It suited our culinary sensibilities to go from chocolate to coffee, from Mon Aimee Chocolate on Penn Avenue to the La Prima Roastery on Smallman Street.
We were six on this tour of the Strip District, Pittsburghers Janice and Ernie Meade, who had bought the tour with a donation to Easter Seals Western Pennsylvania, and their friends, Mary Ann and Bill King, plus two guides: Ray Rice, retired director of operations for Nordic Fisheries, and myself.
At Mon Aimee Chocolate, we shopped for salted caramels, a confection said to be a cult item in New York City and clearly the current craze with national food magazines, in which recipes for salted caramel cheesecake and salted caramel creme brulee have begun appearing. Salt intensifies the flavor of whatever it's near.
For Andrew Shotts at Garrison Confections in Providence, R.I., this meant he could encase an almost liquid salted caramel in dark Guittard chocolate with awesome results. California pastry chef Christine Moore had her own idea -- to add a touch of salt in a soft, rich and buttery caramel, making it dangerously addictive. Fran Bigelow of Seattle, seasoning with the famous grainy Gray sea salt, takes caramels and wraps them in her own blend of imported chocolate. These not-inexpensive caramels, along with an assortment of about 5,000 other candies, in a wide range of prices are what Amy Rosenfield, owner of Mon Aimee, offers customers. As part of her business, she also sets up confectionery corners at weddings, where guests can entertain themselves filling bags with candy.
Mon Aimee Chocolate, 2101 Penn Ave., 412-395-0022.
We carried a few pieces of chocolate over to the landmark produce docks, where John Notte, director of operations at La Prima Roastery, made us cappuccinos. No better treat than good chocolate with strong coffee, in a room where the very air smells freshly roasted. That's Notte's and La Prima owner Sam Patti's obsession -- fresh. They liken coffee to bread and think both should be sold the same way.
"There is no coffee in here that's over 7 days old, and if you like what we're roasting now, you can buy it hours old," Notte says.
It's excellent coffee and supports rumors I've heard about why Starbucks on the Strip has closed. Bobby Wholey, for one, thought that when Starbucks opened, it seriously underestimated the quality and cost of a cup of coffee from its competitors La Prima and Prestogeorge.
Talking coffee at La Prima, Notte has a lot to say about fair trade, Rainforest Alliance certification, the company's sponsorship of a farm in Nicaragua, direct-flame roasting, decaf and more. All of it is interesting, including the short tour Notte gives us of the 1903 Pittsburgh Produce terminal behind the roastery.
La Prima Roastery, 2100 Smallman St., 412-565-7070 .
Established in 1902, Pennsylvania Macaroni Co. is the senior in the neighborhood. It is owned and operated by David Sunseri
Everybody shopping on the Strip stops here because of the range of imported and domestic products available. These include imported olive oils (we sampled an excellent Viola Moraiolo Il Sincero Extra Vergine from Umbria), balsamic vinegars (we tried a syrupy Romantica balsamic vinegar from Modena drizzled over Piave cheese and fresh figs), pastas, cheeses (500 kinds), produce, good bread and just about every ingredient for which an Italian-style recipe might call. In a back room in a locked cabinet, there is a selection of hand-painted majolica ware selected for the store by David's assistant, Gina Ross, during a recent visit to the Umbria region.
Pennsylvania Macaroni Co., 2010 Penn Ave., 412-471-8330.
With our heads, hearts and stomachs full of Italy, we were in the mood for Parma Sausage, which never disappoints. It's a family-run store that provides the very highest quality products all made on the premises as good and mostly better than imports I've tried. One of the pleasures of Parma is the family who owns it. Luigi Spinabelli opened the store in 1954 and, in recent years, has turned over the day-to-day management to his daughter, Rina Edwards. She is now grooming her daughter, Erin Edwards, to assist in running the business.
Parma Sausage, 1734 Penn Ave., 412-391-4238.
Jimmy and Nino Sunseri's, on the sunny side of the street with Penn Mac and Parma, is an everything-Italian operation. The store sells the fixings for lunch and dinner, and prepared lunches and dinners as well. It's a site with two permanent fixtures: Jimmy chewing on an unlighted cigar he calls a pacifier, cooking, serving and schmoozing with his customers, and his mom, Ann Sunseri, behind the counter, beside the store safe, visiting with friends who know where to find her. They are historians in residence, and nobody can claim to know the Strip who hasn't had a conversation with Jimmy, his mom or his dad, Tony. The Sunseri Sunrise Bakery across the street is also theirs.
Jimmy and Nino Sunseri, 1906 Penn Ave., 412-255-1100.
We are coming to the end of the Strip's business section with two Wholey properties and the Mancini bakery. What links this bread baker with Wholey's is McKees Rocks, both businesses having had their start in what was once a thriving industrial town. It was the Wholey Brothers who invited the Mancinis to take the little slice of a space under the red-striped awning, and it was the two grandchildren of the original Mancini, Nick Mancini Hartner, 26, and Ernie Mancini Hartner, 24, who obliged. They mix dough, shape loaves and, with wooden palettes, move 24 varieties of homemade bread in and out of the ovens at the McKees Rocks Bread.
On one side of the storefront is Wholey's Balcony Cookware. On the other side is Robert Wholey and Co. retail. Three generations of Wholeys have been active in the business. It was started in 1912, when the product sold was live chickens. Robert Clement Wholey, son of the founder, moved it to Market Square, Downtown, and then to the Strip District. His four sons now run the business and offer fresh fish, including tanks of live fish and lobsters, a full grocery and meat market, and upstairs, in the "history center" as it's called, a place to take your fish sandwich and to follow, from framed photographs and news clippings, the history of the family and their association with the Strip.
Robert Wholey and Co. Inc., 1711 Penn Ave., 412-391-3737; Wholey Balcony Cookware, 1725 Penn Ave., 412-261-5513; McKees Rocks Bread, 1717 Penn Ave., 412-765-3545.