The first question I wanted to ask Cioppino co-owners Chuck Hammel and Tom Trimm was an obvious one: Where did the name come from and what exactly is “cioppino”? “The guy I opened up the restaurant with initially—his name was Angelo. He just liked the name,” explains Hammel when referring to Angelo Lamatrice, who helped him launch the Strip’s Railroad Street restaurant and cigar bar a decade and a half   Read More ...

If, like me, you grew up in northern New Jersey, you might fondly recall frequent visits to bakeries in practically every local town. These were “traditional” neighborhood bakeries whose shelves and glass cases were always full. Often on a summer night you could be outside near one and detect the smells of baking—and then visit a back door to pick up fresh next-day doughnuts before anyone else had a chance   Read More ...

A hot and rainy summer afternoon was the perfect time to take a distillery tour at Wigle Whiskey on Penn Avenue in the Strip District. Wigle Whiskey is the very first whiskey distillery in Pittsburgh since the days of Prohibition, having opened in 2012. I took the tour with 19 other folks, including a woman from Ireland and a bachelor party from Philadelphia. Before we started the one-hour tour of   Read More ...

Iceland looks like a giant, jagged puzzle piece from the air, gradually turning into an impressionistic landscape of lush green, sparkling water, white glaciers, and grey mountains as our plane descends. Innocent looking though they are, many of those mountains are concave at the top, the evidence of spent volcanoes. Others are still active, including one while we were there; Icelanders take such eruptions in stride, even though they can   Read More ...

One has to look up to catch sight of this Pittsburgh landmark when traveling on Butler Street. The second-floor of Arsenal Bowl overlooks Lawrenceville’s main avenue between 43rd and 44th streets. Inside, the balls and pins make an unmistakable racket over which cheers, laughter, and disappointed sighs echo as bowlers of varied expertise meet up. Patrons let it roll every night of the week. The storied Arsenal Bowl has been   Read More ...

The streets of Lawrenceville are filled with tales of horror and heroism, tears and laughter, triumph and tragedy. Charlotte Street is among those, haunted by a particularly grisly history. Although the street’s name is officially pronounced just like the female name Charlotte, locals often pronounce it SHAR-lot-tee. It runs parallel to Butler and Smallman streets, from 34th to 38th streets. Yugoslavian immigrant Bert Pezich lived at 3504 Charlotte Street. He   Read More ...