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.

On the Road: Cleveland's West Side Market

Does Cleveland, in fact, rock?

I used to live with someone who watched The Drew Carey Show, and I would titter at the theme song, partly because the video was funny and partly because I could not imagine a world in which Cleveland rocked.

Then I married a born-and-bred Clevelander (Clevelandian?  Your guess is as good as mine.) and made several trips to the city, where my in-laws still live.

I'm not going so far as to say it rocks, at least not from my limited time there.  It's a big Midwestern city that's fallen on hard times.  It feels pretty familiar to this girl from Omaha, although Omaha has not suffered as much and I understand that it's becoming downright hip.  (Sidenote:  I cannot imagine Omaha being hip, per se, but it's always had one of the largest numbers of restaurants per capita of any American city.  Go figure.)

But I will say this about Cleveland:  it has a bright restaurant scene, one of the best-known food writers and bloggers, Michael Ruhlman, and maybe the best market I've ever seen.  The market alone might be reason to live there.



Check out the suckling pig in the background.



The West Side Market has more than a hundred vendors--bakers, butchers, cheesemongers, ethnic food stands--you name it, it's there.  It's the kind of place you can actually talk to the butcher about how to prepare a certain cut of meat, or find a baker who will remember your favorite kind of kolache.  The market is over a hundred years old, with the majority of the time of its current site. 

Can anyone identify what type of pastry this is?  I've never heard of a "monk," but I want one.

 

It's not fancy--it smells like fish from the many fishmongers, and there are no real amenities--but I want desperately to have it as my market.  I want to be introduced to stinky cheeses from foreign countries and be cajoled into cuts of meat that would never make it into the local supermarket.  It's a genuine throwback to a time where people had relationships with their food sellers.

Alice Waters would approve.  And it has the best felafel I've ever had.

Details:  The market is located at 1979 West 25th street and is only open four days a week:  Monday & Wednesday 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. and Friday & Saturday 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.