The 'burgh

We're back settling in to NC, but I wanted to give a quick recap of our Pittsburgh visit:

On Saturday we went down to the Strip District, one of my favorite areas in the heart of Pittsburgh. The Strip is a glorious mish mash of cheap Steelers merchandise, handcrafted art, flowers, panhandlers, and tons of ethnic and local foods. First stop for us, as always, was to pick up a couple of Mung Bean pancakes from the stand outside Sam-Bok. Those guys are out there year round - in the winter you can warm your hands on the little foil packaging.

This summer was somehow the first time in all my years that I've gone to the Farmers' Market there. I was like a kid in a candy store - people definitely looked at me weird when I was like "OOOOH, Cauliflower!" at the first stand. There was just such a variety of produce that we either can't get in Wilmington or is out of season: dill, cauliflower, broccoli, apples, portabello mushrooms, shallots, and greenhouse-grown lemongrass of all things. Slow Food had a stand there and were giving out some tasty bite sized portions of a salmon panzanilla type salad, and a sausage something-or-other - honestly with all the little samples and tidbits you can pick up in a stroll through the Strip, there's really no reason to get lunch - but with all the delicious options, who could pass it up? We somehow resisted Primanti's and opted instead for pizza at Sunseri's Bella Notte. We finished our Strip visit by picking up 20 ears of perfect peak-season corn for $5.00 from the Amish farmers down by Wholeys.

From there we headed to a farm owned by Mike, a friend of my father-in-law. My F.I.L works for him during the winter, helping out in the greenhouses and whatnot, so Mike gives him produce and plants in the summer. He was generous enough to extend his free-picking offer to us, so we went off into the fields to stock up on eggplant, squash, zucchini and banana peppers. Mike sells most of his vegetables wholesale to grocery stores around Pittsburgh. I was actually extremely impressed with how much local produce you could get in the grocery stores around there - they put us to shame. We ended up getting 20 lbs. of local tomatoes from Kuhn's for .89/pound - are you kidding me? No way you're getting that deal at Harris Teeter.

When it was all said and done, we came home from Pennsylvania with shallots, apples, cauliflower, dill, corn, tomatoes, squash, zucchini, eggplant, banana peppers, peaches, blueberries, potatoes, jam and venison. It was fun to shop local somewhere other than Wilmington, and even better to be able to pick a lot of it ourselves.

Some photos from Pittsburgh:

The Strip District

The Farmers' Market


Slow Food Pittsburgh


Sal and Sal go picking


Mike's farm

One of the fruits of our labor