A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphia’s Italian Market…

November 24, 2008 By 10 Comments
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I recently flew up to Philadel­phia for a birth­day soiree thrown by two of my fave peo­ple, Meowmix and Reese at one of my favorite restau­rants and in between hang­ing out with good friends, shop­ping and such, I also took some time to head over to my favorite culi­nary hang­out in Philadel­phia – the Ital­ian Mar­ket.

One thing I MISS about not being at least in dri­ving dis­tance of Philly is the air­line restric­tions with lug­gage. No longer am I able to load up my suit­case with spices and good­ies to take back to Orlando. Basi­cally, my thought is that while my friends are crash­ing from par­ty­ing the night before, I love to take the car and zip down to 9th Street and wan­der the Ital­ian Mar­ket aim­lessly with my cof­fee in hand as I take in the sights, smells and sounds. I always have such great con­ver­sa­tions with the retail­ers and cus­tomers alike and, appar­ently, I must look like a Philly gal because this last trip, a tourist stopped moi and asked for help with find­ing some good spots to check out in town. (And Meowmix will tell you that I nor­mally have this mean mug face when shop­ping to avoid the overzeal­ous sales peo­ple so if I’m that calm in the Ital­ian Mar­ket and approach­able, you know I’m in heaven).

So this rainy, Sat­ur­day morn­ing, I decided to zip on down to the Mar­ket and get some blog fod­der for Cook­ing In Stilet­tos. Plus I need to fon­dle pots at Fantes, see if I can find some new cook­books, pick up some spices and stock up on Pump­kin Spice Cof­fee. As I’m turn­ing onto 9th Street, who walks in front of my car with HIS cof­fee but my old floor pro­ducer from TheShow back in the day – Ren­nie. How utterly ran­dom. After a quick convo (and so I wouldn’t hold up traf­fic), promises to call later, assur­ances that I would be home again, etc. I shot down 9th Street and started look­ing for a park­ing space.
Now y’all know park­ing in Philly is at a pre­mium, so I have a few tricks I use – side streets, care­ful atten­tion to the signs (don’t need to be on an episode of Park­ing Wars) and after care­ful prayers and putting it out there, a spot was pro­cured. I found one a few streets over, chan­neled my inner par­al­lel park­ing diva and while my park­ing wasn’t sooooo great (I’m rusty – shoot me), I grabbed my purse and headed for the crowds. As I didn’t take my nor­mal cam­era and only had the Black­berry, please for­give me if the shots seem a bit “off”.

SouthSt OnTheWay A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market... Walk­ing down one of the gor­geous side streets on the way to the Ital­ian Market

SouthSt DiBruno+Bros A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...

A main­stay in the Ital­ian Mar­ket – DiBruno Bros. Who know, you might run into one Ms. Patti LaBelle here as she’s known to fre­quent the Mar­ket and DiBruno Bros.

SouthSt Produce A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...
One of the many pro­duce stands that lines the side­walk. The streets are nar­row as are the side­walks so the key is to shop quick, walk quick and every­one is happy.

SouthSt Espositos A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...

Esposito’s – one of the BEST places for meats and fish

SouthSt SpiceCorner A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...
The Spice Cor­ner is one of my favorite spots to hang out in. I pretty much cleaned them out of their pump­kin spice cof­fee (one for SL and the rest for yours truly). I picked up a num­ber of spices, some great loose teas and some stuff for a upcom­ing hol­i­day con­test… Every­thing there is fresh, the peo­ple are so sweet and help­ful and

SouthSt SpiceCorner 2 A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...

SouthSt Fantes A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...I headed to Fante’s to see what was new in all things Le Creuset, Global and more. Plus, I was crav­ing some good cof­fee so I dropped by their cof­fee shop to get a fab­u­lous Cafe au Lait and pump­kin biscotti.


ItalianMkt Claudio A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...

Claudio’s beck­oned and in I went to pur­chase some pantry sta­ples i.e. quick polenta, gnocci and some other good­ies. Trust me, check out the pho­tos of the cheeses below. I could have done WAY more dam­age but they wouldn’t have lasted on the way back to Orlando. :::sigh:::

SouthSt Claudios 3 A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...
SouthSt Claudios 2 A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...

Isn’t that cheese selec­tion divine? Oh how I wanted to throw a Philly soiree. Claudio’s – can you please open a shop in Orlando, pretty please?



SouthSt Anthonys 3 A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...

Finally, as I’m trot­ting down another side of the street, I saw one of my weak­nesses – pizzelles. If you have never had them, you must try. They are an Ital­ian cookie and are sooo good. But much like Lay’s potato chips, you can’t have just one.

Quickly swip­ing up a pack­age, I headed into Antonio’s Ital­ian Cof­fee and Choco­late House to pur­chase and was greeted with this sight:


SouthSt Anthonys 1 A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...
Choco­lates and Gelato? Wait – a minute –home­made gelato? Now I’m really over­whelmed and think­ing “Can I just wear jeans tonight and leave the form-fitting dress for another day?” I decide to bring some treats back for the gals as thanks for every­thing they did for my birth­day and pick up a lit­tle some­thin’ some­thin’ for me too.


