The Hard Way: Why craftsmanship is the lifeblood to these four makers

TARTINE BAKERY
“Tartine Bakery rejects convenience when it means compromise in quality or vision: Convenience is a description rarely applied to artisanal craft production. I’ll gladly take it when, and if, I can find it on our terms. Pretty much everything we do is the harder way—but I’m always looking for an easier way… just with no compromise. Two things we are soon making even harder as we grow: No more pre-brewed coffee starting next week; only pour over Blue Bottle. And focus on fresh milled flour from more regional grains for both our bread and pastry with the opening of Tartine Manufactory in the fall of this year.” —Chad Robertson, CEO/Co-Founder

PHILLY BIKE COALITION
“It’s hard to imagine now, but most cities were never designed for cars. Most roads and sidewalks in the 19th and early 20th centuries were seen as public spaces to which all citizens had equal rights. Today, we use terms like “jaywalker” to describe a person who’s had their right-of-way taken from them.

As urban centers have grown in recent years, so has cycling. In Philadelphia, nearly 40,000 people regularly ride their bikes to work in spite of our streets having been completely taken over by thousands of speeding cars, trucks and buses. Bicycling represents, in cases of distances of four miles or less, the fastest, most convenient way to travel in a city.”

But bicycling can be scary for someone not used to riding alongside several-thousand pound motor vehicles. Groups like the Bicycle Coalition of Greater Philadelphia are attempting to quash this fear by lobbying our city to install physically-separated bike lanes on our streets, and off-street trails for cyclists and pedestrians that provide safer spaces and ease some tensions cyclists often feel on city streets.

The act of being a cyclist actually makes you, and everyone around you, safer. When more people use street-visible alternatives to motor vehicles, drivers are forced to adapt and inevitably slow down. Slower streets makes a potential cyclist more likely to join you on the road, and as more people ride their bikes, cities become more likely to build safe infrastructure, which additionally makes everyone safer and, well, gets more cyclists out on the streets.” —Randy LoBasso, Communications Manager

TAD CARPENTER CREATIVE
“As designers and artists, we chose a road that is not paved but rocky and constantly changing. Our parents wanted us all to be lawyers and doctors, but we said no. We decided to take a risk. We decided to follow our hearts and do something we love. That decision was making a conscious effort to do something the hard way. As a designer who runs his own studio, there are a lot easier ways to make a living. Those other options aren’t better or worse, but at times seem as if they could be an easier lifestyle. But those other options, they ain’t me. Those options are not why I chose to do what I get to do. One of the greatest gifts of being a creative is being able to take comfort and joy in controlling your own destiny. Your life, your work, your outcome is based on what you make in the world. That is a very liberating and scarring thing. I wouldn’t change it for a second.” —Tad Carpenter, Founder

BUTCHER & LARDER
“When we decided to open The Butcher & Larder, its sole purpose was to not so much reject convenience, but do our part to bring back the way things used to be. At our store, there is total transparency. You see large cuts of meat in our cases alongside handmade sausages, pâtés and deli meats like summer sausage, roast beef and ham. And everything is cut to order based on what the customer wants. Behind the shop, though, there is a window into our cutting room where you can see us cutting whole animals that we buy directly from the farm. None of this is easy. None of this is conventional or convenient, but to me there is no other way. Why should I be just another meat market that orders pork chops by the case and salami from a factory? In our cases you see cuts of meat that may be unfamiliar, but a quick conversation with one of the butchers will not only send you home confident in how to cook it, but with the understanding that there are a lot more cuts of meat on an animal than the ones you know, and those cuts are just as (if not more) delicious and usually a little less expensive. We could make things easier on ourselves, but it would totally defeat the purpose of why we are here.” —Rob & Allie Levitt, Founders