By Gretchen McKay, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Philadelphia is famous for its cheesesteak sandwiches.

Yet, if you’ve ever been to the city’s Reading Terminal Market on Arch Street in Center City (a favorite haunt when I was in paralegal school), you’ve probably also seen the long lines in front of Tommy DiNic’s. (If you know, you know.)

The star of this iconic sandwich counter, which has been drawing crowds since it opened in1977, is a succulent, slow-roasted Italian roast pork sandwich topped with sharp provolone and drippy, garlicky braised broccoli rabe (also known rapini). It’s a decidedly messy nosh as the ingredients can, and probably will, spill out as you eat it.

As tough as it is for a Pittsburgh girl to fall in love with something from Philly (my husband excluded), I have to admit it’s pretty incredible. I get the signature sandwich every time I’m in town, and never regret it.

This sub recipe (or should we say hoagie?) from America’s Test Kitchen is a riff on that storied sandwich served on a sesame-seeded Sarcone’s Bakery roll. Spicy Italian sausage stands in for the thinly sliced roasted pork that is a three-day process at DiNic’s. It also includes savory, tender slices of portobello mushrooms cooked with fennel, fresh rosemary and a touch of soy sauce. Shredded provolone goes right into the pan with the meat and veggies for a melty, we’re-all-friends finish.

Like DiNic’s, this recipe spotlights broccoli rabe. It’s a cruciferous green that looks like leafy broccoli, but as a member of the Brassicaceae family, is actually more closely related to the turnip. Its flavor is more bitter than broccoli, and the greens can also be fibrous, but the two veggies are interchangeable in this recipe. I used long, tender stalks of Broccolini instead of broccoli rabe, which I couldn’t find in my local grocery store.

Don’t skimp on the pickled red cherry hot peppers as a final flourish. They’re only mildly spicy, and you can’t beat that extra kick of flavor.

I used 6-inch (Mancini’s) sausage rolls instead of 8-inch sub rolls, so I had enough filling for five sandwiches. Be sure to toast the bread until it’s quite brown and crispy. Otherwise the filling could turn the sandwich into a (still delicious) soggy mess.

Wrapped in aluminum foil and reheated in a 350-degree oven for a few minutes, any leftovers make a great lunch the next day.

Philly-style Sausage and Broccoli Rabe Subs

PG tested

• 4 8-inch Italian sub rolls
• 3 tablespoons extra virgin oil, divided
• 3 garlic cloves, sliced thin
• 1 pound broccoli rabe, trimmed and cut into 1/2 -inch pieces
• 1/4 plus 1/8 teaspoon salt, divided
• 8 ounces hot Italian sausage
• 1 pound portobello mushroom caps, wiped clean, and sliced 1/4 -inch thick
• 1 teaspoon fennel seeds, cracked
• 1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 1 teaspoon soy sauce
• 4 ounces shredded sharp provolone cheese
• 2 tablespoons chopped or slice jarred hot cherry peppers, optional

Adjust oven rack to middle position and preheat to 450 degrees.

If needed, slice rolls to make them easier to open (without slicing all the way through). Use spoon or your fingers to scraped inside of rolls and remove all but 1/4 i nch of interior crumb; discard removed crumb or use to make bread crumbs or croutons. Set aside while you prepare filling.

Heat 1 tablespoon oil and sliced garlic in a 12-inch nonstick skillet over medium heat until garlic is light golden brown, 3-5 minutes.

Add broccoli rabe and 1/4 teaspoon salt and cook, stirring occasionally, until tender, 4-6 minutes. Transfer to bowl and cover to keep warm.

Heat 1 teaspoon oil in now-empty skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Add sausage and cook, breaking up meat into small pieces with wooden spoon, until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a bowl.

Add 1 tablespoon oil to fat left in skillet and heat over medium-high heat until shimmering. Add mushrooms and remaining 1/2 teaspoon salt. Cover and cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms have released their liquid, 3-5 minutes.

Uncover and continue to cook, stirring occasionally, until mushrooms are well browned, 5-7 minutes. Reduce heat to low.

Clear center of skillet and add remaining 2 teaspoons oil, fennel seeds and rosemary. Stir in soy sauce and cooked sausage, then stir in cheese until melted. Remove from heat and cover to keep warm.

Arrange reserved rolls on baking sheet and bake until lightly toasted, about 3 minutes.

Divide mushroom and broccoli rabe mixture evenly among rolls. Top with cherry peppers, if using, and serve.

Serves 4.

— adapted from “Mostly Meatless” by America’s Test Kitchen

©2025 PG Publishing Co. Visit at post-gazette.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By MARK SCOLFORO

GARDNERS, Pa. (AP) — Sam Cooper had just trekked 7 miles through a rain-sodden stretch of the Appalachian Trail when he sat down outside a little country store in Pennsylvania to take on its ice cream challenge.

Nearly 40 minutes and 2,500 calories later, the dairy farmer from Chapel Hill, Tennessee, was polishing off the final titanium sporkful of chocolate chip cookie dough on Tuesday and adding his name to the list of “thru-hikers” who have celebrated the trail’s halfway point by downing a half-gallon of ice cream.

