Yesterday we did a walking food tour of Little Italy. It was a wonderful experience. We met at the edge of the area known as The North End. The view of the city is awesome. 
Yet only a few years ago this view was pretty awful, they had an above ground highway much like our Gardner. They buried it. There’s mixed feelings about it, mostly pride that “the big dig” happened, and look at all the new greenspace it created. But the downside is the $15-18 billion price tag. I say $15-18 because each time we’ve heard the cost it’s about a billion more than last time. We first heard $15 billion. I expect by the time we leave it’ll be a little over $25 billion. Or perhaps they’re adjusting for inflation?
The tour began with a bit of a history lesson. About how the area has often been a home for immigrants who typically move in here when they first arrived, but as they become more wealthy they move on to other areas. For a long time it was Irish, then Jewish, then Italian. Today it’s much more of a mix, but about 40% Italian. An interesting note: everyone here spoke perfect English.
The first stop on the tour was a pastry shop. As with each stop, we’d learn a lot about how things are made, styles based on regions of Italy. Also we learned about the proprietor of each place because their own history weighed on how things were prepared. Lots of great stories. The tour guide, Jim, was excellent. He often went on tangents, but the were good ones. More like filling in more pieces of the story. He himself was a chief and retired from that, now does these tours fulltime as he has been for four years. After the pastery shop it was a grocer where we learned about spices and whatnot. Next was a fruit and veggie grocer. This shop was very small. The owner didnt’ bother with displaying prices or even a cash registar. He did it all in his head. Next we went to another shop which was a delecitancent, among other things. 
That’s where this picture was taken, as Jim was handing out some treats made on bread they baked there with some Prosciutto and vinaigrette. The next stop was a The Cheese Shop. It was probably the most interesting for me because we learned a lot about olive oils and vinaigrettes including how they’re made and how to shop for them. I look forward to checking out my kitchen cupboard to see how I’ve done. After that it was a wine shop. It’s a well regarded one. They have a famous collection, all imported from Italy. We bought a little bottle of Limencello to have that evening. It was Jim’s personal favourite, and indeed it was good. After that we grabbed some lovely sandwiches from, funny enough, not an Italian place. But it was recommended by Jim and it was great. We explored more of the city. The tour bus pass was good for two days so we took advantage of that some more. I noticed that there’s quite the TD Bank presence down here.
After a while we trekked out to Salem by commuter train. It was a rather quick trip, express to Salem.
Our hotel room is gorgeous!
After arriving we wandered a little bit and discovered a really cool artsy bar. They had terrific macaroni and cheese. It was baked, it had goat cheese and roasted red peppers inside. Tres yum!
Today’s been another good day, all spent here in Salem. I’ll write about that another time.
