Update Six - No Sneaky Trix
Well looks like I'm supposed to declare my official cup entrant so here's my little
puttana herself, my little #1. Looks like she's rebounding OK from my
diozia moment but I wish she would stop eating her fan leaves like a porca in a trattoria. Sure's she's beat up, yes she's been force fed mysterious potions and even ignored. Sha-eet I'm not changing the way I treat women after all this time, so my little
principessa is gonna have to deal with me just the way I are! And for the record #2 is being re-vegged.
"Wow", you must be sayin, "good ol' FJ really hablas the ol' Italiano!". No sillies, it's Columbus Day, and that just means were all Italians on the day that we celebrate
the beginning of the rape and exploitation of the Western Hemisphere,
the king of Rape and Disease, the greatest Italian to never set foot in Vespucci's America the great Christopher Columbus who without whom we would of never discovered North and South America! Wow what a guy! But not only Chris, we also celebrate Italian culture in all it's fucked up glory. See back in the day the Italians were conquered by everyone except the Eskimos, who really didn't care for penguin picatta anyway, and that gang of dudes robbing old ladies near the Mitchell Houses in the South Bronx. So one day it was decided that since we all felt so bad about their inability to actually fight instead of fuck, what the hey we gave them a day where they can say "Hey I'ma Italian! Fughedaboudit!" and feel good about themselves. And what did we get in return? The Mafia, Rudy Guliani, that half retard Vinny who was left back a grade and used to kick the shit out of me for breathing, and a dish called Fettucine Alfredo which has probably killed more Americans than handguns. Gee thanks guys! So I just wanted to take a moment and thank good old fuckin' Chris Columbus without whom all those Indian casinos would of never opened and bands like Journey would of had to get real jobs! Thanx Chris
!
Actually, I don't feel that way at all so let me try to make it up to all you fans of Italia. If you ever go to NYC, DO NOT GO TO LITTLE ITALY IN MANHATTAN! That's tourist trap bullshit crap food. The only reason to go there is to do that tour where you go to all the places where the Mafia bosses got shot. Now if you want to experience NYC style Italian-American culture and food that's so good it will make you burn down the nearest Olive Garden, go to a little area in the Belmont section of the Bronx called Arthur Avenue. This is the real Little Italy. While not as big as it once was, the stores and restaurants here are second to none. People in the Bronx LOVE and know food and this is one of the, if not
the, capital of food in the Boogie Down. The smells will put weight on you. There is no way you can walk by Full Moon pizza and not grab a slice of some of the last real NY style pizza. You can spend your entire day just inside the Arthur Avenue Market drinking beer and espresso, eating sausages and cheeses and olives and smoking hand rolled cigars. The streets are lined with cold bars offering raw clams, shrimps and oysters, butcher shops so clean you'd eat off the floor and without a doubt some of the best restaurants imaginable. You know, the kind without menus. Want a chicken sorrentino or a veal chop valdostana, "
battere", they will knock it out for you. There's no "Sorry we're all out of the specials" in this part of town. So if you do ever wander into the NY area, go by the Bronx Zoo or the NY Botanical Gardens and then walk a few blocks into heaven on earth. I will miss many things on this planet when I go but the thing I will really miss the most, more than growing weed, is good old fashioned Italian-American cuisine and just for that contribution to America they can block up 5th avenue once a year.
So may
fortuna shine upon you all. Now pardon me I gotta try to digest all the lobster ravioli I just scarfed
.
Arthur Avenue Retail Market:
Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia spear-headed one of the neighborhood’s most beloved attractions, the Arthur Avenue Retail Market – a kind of covered Italian bazaar that brings together under one roof all the shopping also found on nearby streets, from sausage makers to bread bakers, cafe’s to florists. The variety is truly staggering – all told some nine restaurants, five pastry shops, four butchers, two pasta-makers, six bread stores, three pork stores, five gourmet delicatessens, two fish markets, three gourmet coffee shops and one gourmet Italian wind shop – to list only the food category. And then there are the gift and house ware shops.