By the end Cooper, 32, whose trail name is Pie Top, was calling the experience “pure misery.”

“I don’t think anybody should be doing this,” Cooper said cheerfully. “This is not healthy at all.”

The ice cream challenge is thought to have begun more than four decades ago at the Pine Grove Furnace General Store in Gardners, a few miles north of the current true halfway point on the 2,197-mile trail. Thru-hikers, as they’re known, are the fraction of the trail’s 3 million annual visitors who attempt to walk its entire length in a single, continuous trip.

As they slog their way north through Virginia and Maryland, the ice cream challenge is a regular topic of conversation among thru-hikers at shelters and campfires, said Stephan Berens, 49, a psychiatric nurse from Nuremberg, Germany.

Berens, whose trail name is Speedy, polished off his black cherry and vanilla in about 25 minutes after completing 17 miles on the trail that day — and with seven more to go that afternoon.

‘The most free I’ve ever felt’

Trail experts say hikers can need up to 6,000 calories a day, a practical challenge when food needs to be carried up and down rocky terrain. The slender Berens figures he’s lost about 20 pounds since starting April 8.

“I thought it would be worse, but it’s OK,” said Berens, smiling and patting his stomach after finishing the half-gallon. “Such a crazy idea.”

Zeke Meddock, trail name Petroglyph, didn’t bother timing himself but finished his choice of a quart and a half carton of chocolate chip cookie dough and a pint of strawberry. The diesel mechanic from North Amarillo, Texas, began his hike on March 27, two months after finishing a stint in the U.S. Army.

“You’re basically walking away from life,” said Meddock, 31. “It’s the most free I’ve ever felt.”

So far this year, about 50 thru-hikers have finished the challenge, earning the honor of having their photos posted on a store bulletin board. In a notebook to record their thoughts, Chicken Louise wrote on May 24: “Life choices?” The next day, Seagull weighed in with, “I feel bad,” and Hyena issued a cry for help: “It was very fun for the first 15 minutes. Now, I (and my family) want to die.”

The ice cream challenge record, less than 4 minutes, was set two years ago by a man with the trail name Squirt. Two decades ago, the mark to beat was about 9 minutes.

Thru-hikers who want to attempt the record may only allow the $12 worth of ice cream to start to melt in the sun for a few minutes. They must be timed by a store employee.

“It’s called the half-gallon challenge,” Cooper said. “Very appropriately named.”

Bragging rights and a spoon

Bruce Thomas, a 41-year-old disability support worker from Medicine Hat in Alberta, Canada, passed on the ice cream challenge, opting instead for a breakfast sandwich and another one for the road.

“It’s early morning and I’m pretty sure I cannot do it,” said Thomas, trail name Not Lazy.

Those who do finish in a single sitting are awarded a commemorative wooden spoon — and bragging rights for the rest of their hike. Some people get sick. Others wash down the ice cream with a hamburger.

The ice cream challenge is one of several quirky traditions and places along the trail. There’s a shelter in Virginia where hikers confess their sins in a logbook, a two-hole outhouse in Maine with a cribbage board between the seats and a free canoe ferry across the Kennebec River that’s considered an official part of the trail. And at Harriman State Park in Tuxedo, New York, hikers encounter the renowned “Lemon Squeezer,” a narrow rock formation.

About one in three people who launch a thru hike take the roughly 5 million steps required to go the distance. They most often walk from south to north, starting in Springer Mountain, Georgia, and wrapping up 13 states later at Maine’s Mount Katahdin.

The trek typically takes six months but the current speed record is about 40 days, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. Meddock said there’s talk that a man on the trail behind him may be on pace to break it.

There’s also been a lot of discussion among hikers about the extensive damage along the trail in southern states from September’s Hurricane Helene. But mostly they think and talk about walking.

“It’s always hard,” Thomas said. “It’s going to be hard. I never think about quitting. I only think about how I can do it.”

By TERRY TANG

Chef Phila Lorn was not necessarily aiming for “quote-unquote authentic” Cambodian food when he opened Mawn in his native Philadelphia two years ago. So when he approached some Cambodian teen patrons, he braced himself for questioning.

“Someone’s going to say something like, ‘That’s not how my mom makes her oxtail soup,’” Lorn said. “So I walk up to the table. I’m like, ‘How is everything?’ And the kid looks up to me and he goes, ‘It doesn’t even matter, dude. So glad you’re here.’”

It was at that moment that Lorn realized Mawn — the phonetic spelling of the Khmer word for “chicken” — was more than a noodle shop. It meant representation.

In June, he will be representing his dual cultures — Cambodian and Philly — at his first James Beard Awards, as a nominee for Best Emerging Chef. In the food world, it’s akin to getting nominated for the Academy Awards.

Cambodian restaurants may not be as commonplace in the U.S. as Chinese takeout or sushi spots. And Cambodian food is often lazily lumped in with the food of its Southeast Asian neighbors, despite its own distinctness. But in recent years, enterprising Cambodian American chefs have come into their own, introducing traditional dishes or putting their own twist on them.