SouthSt Anthonys 2 A Few Of My Favorite Things: Philadelphias Italian Market...
The home­made truf­fles were divine. My favorite was the Sea Salt Caramel and the gals loved the Hazel­nut and Kahlua ones. If you can, order a box for some­one you love dur­ing the hol­i­days. They will adore it.
And check this out – they have CANNOLI KITS! No, seri­ously, they ship the fix­ings for can­no­lis to you ASAP and you can treat your fam­ily to a bit of Ital­ian Mar­ket heaven.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ CONTEST ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


So, to give a lit­tle hol­i­day gift to two lucky blog read­ers, leave a com­ment on this post NO LATER than Dec. 7, 2008 telling me about either your expe­ri­ences in my favorite city, Philadel­phia, or if you haven’t been to Philly, what is your favorite hol­i­day recipe/goodie to share with oth­ers. We’ll pick two win­ners using a Ran­dom Num­ber Gen­er­a­tor and I’ll have a lit­tle some­thing from Antonio’s shipped your way for the hol­i­day sea­son. Make sure to include your email!!!

This con­tent is pub­lished at Cook­ing in Stilet­tos. Thank you!
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Filed Under: Contest, Desserts, Favorite Things, Italian, Philly, Regional Fare, Shopping, Spices
  • kim­myk

    well, as you know i’ve never been to your town-phillie, but hop­ing maybe next year if you head that way i will come visit and you can show me the sites.as far as favorite hol­i­day recipe? i love my mom­mas stuff­ing, her wal­dorf salad, her noo­dles are yum too. i’m mostly the baker.…favorite recipe that I make is my grandma’s cot­tage cheese pie. i know sounds nasty, but when it’s all done you can’t tell the dif­fer­ence from a baked cheese­cake or this. it’s that sort of den­sity and the taste is really really good! i’ll have to dig up that recipe and share it with ya. loved the pho­tos too btw!

  • (Some­times!) Serendi

    I’ve never been to your town! Gah! But my favorite hol­i­day treat–and the treat I’m tak­ing to Predo’s for Thanksgiving–is a cran­berry apple crum­ble pie. So. Good.

  • Michelle

    I sadly have not been to Philly. I’m a West Coast girl and my only foray to the East Coast was 1 week in DC in 1996.As for the hol­i­days, I do love mak­ing food gifts. This year I am mak­ing mini pump­kin choco­late chip loaves and pep­per­mint cup­cakes. The recipe for the pump­kin loaves is actu­ally Martha’s, but hers is for bars. I’ll post my pep­per­mint cup­cake recipe on my own blog soon.

  • Alpinebluesky

    I lived in Philly as a kid but sadly have not been back recently! My favorite hol­i­day treat is an apple puffed pan­cake sprin­kled with pow­dered sugar that my mom serves on the morn­ing of all win­ter hol­i­days, I think it’s the food + mem­ory asso­ci­a­tion that makes it special!

  • Auburn Kat

    My favorite is piero­gies! YUM!

  • Bren Her­rera

    i was up in Philly back in 2001–2002 on a due dili­gence assign­ment. so on a really rain fri­day, I decided to take “lunch”, which for me meant NO food! Big umbrella in one hand, pocket book in the other, I hit town! I bought the cutest tim­ba­land boots for girls, wore them back to the office, actu­ally. Went into a hid­den wed­ding shop and bought two cus­tom wed­ding cock­tail pill boxe’s–stiil have and wear.. hmm what else did I do on that trip? Walked into some really cool, off the wall vin­tage shop and walked out with nada. After all, i think my lunch hour was more like 3! All in the rain! I went back to the office with shop­ping bags in tow. No one asked any ques­tions, so I went back to my remote office and worked for another 30 min­utes, before catch­ing the train back to DC. That was the best fun I’ve had in Philly! All by myself, no one to rush my shop­ping fetish and really good deals! LOVE IT. Now, I just wish I could remem­ber where the hec I was!?!?! LOL!

  • Judy@nofearentertain

    I have never been to Philly so I am going to share with you our fam­ily tra­di­tion on Christ­mas Eve.After the chil­dren are all nes­tled snug in there beds we pull out the good stuff. Steamed shrimp with old bay, steamed oys­ters and clams, pate, cheese plat­ter, crack­ers and wine. Oh the wine! Usu­ally a spe­cial bot­tle saved through­out the year for that one spe­cial night. We sit on the floor around the cof­fee table and watch “It’s a Won­der­ful Life” and rem­i­nisce about years past and wishes for years future!This is my favorite night of the year!I know it’s not a recipe but it is my recipe for a “won­der­ful night”

  • Lesli

    Oh, my gosh, I want to win this!! First of all, shock­ingly I have never been to Philadel­phia although my hus­band has an office there and trav­els there FREQUENTLY for busi­ness and i always kind of beg to go along so I can go shop­ping at KOP mall, but no go so far. His office is in some place called Trevose so I guess kinda far away from the mall, no??My favorite recipe is some­thing my mom makes called Cherry Mash Bars and they are super del­ish. I can get the recipe if you want, but basi­cally it is lay­ers of choco­late, cherry and peanut but­ter and really, really yummy.

  • Erin

    I still dream about the fab­u­lous­ness that is Ter­mi­nal Mar­ket. If I lived in Philly that would def­i­nitely be my sec­ond home.

  • Shopa­holic D

    Well, I was a kid when I had it, but my favorite mem­ory of Philadel­phia is hav­ing an authen­tic Philly-Cheesesteak! Yum! :) D

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