Bang for your bucks: Dining bargains at nearby Applebee’s easily digested
by LEN LEAR

Applebee’s is in the Andorra Shopping Center, but they are not allowed to have a sign on Henry Avenue indicating their presence in the shopping center. (Photo by Len Lear)

If there is such a thing as a silver lining to the very dark economic cloud hanging over the entire country, it’s the dramatically reduced prices offered by many restaurants — from downscale to the most upscale — to extract those dollars that consumers are increasingly reluctant to part with.

Now restaurant critics (of whom I am not one because my critical faculties are not fine-tuned enough, and my palate does not have an advanced degree) can be a pretty snobbish lot. Most usually have very little to say that’s positive about downscale and midscale chains, for example, although those chains could obviously not exist if millions of consumers did not think they were providing good value for the money.

The region’s most influential critic, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Craig LaBan, has consistently derided even the most upscale seafood and steak chains for their alleged lack of imagination and innovation, the fact that their chefs are usually required to follow “corporate” recipes, etc. (His most recent trashing was of Del Frisco’s, the enormously successful steakhouse at 15th and Chestnut Streets.)

Psychotherapy collective in Mt. Airy is offering free workshops
by Pamela Rogow

Members of the psychotherapy collective are, from left, Robin Witts MSW; Lenore Jefford, LPC; Genie Bud Ravital, LCSW; and Lauren Kahn, LSW, pictured in their office. Other members not seen here are Eda Kauffman, LSW; Catherine White, LCSW, and Pam Kelberg, LSW. (Photo by Pamela Rogow)

Mt. Airy, birthplace of Weavers Way Co-op, continues to spawn other models of successful collaborations and cooperatives.

Over the past several years, a psychotherapy practice on Germantown Avenue has evolved into a working collective. Seven therapists now share operational and professional responsibilities in a pleasant two-story private space, upstairs and up the street from North by Northwest. Legally, the practices remain separate businesses, however.

Each of the seven therapists in Mt. Airy Psychotherapy Practices (MAPP) has a specialty. Between them, they cover much of the gamut of the human condition — children and parenting, adolescents, substance abuse, grief and loss, learning issues and school, depression and anxiety, stress management, couples, women, gay/lesbian issues, etc.

Summer will not fall
Sisters work to get local diners into Food Frenzy
by PAULA M. RILEY

Summer Moragne, 30, of Germantown, has opened the Food Frenzy, a café/restaurant at 5819 Germantown Ave., together with her sister Joy Shambourger, 28, and mother Rose Ford. (Photo by Paula Riley)

We didn’t think Chestnut Hill should be the only place people could get good, healthy food,” says Summer Moragne, 30, of Germantown, co-owner of the Food Frenzy, a café/restaurant that opened last August at 5819 Germantown Ave.

Together with her younger sister Joy Shambourger, 28, and mother Rose Ford, Moragne has created a friendly, relaxing place where customers can enjoy fresh soups, a large variety of wraps and salads and healthy drinks.

“Germantown has enough pizza and cheese steak places,” says Moragne. “We wanted to provide a healthy alternative to what is available in this neighborhood.” 

Their menu includes sandwiches, wraps, smoothies, a juice bar, frozen yogurts, teas, pies and cakes. Most popular for their chicken Caesar wrap, fresh salmon wrap and homemade soups, they service a wide range of customers. 

‘Freaks’: honest, funny portrayal of adolescent pain
by JOEL HOFFMANN

Freaks and Geeks was a short-lived, late '90s TV sitcom that portrayed the pains of adolescence with more honesty and compassion than any show this reviewer has seen to date. Many other reviewers and critics around the country share this view.

If Hell is other people, then high school must be the seventh circle of the Inferno.

Disguised as a choir of archangels, the popular kids judge their subjects from high above, determining the fate of mortals according to their fashion sense, athletic prowess and sexual appeal.

Like any metaphor, this one has its limits, but there is a strong element of truth. It’s a mythical representation of what many of us faced as teenagers, a theme that flows through every episode of Freaks and Geeks, a short-lived, late ‘90s TV sitcom that portrayed the pains of adolescence with more honesty and compassion than any show I’ve seen to date.

The show focuses on Sam Weir (John Michael Daley), a 14-year-old kid struggling with bullies, puberty and unrequited love at a Michigan public high school in the early ‘80s, and his sister, Lindsay (Linda Cardanelli), a straight-A student who leaves the mathletes for a group of drug-addled underachievers known as the “freaks.”