Elwood Restaurant

09/12/2026

Frog Soup
William Woys Weaver gave me an old colonial PA Dutch recipe for Frog's Legs soup, and I had to put a variation of it on the menu.   

The soup is an interesting one, frog's legs, scallions, cabbage and smaller spaetzle- called gnepplin, and flavored with spicebush and cloves, it makes a delicate broth that has a sweetish almost chicken/corn flavor- without any of those things. Truly delicious, and for added fun I put a few slices of pickled cattails and garnish with flowers.  

Frog's legs were very popular here, and Bullfrog Fricassee was a Philadelphia specialty at one time, so in honor of that past history,  we flour and sear some frog legs in butter with the soup. 

Stayed tuned for Will's Philadelphia history cookbook called Pepperpot City- coming out October 13! 

08/07/2026

Join us for another Slow Food Philadelphia Joyful Dinner!
August 23 at 6pm. $55

https://www.exploretock.com/elwood/experience/606555/slow-food-joyful-dinner?date=2026-08-23&size=2&time=12%3A00

08/01/2026

A Day on the Delaware

I was riding through the steel and concrete canyons of Fishtown, my Stetson drenched in sweat, meandering along the dusty trail, while trying to stay in the shadows to keep from the oppressive heat, as I made my way to the post office. I came upon a table sitting outside the local plant shop, and that's when I saw it- purple sage.
It reminded me of Riders of the Purple Sage. The quintessential Western novel, written in 1912 by Zane Grey, set the tone for the genre for years to come with its main heroine, gunfights, cattle theft, and outlaws. Set in Utah in the late 1800's, the book became extremely popular on its release and has had many movie adaptations. 

Now, why would a Pennsylvanian themed restaurant be talking about a Western subject? Well, Zane Grey may have been born in Ohio and was known for Westerns, but he has history in PA, going to the University of Pennsylvania on a baseball scholarship.  He lived in Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania for a while and now it's the Zane Grey Museum and his final resting place, preserved and ran by the NPS. It was there where he got his first article published about a fishing trip with his brother on the Delaware River. In the article he is bantering with his brother while they fish; they catch a few nice smallmouth bass, and Zane hooks a huge fish that eventually breaks the line.  He had a passion for fishing and after he got famous with Riders of the Purple Sage, he went on many fishing trips and wrote articles for Outdoor Life magazine. He was one of the first millionaire authors, who made his money just from writing and royalties, and he had his professional start here along the banks of the Delaware river. 
Walleye
Creamed corn
Wild rice

07/20/2026

Elwood Restaurant and Chef Adam have a little feature in this YouTube video. The hosts wanted to have some real iconic Philly food.

Subscribe here - https://barstool.link/DonnieAmerica is turning 25...

07/17/2026

Donut Peach and Peach Ice Cream

The Women's Centennial Committee put together the National Cookery Book, a compilation of recipes to help fundraise for the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, which was a massive 6-month festival that had over 10 million people visit our city. In the preface to the ice creams the editor extolls the virtues of the modern age and touts the convenience of saving time and labor with the new ice cream machines, writing, "By internal machinery and mechanical appliances, they beat, stir and scrape, and, in short, perform the whole operation of freezing the cream properly, it being necessary only to attend to a few simple directions, which accompany the machines. All this, too, is done in a marvelously short time. "   

So it is in that spirit that when we turn to their recipe for peach ice cream- "Peaches, when used for flavoring ice cream, are mashed into a pulp and sweetened with a portion of the sugar and are then stirred into the cream in the can." - We stir our peach puree into our Pacojet canister and marvel at the wonder of convenience 150 years later.

Fortunately, Jenny's prized peach trees didn't suffer the fate of the rest of the region, and we have a pretty good harvest, we will see how long they last.  

07/12/2026

Thank you Vibrant Compass and The Manual for the feature on Elwood Restaurant. We loved having everybody in.
Article in the link in bio.

06/27/2026

We will be closed for vacation starting tomorrow. We will be back July 9th! See you then

06/20/2026

Guinea Fowl
A bird native to Africa, the domesticated species traveled the world, being a good farm bird -eating bugs, ticks, and grubs, and also shouting the alarm when danger is near. But also is a very delicious bird, tastier than a chicken and a little fattier, Thomas Jefferson was said to be very fond of them. I get mine from Earl Keiser . The last picture is from Claire Rosen new artistic work - Birds of a Feather. A book with portraits of birds set against decorative backdrops- Link in the bio to buy a copy.

06/08/2026

A well loved condiment stretching back over 250 years, but that you don't see much anymore here in Philadelphia was Pepper Sherry. William Woys Weaver in his The Roughwood Book of Pickling gives a recipe and a very interesting story of a famous brand of pepper sherry.

It has a great flavor -spiciness of the chilis mixed with the sherry is a very interesting flavor combination. We serve it here at Elwood with our turtle soup and it adds a delicious spicy element to the dish.

05/25/2026

Rose Dessert
Rosehip puree
Rose sorbet
Almond Cake

05/11/2026

Clams and Fiddleheads in a Pennsylvanian Age
Clams cooked in a ramp sauce with fiddlehead ferns and asparagus.

When out exploring the majesty of the forests and streams in our Penn's Woods this Summer, don't forget the rich often forgotten world of ages past. Snapshots in time, not with modern technology, but preserved in rock.  I'm talking about fossils of course. While you won't dig up any dinosaur bones in PA, there are certainly interesting finds to be discovered. 
There is even a geologic age, a sub period of the Carboniferous Era, named -The Pennsylvanian.  
The booklet produced by the - Common Fossils of Pennsylvania- says "Plant fossils are found in many parts of Pennsylvania in the rocks and coal that formed in extensive swamps during the geological period of time called the Pennsylvanian Period (330 to 290 million years ago) "

You can also find many other corals, mollusks, gastropods, and arthropods. Our state fossil is the trilobite if you didn't know. 
The fossils found by above show an abundance of life; they could possibly be one of the most common fossils found in PA, called Brachiopods. These were clam -like creatures, but not related to clams and mollusks, that covered much of the ancient sea floors in the Paleozoic Era, now there are only a few species left.  
So this Summer, be on the look out for fossils and contemplate what life was like millions of years ago in the swamps and the seas of Pennsylvania.
Remember to fossil hunt responsibly and look up the for more information.



credit to Pennsylvania Geologic Survey

Hoskins, D. M. 1999, Common Fossils of Pennsylvania

(2nd ed.): Pennsylvania Geological Survey, 4th ser., Educational series 2, 19p.

Illustrations by Albert E. Van Olden and John G. Kuchinski