the north end

New Yorkers tend to think they've got the best of everything. That may be true in New York, but outside the city things can look a bit different. One example is Little Italy. It's famous in Manhattan, but having visited North Beach in San Francisco, South Street in Philadelphia, Arthur Avenue in the Bronx, and the North End in Boston, I'd have to say that the North End is my favorite of the US Italian-American meccas.

Why? I think one factor is that the North End still feels like a medium income neighborhood. There are a lot of young people around, there's a little litter on the sidewalks, there are old guys sitting around arguing in Italian, and there are plenty of affordable restaurants where a plate of fettuccine will cost you under $10.

This is in contrast to the New York and San Francisco neighborhoods where Italian ambiance really means shelling out the lire to buy simple pastries. When I go to an Italian neighborhood, I want to eat and eat for cheap. I don't need the expensive Italian restaurant treatment -- the world is full of pricey Italian restaurants. I want the corner restaurants called Mario's or Dino's where the guys behind the counter are right off the boat and they serve the good stuff.

I actually ate at Dino's in the North End last week. Inside the gentleman behind the counter was dictating orders to the Italians in the kitchen. I didn't know whether or not I should attempt Italian or just speak English. I decided that I would do everything in English and ordered fettuccine and a beer.

I sat in the corner, a bit exhausted and cold, and watched the procession of Irish guys in black coats walk in and out to pick up their sandwiches. I wondered how they felt about these places. How did they feel about their own pubs. Were all these places "ours" because we were "Americans"? Did I have any special connection to the guys in the kitchen because of a common, though truncated history?

It was after filling my guts with fettuccine and sausage in that I went to a shop that was blasting some really great music. Inside I stopped to look at the merchandise of hats and football jerseys and t-shirts. My current hat makes me look like Elmer Fudd, so I was looking for something simple in black that could keep me warm and not attract too many weird looks.

The woman behind the counter said, "What are you looking for?"

I said, "I am looking for a hat."

"Well, there are some hats over there," she said pointing. "You are Italian, right?" she said, sizing my origins up by looking at the length of my nose and thickness of my eyebrows. I thought for a second, then said "yes."

Unfortunately, the clothing intended for Italian-Americans is never simple. And all the neon blue hats had 'N' stitched on them for Napoli. The rest of the shirts were either for Neapolitans or Sicilians. I turned to the woman behind the counter and said:

"Boy, these Sicilians and Neapolitans really know how to market their t-shirts, huh?"

"That's because most people here are from Naples or Sicily," she said. "There are so many people from Naples in this neighborhood, I am surprised there's anybody even left in that town."

"Oh, there are people there," I said. "The camorra needs to be able to suspend picking up the garbage whenever they need to threaten the local government."

"Yeah, it's not a nice part of Italy," she said.

"You know," I responded, feeling kind of honest. "It sort of makes me a little angry that they can't get their act together." And it was true. I would be more proud to have an Italian connection if their leader wasn't Silvio Berlusconi.

She laughed and asked me where my family was from. When I was younger I wasn't sure of these answers, but some genealogical work allowed me to know exactly where they were from just for these moments when Italian people ask me, "Where is your family from?" They always ask; it's one of those conversation starters.

I told them that my father's side was from Calabria and mom's side was from Bari. She said there were a "few" of such people around, but unfortunately, the Barese and Calabrese aren't into selling t-shirts in the North End. Only the Neapolitans and the Sicilians. I finally picked out a generic "Italia" shirt and a onesey for Anna that said 'bella' on it. Together it was $40 -- a bit of an extortionate price, but she prints them herself, so, what the heck.

It's funny because Anna is only a quarter Italian. If she stood in the shop, no one would ask her if she was. Her nose is too small, her skin is too pale. She has blue eyes. My children are generic northern European babes. I am probably the only person in our little nuclear family that will ever feel "at home" in a place like the North End.

"Why don't you go get something to eat?" the woman asked.

"Are you kidding?" I said. "I just ate a plate of fettuccine at Dino's. I don't need anything else; I just need to walk."

She laughed again. "Go walk, run, swim." She said. The idea of diving into Boston harbor seemed unappealing, especially in early March. And I asked myself, "Why the hell would anyone leave southern Italy to come and freeze their butts off in New England?" Oh, well, I guess it's more hospitable in summer.