Culinary WHIRLED /EDIBLE Allegheny Excerpt

Red, White, and Blueberry

Discover local food markets and regional restaurants in the current
issue of Edible Allegheny Magazine, on newsstands now.

Photography by Megan Wylie


Flag-waving Fruit Salute

By Nicole Barley

Experience berry bliss this summer with Edible Allegheny Magazine. Stop by Soergel Orchards to pick your own blueberries and strawberries. Susan Lynn at Sand Hill Berries agrees with our enthusiasm. “I hardly know anyone who doesn’t like raspberries. Oh yes, they are my favorite,” she tells us. Soon after the Fourth of July there will be boatloads of blueberries of the Blue Ray, Blue Crop, Elliot, and Duke varieties. Not only do they have plenty of the fruits, fresh and frozen, they also bake up lots of berry-filled desserts, including a three-layer cheesecake pie.

Next, get a glass and pour Glades Pike Winery’s Black and Blue berry blend. The grape-free fruit wine is a sweet-tart treat. Besides the more obvious match-ups, such as cheesecake and chocolates, manager Liz Diesel divulges her favorite time to drink the dram — brunch! “It goes really well with pancakes and waffles,” she says with a laugh.

Meanwhile, Friendship Farms is busy growing blueberry and wild black raspberries, which they jar, along with raspberries and strawberries from other local farms, for delicious jams. The spreads are an undeniably yummy match with their fresh-baked breads. Naomi Costello, whose sons, Mike and Joe, head up the farm’s operations, says the preserves are a big hit with her grandchildren. “We have to watch we don’t put the jam and bread on the table first at dinner, or they will sit there and go through the whole jar and spoil their meal.”


Wild on the Range

Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm raises American bison by keeping them in their wild state.
By Leslie Hoffman

“Buffalo Dan” Koman

Once hunted near the point of extinction, the American bison population has experienced a resurgence in existence in the past 25 years — there are now an estimated 250,000 bison in the United States — in part because of farmers like “Buffalo Dan” Koman working to introduce people to the appealing taste and healthful characteristics of bison meat. Koman owns and operates Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm
in Edinboro, Pa.

More and more Americans are discovering buffalo at their grocery stores, such as Whole Foods, and at restaurants: In Pittsburgh, Bistro 19 and Palate Bistro both serve bison on their menus. Media mogul Ted Turner has also made bison a pet project of his, opening the first Ted’s Montana Grill in Columbus, Ohio, in 2002, featuring bison burgers and bison short ribs on the menu; now, the chain now boasts more than 50 restaurants in 18 states.

At Koman’s farm, the bison are 100 percent grass-fed, dining on the Edinboro grass for six months of the year, and on hay from the farm throughout the winter. The herd of adult animals ranges the 150-acre farm, being slowly cajoled to move from pasture to pasture.

“They’re not really a herding animal,” Koman says. “We allow them to do what they’ve always done, as wild animals, to naturally roam and graze on their own.”

Friendship Farms, 147 Friendship Farm Lane, Latrobe. 724.423.1545. Glades Pike Winery, 2208 Glades Pike, Somerset. 814.445.3753. Sand Hill Berries, 304 Deer Field Road, Mt. Pleasant. 724.547.4760. Soergel Orchards Farm Market and Garden Center, 2573 Brandt School Road, Wexford. 724.935.1743. Wooden Nickel Buffalo Farm, 5970 Koman Road, Edinboro. 814.734.2833.

To purchase the rights to reprint this article, please email Jennifer Diamond.

Join the community Edible Allegheny.com