner of the Mast Farm Inn: “Listen, man – if you spend any time here, you’ll see this place as heaven.”  Check out Michael Stern’s Roadfood.com review of the Mast Farm Inn.

Kincaid’s, the much-loved Fort Worth burger-joint-in-a-grocery, faced with a 300% rent increase, was prepared to close down Thursday until a new location could be found.  A last-minute settlement will keep Kincaid’s right where it’s been for the last 62 years.  Read more in this CBS11TV article.

There’s also some interesting info in this column by Bud Kennedy in The Star-Telegram of Fort Worth.  Seems the grocery was owned by Charles Kincaid, but the burger business was started by the grocery’s meat man, O.R. Gentry, in the 60’s.  Mr. Gentry never purchased the grocery itself.  Both businesses ended up in the hands of descendents, and it’s the current owner of Kincaid’s (the building) that was hitting the current owner of the burger shop at Kincaid’s with the rent increase.  The new lease agreement will keep Kincaid’s here for at least ten more years.

Michael Stern, in his Roadfood.com review of Kincaid’s, describes the burger as follows: “Here is one of America's great hamburger-eating experiences. It is a half a pound of beef, charred and well-seasoned, lean yet drippingly juicy, sandwiched between thick halves of a big warm bun that oozes a surfeit of condiments, onions, tomato slices, and shreds of lettuce.”

ABC7 in Chicago is on the scene in Norwood Park at Superdawg to chat with founders Maurie and Flaurie.  The occasion?  Superdawg has just turned 60!  There is a fun video piece along with an accompanying story.  One piece of news: they are planning to open a branch of Superdawg in the Chicago suburb of Wheeling.

As the Democratic candidates wind up their extended stay in the state of Pennsylvania, Senator Barack Obama took time off from campaigning to serve as a guest on Monday's episode of The Daily Show. Although most things out of Jon Stewart's mouth are very tongue-in-cheek, his Roadfood recommendation of Primanti Brothers at the end of the interview was one thing that was entirely sincere. Sure, he lacks the culinary vocabulary of Jane and Michael Stern, but we'd still be willing to make a trip to Pittsburgh for food that is "crazy good!"