Multi-Pocket Canvas Market Tote

Merrill embraces a new way to get dinner on the table.

We're celebrating the artisans, writers, makers, and more who make up the diverse and inspiring world of food. Today: Wendy Smith Born shares a day at Metropolitan Bakery with Supply Chain, from baking bread in the wee hours of the morning to shopping for cheese at the local farmer's market. Wendy Smith Born is the co-owner of Metropolitan Bakery, a Philadelphia institution since it was founded in 1993. Together, she and pastry chef James Barrett have created a home for their quality, artisanal bread and other baked goods, as well as local jams, cheeses, and spreads. In addition to their bakery, Wendy and James co-authored the Metropolitan Bakery Cookbook, brimming with recipes for their signature cookies, cakes, pies, and more.  Here she shows us what a typical Saturday looks like around the bakery, along with pastry chef James Barrett -- their days start early.  

Each week in Kickstarter Love, Feed52 will feature a Kickstarter project that focuses on food and the community. Basically, it’s about cool people doing cool things with food. This week, we bring you a food mini-series from an award-winning filmmaker. We try to be as conscious as possible when we eat. More often than not, we buy organic, we buy local, we favor small producers. Somehow, our asparagus tastes better if we can call the farmer who harvested it by name. These are all contributions to our food system on a local level, but can we do more? Before we can play a role in redefining it, though, we must first understand what it is, how it works, and the changing of hands our food experiences in going from plot to plate. We’ll soon have help. In a new, on-screen reincarnation of the internationally syndicated radio show, Deconstructing Dinner aims to “inspire all of us to question the origins of our food, and in doing so, stimulate the emergence of new and vibrant food cultures.” Its six-episode series will focus on ways that we, as conscious eaters, can play a more involved role in the food system from which we are nourished. Watch as world-renowned chefs and experienced farmers explain how to raise your own chickens, or make your own sausage, all in an effort to fortify your investments in your own dinner.Contribute twenty-five dollars, and in return, you’ll receive a digital download of the complete season. One hundred will get you a whole slew of rewards, including a signed photograph from a set, a Klean canteen, and the entire first season. All pledges will go toward Deconstructing Dinner’s production budget, so that funding-willing, they can teach us how to eat smarter with their series by the spring of 2013. Deconstructing Dinner - A Mini-Series on Food from Kickstarter