Il Cantuccio NYC

91 Christopher Street

At the beginning of the week, Tuesday the 14th, I button up my coat, put on my black gloves and ventured down to 91 Christopher Street to participate in Gustiamo‘s tasting at Il Cantuccio.

When I walked in, I was glad! It was so cold outside.

Apparently, there were a lot of other people who felt the same way because once people came in, they took a while to leave. Some customers were there when I came and still there when I left.

Since I arrived an hour early, I spoke to Thomas for a little bit. Thomas is a cartoonist artist from Italy who draws very well. He uses Il Cantuccio to reach out to people about his art.

I asked him if he ever drew Obama and he said no, he only draw ‘real’ people. To which I replied,  but you drew Bush!? (Last week he was extremely proud to show me a picture that he drew of President Bush.) So, what’s the difference?

Instead of answering my question he acted like he didn’t understand me.

Which makes me really want to know why he never drew/ draws Obama.

There was a couple behind us who was interested in his art. The husband thought his drawings were good but sad. He said everyone looked angry. He said that Thomas didn’t draw the people looking happy. Then he (the husband) asked me if Thomas drew me happy. He said he bet he did considering the smile I had.

But I think Thomas drew me as a black girl with a lot attitude.

It was still early when the couple started talking to me about learning languages. The old man sitting at the next table joined us. He was learning both Spanish and Italian at the same time.

He expressed how much he wish he started learning when he was younger. He was already fluent in French. The couple was visiting from Ohio and were just happy to be in a ‘different’ environment.  They wanted to know if I spoke Italian since basically everyone in the restaurant spoke it.

I told them I was learning.

When Gustiamo finally started the tasting, we had Schiacciata  with two kinds of marmalade’s. I think they actually sell more kinds but we only opened two for the tasting.

The marmalade was made on San Matteo Farm in Sicilia, Italy. The marmalade is not like the marmalade one can buy from Price Choice or Fine Fare it tastes much better. They are made with wheat syrup instead of castor sugar and the fruit bits are tasty.

The type of marmalade I tasted were: Organic Apple and Rosemary and Organic Apple and Grapefruit.

And of course the schiacciata was good.  That’s just a given. It was the longest piece of bread ever and tasted so good! (I want some right now!)

One lady who came to the tasting couldn’t believe there was no sugar in the marmalade. She kept shaking her head and looking at the jar  trying to read it- she couldn’t understand the writing  because it’s written in Italian.

She kept saying, it has to be some type of sugar in here!

Yep, it’s healthy and good for you and will win your taste buds over.

To order a jar visit http://www.gustiamo.com/cgi-bin/front_end/prodotto?id=164

To end the night, I asked Giovanni to teach me one how to say one thing in Italian.

To cut: di tagliare