Our nation may feel divided right now. We may have talk radio hosts who believe a civil war would be amazing for ratings.
But this is a blog about unity. This is a blog about how we have more in common than differences. For instance, we, as Americans, all collectively rolled our eyes whenever we’d get a text from random phone number leading up to the election totally convincing us to support whatever they’re pitching.
But this week, I got a text from a public relations associate notifying me she had given my number to a different public relations associate to invite me to the grand opening of an Italian supermarket.
“Tell me more,” I thought for the first time ever in anticipation of a text from a number I didn’t recognize.
Eataly opened this week near NorthPark Center. It’s 46,000 square feet of my grandmother’s kitchen!
Eataly does not, in fact, have a store in Torrington, Connecticut. This is just the seventh in North America. The managing partner explained Dallas would be a strong market. He makes a strong point: Texans do understand food. Texas barbecue focuses on simplicity, not a bunch of sauces to cover up how bad the meat tastes. You must start with a strong cut of meat. Texas barbecue and Italian cuisine both share in simplicity.
I’m not sure of the declension, but I believe “pasta di gragnano” is Italian for “delicious.”
With all the Northeasterners relocating to Texas, a store like this can help people feel at home [Loyal Scaiaholics will recall my family may hail from the Northeast, but I am from the Midwest].
Eataly sells 200 types of pasta, which is approximately 190 more than I knew existed [#GrandmaScaia, looking down from heaven, is shaking her head with disappointment.] and 200 types of cheese.
I mentioned I buy fresh mozzarella sometimes at Kroger, and the cheese monger rolled his eyes.
I started taking a look around. The wine monger [I suspect that may not be his actual title] asked if he could help me find anything. I inquired about Scaia Wine.
For a guy who deals with 1,200 wines, he knew fairly quickly they didn’t have it in stock, but if I’d seen it elsewhere, he was sure there’d be a local distributor so he could order it.
I had seen it elsewhere. Scaia Wine is popping up in more locations as the Scaias build their media empire. This picture is from a trip back to Ohio last Christmas, and I often keep a bottle at the Ol’ Scaia Place in Fort Worth [But that bottle is now empty].
I first found Scaia Wine in the Metroplex during an unreasonably long Dallas school board meeting back in the day. There was a place near the old Dallas ISD headquarters that served solid Cuban sandwiches, which may help explain why I didn’t mind covering board meetings that dragged on for hours. While they were making my sandwich, I’d browse wines and stumbled across it one night. I no longer minded those arguments. They gave me time to sneak out to buy a bottle of wine to take home.
Also, as a Steak ‘n’ Shake Master of the Grill, I appreciated that Eataly is following the “In sight, it must be right” system. You can watch them make the pasta and bread.
But Eataly is opening at a borderline difficult time to establish yourself in a new market. They’re limiting capacity to 25% instead of 50. They also placed educational social distancing markers on the floors.
Even though the place is 46,000 square feet, the managing partner agreed with my grandmother: People want a place where they can get to know their butcher, and they’ll make suggestions.
My mom had to dumb this whole thing down for my brothers and me when were li’l munchkins. She would occasionally serve us “elephant ears,” which was pizza, just with the dough being fried.
I sent her this picture to alert her I had just learned “elephant ears” are, technically, called, “Pizza Fritta.”
#MamaScaia reports she may now move to Texas to open a competing Italian superstore next door, leading to some sort of hilarious alfredo sauce-fueled arms race.
But if there’s anything that can unite us at this time, it’s fresh cannoli. Look at all this cannoli! There may not be enough vaccine to go around just now, but cannoli for all!
