Amazing looking pastries.

Black truffle cheese!

Well, despite the weathermen predicting a big Nor’easter for this weekend, our DD, my DH, my MIL and I, all planned to make our annual pilgrimage into the heart of South Philly. A revisit of the Italian Market is a must at least once a year. I can’t tolerate hot oppressive weather so we tend to go in the Spring or Fall. We have our tradition Italian market stores that we go to. Most are along 9th Street, except the pastry shop which is on Christian St. One of the markets is known for making fresh pasta, another one carries exotic meats, a kitchenware store, a cheese shop, fruit and vegetable stands and the pastry shop. Today we went to all of the shops except for the exotic meats butcher although we did look in the window. The thing that caught my eye was boneless Iguana. The iguana fillets looked like boneless chicken thighs. The Butcher also had some sort of skinless animal hanging upside down in the window, which we weren’t sure what it was? It did not sit well with my MIL. I went into a different butcher shop as I was looking for lamb shanks and was able to get two nice looking ones.

What we bought: At the pasta store: Black Raviolis, and freshly made capellini ~ At the veal and lamb speciality store: Lamb shanks ~ At the kitchenware store: Seafood forks and a small mesh strainer ~ At the Cheese Store: Gorganzola, garlic & herbs spreadable cheese and Moliterno Al Tartufo which is a semi hard cheese with ribbons of black truffles coursing through it. The cheese has an earthy taste, and will probably be as close as I will ever get to tasting a black truffle due to the expense. At the Pastry store: A marscapone cheese stuffed eclair, a whipped cream stuffed pastry pictured above on the left of the photo, 6 elephant ears and 1/2 pound of chocolate Italian cookies. Also we stopped into a Olive Oil & Baslamic Vinegar store: I tasted then bought black walnut infused Baslamic vinegar. Although we saw stand after stand, block after block of fruits and vegetables we didn’t purchase any.

We also went to a local speciality market as they had samples for tasting. DH and I shared a fresh mozzarella cheese, basil leaves, tomatoes, with bell pepper pesto and a dark balsamic vinegar drizzled over it sandwiched between two pieces of focaccia bread which we purchased and a bottle of spring water. It was delicious!

From there we went to the local Amish market. I bought coleslaw, soft pretzels, a dark chocolate  solid bunny, barley sugar hard candy and chipped steak to make beef jerky. It was an amazing day and it was nice that the weather although in the 40 degree F range was perfect for walking the streets of Philadelphia.