One of the first stops in Turin is to Carrefours, the grocery store. It is like a big Meijer, with everything you need, from TVs to clothes to, of course, food. One big thing I've noticed in Europe that we don't have in the US is, everywhere you go, there is a beautiful, historical thing to see. This is a castle on the way to the store.
First decision in the store...do we need a grocery cart for our dog? They have special ones. Wonder how Howard the Great Dane would like to ride in one! When you get a cart, you pay a coin deposit so that you will return it. The other thing? They were made out of colorful plastic like toys! Then you get on the escalator with them and the wheels lock. Pretty cool.
Meat with a bear's face made inside it...
Prosciutto is CHEAP. Check out the prices. And there are many kinds!
One thing I noticed was TONS of different kinds of pasta and cheese.
Eggs, not refrigerated, just right there on the shelf.
Quail eggs....and self serve.
Ah yes...delicious....horse meat.
A Pringles promotion, buy three and get a Foot-bowl! Pringoooals!
Ah the liquor aisle, note the prices.
One day we went into town to the large piazza, Piazza Vittorio Veneto (the largest piazza in Europe) for pranza/lunch. This is an advertisement for the upcoming Torino Jazz Festival TJF.
We sat at a table on the square, and quickly realized why nobody wants to sit on the edge. There are constant beggars coming by, looking for money or to sell their wares. We discovered these people will even walk into restaurants and go up to tables. Bold!
I had the gamberetti, head on shrimp, and they were AWESOME!
Tasted like lobster.
While we sat on the piazza, a group of young boys and a few girls ran up to have their bag lunches, which were mostly bread, definitely NO Lunchables here! There was an older woman who apparently was in charge and she would yell at them for being rambunctious. As they started to play ball, she yelled, "Allora! Basta!" meaning, "Now! Enough!" We couldn't tell what kind of group they were as the wording on their caps meant casket. Hmm...
One thing that always fascinates me are the water fountains - called Torets or Torettos to the Italians, because of the bull head - all around Turin. There are about 700 of them all around the city, over a century old. About 4 ft. tall, cast iron, green They constantly flow with water from the Alps and you could sit all day and watch as people, animals, kids, grandparents all take a drink,
fill their bottles, wash their hands and faces. You have to adopt the Toret stance if you don't have a cup or bottle. That is where you lean over, stick your head under, drink,
and keep your feet out of the way of splashes.
We go to Eataly in Turin quite often. It is the original, opened by Mario Batali and Lydia B. among others. If you haven't been to the one in Chicago or other US places, it is an authentic Italian grocery store that also features a huge selection of cookbooks. Plus, it has numerous restaurants inside depending on your taste. Pizza, carne, seafood, pasta, and in the fall, truffles.
Eataly always has the coolest looking seafood displays.
Tim had a calzone, I had pasta with a fish sauce.
Oil and vinegar to go...after all, that is the only salad dressing that they eat here.
In Torino, we went to a little Tapas place called Serrano which we'd been to before. It's run by a group of Spanish guys and a girl who don't speak a ton of English let alone Italian. Having taken Spanish in high school, Colin came last summer and understood fairly well. Me too. Honestly, the two languages are very similar so I found myself trying to communicate, speaking both Spanish and Italian in the same sentence!
But last night, the waiter we had was a hyper, funny guy. He was telling us about the desserts/dolce...and could not come up with the word for pie.
There was a dessert with apples, he got that. He said "apple cake, no...that's not it".
Turned to his fellow waiter and suddenly remembered it was "apple pie!
You know like, Bye Bye Miss American Pie!" and he sang a bit of the song to us because obviously we were Americans and pie is an American thing, I guess?
I just thought it was very funny.
Also, he came over with our water and said, "this is for.....you?" as he struggled for the word "you", we acknowledged and he laughed. Pretty funny guy.
Tim had eggs with peppers and jambon, I had pulpo with potatoes, and sangria!