Many of them were raised in families who fled the Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror, which began 50 years ago and killed about 1.7 million people. Since then, the Cambodian community in the U.S. has grown and set down roots.

Through food, these chefs are putting the attention back on Cambodian heritage and culture, rather than that traumatic history.

Dr. Leakhena Nou, a sociology professor at California State University, Long Beach who has studied social anxiety among post-Khmer Rouge generations, says the Cambodian diaspora is often seen by others too narrowly through the lens of victimhood. In 2022, she publicly opposed California legislation that focused only on genocide for a K-12 curriculum on Cambodian culture.

“It’s a part of their history so they shouldn’t run away from it but at the same time they should force others to understand that that’s not the only part of their heritage, their historical identity,” she said.

What is Cambodian cuisine?

Cambodian food has sometimes been hastily labeled as a mild mix of Thai and Vietnamese with some Chinese and Indian influence. But, it has its own native spices and flavors that have been used throughout Southeast Asia. Khmer food emphasizes seafood and meats, vegetables, noodles, rice and fermentation. Salty and sour are prevalent tastes, Nou says.

“It’s actually a very healthy diet for the most part in terms of fresh vegetables. Cambodians love to eat fresh vegetables dipped with some sauce,” Nou said.

Signature dishes include amok, a fish curry; lok lak, stir-fried marinated beef; and samlar koko, a soup made using seasonal produce. Nou recalls her father making it with pork bone broth, fish, fresh coconut milk, lemongrass, vegetables and even wildflowers.

Cambodian migration to the U.S.

It was a half-century ago, on April 15, 1975, that the communist Khmer Rouge took over Cambodia. For the next four years, an estimated one-quarter of the population was wiped out due to starvation, execution and illness.

Refugees came in waves to the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. Most took on low-level entry jobs with few language barriers, Nou said. These included manufacturing, meatpacking and agricultural labor. Many worked in Chinese restaurants and doughnut shops.

The U.S. Cambodian population has jumped 50% in the last 20 years to an estimated 360,000 people, according to the Census 2023 American Community Survey.

Cooking Cambodian American

Lorn’s family settled in Philadelphia in 1985. The only child born in the U.S., he was named after the city (but pronounced pee-LAH’). Like a lot of Asian American kids, Lorn was “the smelly kid” teased for not-American food in his lunch. But, he said, defending his lunchbox made him stronger. And he got the last laugh.

“It’s cool now to be 38 and have that same lunchbox (food) but on plates and we’re selling it for $50 a plate,” said Lorn, who opened Mawn with wife Rachel after they both had worked at other restaurants.

Indeed, besides popular noodle soups, Mawn has plates like the $60 steak and prohok, a 20-ounce ribeye with Cambodian chimichurri. Prohok is Cambodian fermented fish paste. Lorn’s version has lime juice, kulantro, Thai eggplants and roasted mudfish.

It sounds unappetizing, Lorn admits, “but everyone who takes a piece of rare steak, dips and eats it is just like, ‘OK, so let me know more about this food.’”

May, which is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month and when Cambodia conducts a Day of Remembrance, is also when Long Beach has Cambodian Restaurant Week. The city is home to the largest concentration of Cambodians outside of Cambodia.

Chad Phuong, operator of Battambong BBQ pop-up, was a participant.

Phuong came to Long Beach as a child after fleeing the Khmer Rouge, which murdered his father. After high school, he worked at a Texas slaughterhouse and learned about cutting meats and barbecue. In 2020, he pivoted from working in the medical field to grilling.

Known as “Cambodian Cowboy,” he has been profiled locally and nationally for brisket, ribs and other meats using a dry rub with Cambodian Kampot pepper, “one of the most expensive black peppers in the world.” There’s also sausage with fermented rice and sides like coconut corn.

The pitmaster recently started mentoring younger vendors. Contributing to the community feels like building a legacy.

“It just gives me a lot of courage to present my food,” Phuong said. “We don’t need to talk about the past or the trauma. Yes, it happened, but we’re moving on. We want something better.”

More Cambodian-run establishments have flourished. In 2023, Lowell, Massachusetts, mayor Sokhary Chau, the country’s first Cambodian American mayor, awarded a citation to Red Rose restaurant for being a Beard semifinalist. This year, Koffeteria bakery in Houston, Sophon restaurant in Seattle and chef Nite Yun of San Francisco’s Lunette Cambodia earned semifinalist nods.

Lorn, an admirer of San Francisco’s Yun, says he still feels imposter syndrome.

“I feel like I’m more Ray Liotta than Nite Yun,” said Lorn. “Whether we win or not, to me, honestly, I won already.”

Meanwhile, he is preparing to open a Southeast Asian oyster bar called Sao. It’s not intended to be Cambodian, just a reflection of him.

“I don’t want to be pigeonholed,” Lorn said. “And it’s not me turning from my people. It’s just me keeping it real for my people.”