May 31, 2007 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Local Life

Even mutts feel like royalty with Queenie’s Pets
by LEN LEAR

Adina and one of her pals, Percy, wear each other out in Pastorius Park.

It’s often been said that every dog has his day, but the lucky ones spend their days with Adina Silberstein, even in a dog-eat-dog world. Adina’s Mt. Airy-based company, Queenie’s Pets, is part of a phenomenon gaining a toe-hold (or a paw-hold) in upscale neighborhoods around the country. That trend is the professional dog-walker/pet-sitter, once the purview of the teenager next door but now one of the fastest growing businesses in the country.

For people to whom their pets are four-legged children dispensing unconditional love and non-stop face licks, the kid next door — who may or may not be reliable, who may or may not understand those who regard Fido and Fluffy as veritable family members, who may or may not feel that scooping up fecal matter is a worthwhile enterprise — just doesn’t cut it.

Here’s the scoop on new ‘Gelato’ at Chestnut Hill Farmers’ Market
by PAT STOKES

Mt. Airy resident Amanda Robinson is proud of new stand, “A Lot o’ Gelato,” in the Chestnut Hill Farmers’ Market. (Photo by Pat Stokes)

A Lot o’ Gelato” — what a wonderfully tricky title for Amanda Robinson’s new gelato stand in the Chestnut Hill Farmers’ Market. Leave it to owner Amanda to come up with something so clever and appealing; this is a young lady with know-how, determination, and a mind of her own. Twenty years old, one year of college (Arcadia) behind her, she was aware of a strong desire to strike out into something new and different, not just college.

Her dad, Tom, is retired, dabbles in insurance. Diane, her mother, is a sales rep in the federal banking world. Her father helped her sort out her questions and think it all through. So when the gelato stand came on the market just about at the end of her first college year, the idea of running it appealed to her, and her dad encouraged her to go for it. He had “discovered” gelato on a trip to Italy, and was convinced it could stand up to the ice cream craze any day.

So here she is happily scooping up delicious gelato, and after only two weeks things look quite promising. When I sat on the stool there for the interview, customers were coming and going just about non-stop. Later I spoke to two people I met in the market as they walked along spooning up their gelato from small plastic cups. “How is it?” I asked. “Do you like it?” The answers were enthusiastic. “I love it” or “It’s really good.”

Bruno’s a second home to CHC students for 18 years
by Mary Price Lee & Richard S. Lee

Tim Bruno, left, and brother Carl congratulate each other on 18 years of success in front of the restaurant’s vintage-look juke box. (Photo by Richard S. Lee)

Tim and Carl Bruno are modest entrepreneurs. Overseeing a panoply of services, they work long hours doing what they love best — preparing and serving food. Whether Tim is offering his incomparable peanut butter pie or Carl is preparing for a catered event, the food is paramount.

Bruno’s Restaurant, perched on the corner of Northwestern Avenue and Germantown Pike, is a second home to Chestnut Hill College students and a welcome port-of-call for Forbidden Drive walkers and just about anyone in the area with a yen for a hot cup of coffee, good food and casual conversation. So far, no horseback rider astride her pony has visited the restaurant, but then, Tim and Carl have not provided a hitching post for this purpose! Indeed, if the Brunos want local color, this wouldn’t be a bad idea. It could augment the bike rack that is out front.

Eaten alive by jealousy of college kids
by JENNIFER NAGEL

For the past two years, at precisely this time of year, I have gone through what I like to call “college lag.” It’s like jet lag, but it lasts much longer. In other words, I desperately miss my carefree college days, and it’s depressing to know there’s no way I can ever get them back.

Brahms, ‘Sleeping Beauty’ and Hill church concert
by MICHAEL CARUSO

Soloist Valerie Amiss stars in a stunning performance of Sleeping Beauty at the Academy of Music from June 1 to 9. (Photo by Paul Kolnick)

Chestnut Hiller Ignat Solzhenitsyn brought the 2006-07 season of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia to a close with a Sunday afternoon concert, May 20, in the Kimmel Center’s Perelman Theater. The Choral Arts Society’s Chamber Chorus joined Solzhenitsyn and the orchestra for two works in the first half; then conductor and orchestra performed the Serenade No. 1 in D major by Brahms.

Prior to intermission, the audience heard the little known “Begrabnisgesang” (Funeral Hymn) and the far better known “Schicksalslied” (Song of Destiny). Though both scores are relatively short in length, they soar in spirit and throb with emotion in ways that Brahms’ purely instrumental works rarely do. Whereas Brahms’ monumental command over structure is the paramount characteristic of his symphonies, serenades and chamber music — with both heart and soul following the lead of intellect — his choral music and songs, so passionately tied to the words, reverse the ratio. Even though they’re composed with formal expertise, those works intended for choirs convey and even reveal the emotional romantic that is somewhat hidden beneath Brahms’ classical surface.