Market at Monteverde, Roma

So. I have just learned something amazing. As it turns out – Eataly, which has annoyed the cuh-rap out of me, started in (drum roll please)

TORINO!!

All this time – I believed the Flatiron USA supermarket ripped off the title of an Italian kids’ magazine about food. Not even sure where I got that origin story!! Of course, you can’t blame me – the American store was started by Mario Batali and Lidia “tutti a tavolo a mangiare”. Among others. The first week it opened, there were lines half-a-block long with people who went for the Food Network personalities — NOT the cavalo nero.

I’m also a big customer of what I regarded as the REAL Italian store in my nabe: Buon’Italia in Chelsea market. It felt like a betrayal to shop at Eeeeeeetaly.

It was, therefore, only natural that it annoyed me when I spotted an Eataly in Roma and even one at the Rome Airport.

I found this out in Rome from the awesome Italian chef and cooking teacher Carla Tomasi as she taught me how to make homemade orecchiette. “Oh no, Eataly è Italiano!!!”

So, it MUST be true. ‘Cause that pasta we made was fabulous.