The Inky's Rick Nichols came by the potluck (with some delicious baked ricotta and provalone cheeses from Claudio's, a crazy Italian dessert and vino) to meet the gang. Apparently, he was also working on a story [front page of today's Inquirer Food section!]. Unfortunately, the story was primarily a print journalism thing so URLs took up a lot of space (but they are all correct - first thing I did was check them all when I saw the online version - just double checked and noticed e's blog Foodaphilia's link is broken so she gets a double mention here: go here for good stuff!) and there wasn't enough room for all the fun quotes from everyone at the potluck.

Philly's got such an incredible food scene in all corners of the city. From the physical eateries to the paid reviewers to us: the lovers of food who pay someimtes ungodly sums of money for the food we love; scour the city to find the best deals on Heath toffee bits (if we can find them at all!); try dishes from every lunch cart in the line to keep things new; spend hours in the kitchen trying to get that recipe you saw online just right; sweat in the summer baking goods in the oven for friends you care about; gorge yourself with just one more bite because you must. I'm glad the dead tree people of old media are getting interested in what the rest of us are doing for little to no pay - certainly without an expense account.

But it should be noted that some of the Philly gang are getting monetarily rewarded for their passion, expertise and excellent prose: Marisa, one half of the on-screen duo that makes up Fork You! is the lead blogger over at Slashfood; David of Philafoodie is an instructor at The Wine School on Fairmount and a restaurant critic for The City Paper and Dynise of The Urban Vegan has an urban cookbook coming out in late 2009 to name a few of the success stories.

Philly's food scene is tops. And we've got 60+ foodie blogs to prove it with new ones popping up quicker than we can keep track of and subscribe to. Take a look at this [growing] list!

• 1 Wine Dude
• A Food Coma
• An Equal Opportunity Eater
• Beer Lass
• blogalicious
• Burning Pasta
• BYOB Map
• Challaman's Bread Blog
• Chicken-Fried Caviar
• City Joints
• Classic Wines
• CP: Meal Ticket
• Dish + Bitch
• Eatin' Good in the Hood
• Farm to Philly
• Farofa and French Fries
• Finding Philly
• Five Spice Duck
• Foobooz
• Food Country Restaurant Reviews
• food enthusiast
• Food Nerd
• Foodaphila
• foodzings
• Fork You
• fries with that shake
• Gastronomy Philly
• Gruel Omlet
• Holly Eats
• I'll Eat You
• Illadates
• John & Lisa are Eating in South Jersey
• Lavender Sky
• Le Petit Cochon
• Living on the Vedge
• Lyle's Guide
• Mac & Cheese Review
• McDuff's Food & Wine Trail
• Menupages Philadelphia
• Menutopia: Philly
• Minor Gourmandry
• Mutual Menu
• no counterspace
• Oh Kitchen What Won't You Do?
• Philadining
• Philadining - Quickies
• PhilaFoodie
• Philly Food and Drink
• Philly Food Guys
• PhillyCooksLocal
• PhillyEats
• Refined Sugar
• Robert's Market Report
• Spilt Wine and Sticky Rice
• StellaLand
• Straight from the Farm
• The Great Cheese Quest
• The Onion-Bean
• The Plastic Bowl
• The Real Potato
• The Student Stomach
• The Urban Vegan
• Trav's Gone Gluten-Free
• TV Food Fan
• Veggicurious
• when words fail
• Wild Thyme Kitchen

Just a little housekeeping - we've updated the RSS feed to http://feeds.feedburner.com/MessyAndPicky. It'll just help us keep track of things a bit. There's also a subscribe via email form on the sidebar of the frontpage as well.

Every Wednesday from last week through mid-November, Farm to City brings to City Hall it's very own farmers' market. The market is open from Noon to 6p and is right in the inner concourse. Above is a shot of the end stall selling cut flowers and herbs (I bought some nice chives from this stall) in front of Billy Penn's tower.

There were 3 stalls on opening day including the one above selling strawberries, asparagus and various jams (which people eagerly tasted). My friend Joanna, who is a market manager for Farm to City, tells me that they'll be up to about 7 or 8 when it's full with 2 youth groups selling their produce too! One of the groups is Mill Creek Farm (profiled in the CityPaper); I forget the name of the other group, but I do remember that they are being helped by the good people at Weaver's Way Co-op.

Above is a shot of the asparagus on sale at the same stall mentioned earlier. In addition, there was also a stall selling farm fresh eggs. It's a beautiful day outside - if you're around City Hall between Noon and 6p, head on over to check out the scene. Farm to City runs a bunch of other markets in town as well and they can be found here.

We're determined to buy as much local goods during the farmers' market season as humanly possible. Fruits, veggies, cheese, bread, herbs, plants… We're well on our way already with a house full of new plants: a tomato, mint, basil and lettuce plants from the Headhouse Square market and chives from this market. I just visited my family in NY and came back with two cucumber seedlings from my grandma's garden too! Here's to eating fresh and locally.

Several weeks into spring, the city's farmers' markets run by The Food Trust and Farm to City are about to open up once again. While the Fair Food Farmstand and Sue's Produce (haven't been making it out to the farmers' markets at Fitler Square and Clark Park at all) has been keeping our kitchen lively through the winter, we can't wait until all that fresh and local produce starts to pour into the city.

The biggest market of them all opens this Sunday, the 4th: The Headhouse Market at Headhouse Square on 2nd St between Pine and Lombard Sts under the shambles [pictured above]. Not sure how many vendors will be there the first week, but it'll eventually be around 30 or so.

Starting the next week are the following markets:
Tuesdays starting May 6th:

• South & Passyunk Farmers' Market, open from 2pm - 7pm

Wednesdays starting May 7th:

• Aviator Park, 20th & Race Sts, open from 3pm - 7pm

Thursdays starting May 8th:

• Farimount Ave Farmers' Market, 22nd St & Fairmount Ave, open from 3pm -7pm
  Our favorite market for it's DELICIOUS bread, ketchup, eggs and cookies!

Saturdays starting May 10th:

• Rittenhouse Farmers' Market, south side of Walnut St between 18th and 19th Sts, open from 10am - 3pm
• Clark Park Farmers' Market, Baltimore Ave & 43rd St, open from 10am - 2pm
• Fitler Square Farmers' Market, Pine & 23rd Sts, open from 10am - 2pm

Farm to City has their full list up here, but we can't find the full list for The Food Trust, but it should go up here soon.

Thanks to Danie for passing along a list of openings!