Happy spring to all you Lehigh Valley food lovers. I’m back in Easton to explore a new wonder at the Simon Silk Mill. Among the many arts-related businesses that inhabit this complex is Mario’s Italian Market and Eatery.

For those of you who have not yet experienced the repurposed silk mill, here is a brief history. Herman Simon and his brother opened the 13th Street Simon Silk Mill in 1883 — where it flourished for half a century. By 1900, the mill had grown from 250 employees to 1,200. By the 1920s, the silk industry was the largest industry in the Keystone State, and one in three silk mill workers in the U.S. was a Pennsylvanian.