Queen of the Hill

Six days.

That's longer than I have been away from this blog since I started it in July.  I'm practically getting separation anxiety.

This past weekend David and I went on a long-overdue visit to see my parents in St. Louis.  We ate incredibly well and my parents were also kind enough to host our friends Scott and Kathy, who moved to Kentucky but came up to visit.  Scott and Kathy married David and I, so they have a special place in our lives.

 

Scott and Kathy outside the Anheuser Busch brewery in St. Louis, a surprisingly fun tour.



One of the highlights of the trip was walking St. Louis' "The Hill" neighborhood, which was settled by Italian immigrants in the later part of the 1800s and remains a hub of Italian culture today.  There are two good-sized grocery stores, DiGregorio's and Viviano's, as well as butcher shops, bakeries, a gelateria and of course the bocce ball club.

If you're interested in Italian culture in the Midwest, this is a must-stop destination.  Despite the city of St. Louis falling on hard times, the Hill remains vibrant and bustling.  My father stood in line outside the Missouri Baking Company to get cannoli for Saturday's dinner.  Lots of places claim to have the best cannoli in St. Louis, but the lines outside Missouri Baking Company make a strong statement that theirs really might be best.

I don't really like cannoli, and theirs are awesome.

Stop at one of the two groceries (or both) to fill up your trunk with high-quality salumi, cheese and fresh pasta, along with Italian wine.  I found varietals represented in both of their wine departments that I haven't seen in many places in the United States.  And the prices?  For the quality, dirt cheap.

I preferred Viviano's.  It feels like a relic from the 1950s, slightly dingy and crammed to the brim with products.  Fifty kinds of olive oil?  Check.  Twenty varieties of fresh ravioli?  Check.  A cheese and meat counter with a sassy counterman who knows every olive, meat and cheese in his area?  Check.  It isn't as organized or as well-lit as DiGregorio's, but I loved the chaos of it. 

After purchasing a case of wine, along with some olive oil, dried pasta and items for Saturday's dinner, I couldn't resist the gelateria.  Called Gelato di Riso, it's just a block down from Viviano's and has at least twenty flavors of both fruit-flavored and creamier gelato, and they'll let you have two flavors in a dish.  The lime gelato was to die for, creamy and tangy, and was even better next to the pomegranate gelato, which was sweeter and silkier.  My mother and Scott both flipped over the seasonal eggnog gelato, and David pretty much refused to let anyone at his blood orange gelato. 

This neighborhood makes for a great walking tour, and also claims some top-notch old-school Italian restaurants.  If you're anywhere near St. Louis, it's worth the detour.