The Irish have their day... so do my Italians!!

We will be celebrating "St Pattys Day" soon and being half Irish and half Italian I felt the need to celebrate my Italian heritage by going to my favorite Italian store... I mean they have 'good stuff' there...  "Mazzaro's Italian Market" here in St. Petersburg, Fl... is the next best thing south of the Bronx! 

                              The front of the store does not tell the story of what is inside... so come on in and smell the food.. feel the atmosphere, listen to the talk of the Italians .......

             The religion greets you when you enter... although they don't push their thoughts on their customers they do celebrate their feelings on the subject.... 

 

Then you enter the world of the "Food"... raw, cooked, spiced, boxed... so much food!

This is the worlds largest "Provolone".. yes this is a 1200lb chunk of cheese! They can't cut it for another  year.. it's got to age more!

There is also two refrigerated cases of cheese... imported cheeses from all over the world.

Walk around the corner and you will smell your way to the bread ovens.. they make every kind of bread my Italian ancestors love... 

Then we come to the "Sweets"... and the one that has me doing a dance for is the "Rum Balls"... 

I could just eat one of each sweet in this case!

But knowing it's going to lay on my hips at a very fast rate I was so good and ordered a Ciabatta, with butter and a really good cup of coffee.

Being the good Italian that I am I had to order a bit of Gelato... Spumoni to be exact! My will power just went out the window.. but it was so worth it!

 

My sister and I spent about two hours in this wonderful store.. we were good and did not eat alot.. we did spend a bit of time checking out the bread baking area.. it had many people working there and it was fun to watch... I did try to 'pan' the photo...not too bad! I hope it posts here on my blog for all to see.. (no it was cut in half, sorry).


Time to say good by to this wonderful store... I celebrated my Italian heritage this day.. so now I can say "Happy St Patricks Day" with out guilt!

 

Ok...Ok... had to share one more photo.... The Pepperoni... how can we leave without the Pepperoni?

Bye Italian store... bye .......

  

For the Irish in me and for the Italian in me!!

And to all of you, celebrate your heritage in style!