Another of those instances wherein I've changed my mind

So I have to admit that after being subjected to one too many Thanksgiving helpings of candied sweet potatoes as a kid (they looked a lot like this:)

I definitely developed a pretty strong aversion to anything sweet potato. Fries, mashed, whatever that...creation...is up there...not really for me. For sure some of my favorite tippling locations pride themselves on their sweet potato fries, but they've always left me pretty underwhelmed. They're never as crispy as I'd like, and they seem to be more centered on being sauce delivery vehicles than most other appetizers. All in all I'd really rather just have, you know, a fry.

But then there's this:

That's our sweet potato pecan praline gelato, and it's pretty well entirely turned me around on the whole sweet potato experience. Definitely one of our prettier gelati, what with its powerful dark ribbon of praline twisted around the pastel hue of the sweet potato. It's another of our best flavors like tahini or avocado that do an awesome, unique job of balancing sweet and savory. And, of course, it's a flavor that you're not going to find at one of those establishments that deals in nonsense like fudge-covered peanut butter-filled pretzels or whatever. Know what I mean? You know what I mean.

And it tastes like fall in the best way. It tastes like the color of turning leaves smells. To me, anyway. It's here now! Hopefully it'll last a couple weeks; it pairs with our mulled wine really, really well. So come stop by!

Zuppa!

It's back! Yep, starting tomorrow, it's soup season again! Tell your friends, tell your coworkers, tell errybody! In the cooler months, Capogiro offers our beloved customers an array of simple and delicious soups, all made in the peasant style and served with a side of fresh Metropolitan bread. 

 Some of our favorites include Black Lentil, Tuscan White Bean, Cream of Tomato, Pumpkin, and my personal favorite, Potato Corn Chowder with Bacon (!). We've had a lot of folks coming in the past few weeks asking about our soups. Well rest assured folks, they will be piping hot and ready to serve to you this weekend. Yum.

Also, a shiny farthing to whomever can name this delicious fall flavor!

Party Weekend in Midtown Village!

Midtown Village’s Fall Festival surrounded Capo13 this Saturday (I mean the festival literally took place right in front of our doors) and boy did we make a lot of tipsy party people happy.  The streets were flooded with extremely ‘festive’ folks celebrating Octoberfest and we were happy to serve up tons of gelato for the festivities.  The crowd favorite seemed to be our Sweet Potato Pecan Praline gelato closely followed by Zucca.

On Sunday, Outfest (an awesome gay pride block party) was right down the street and although it was rainy, there was a lot of energy on the block and we could hear the party from inside Capogiro.  After my shift was over at four, I meandered down the street with my friend Alyssa to check it out.  There was literally gaiety all around; cool vendors, interesting foods, live performances, happy people, and drag queens strutting their stuff.  The atmosphere was welcoming and exciting.

Both fests were something to see, and if you missed either or both of them this year, be sure to attend them next year!!  These kinds of festivals really represent the growth and cultural development of our Philadelphian Community!!

- Tori

Totally of two minds about this.

So Rome's city council, distressed that the city's myriad cultural and historic locations were being over-run by tourists shoveling various foodstuffs into their faces, has put in place a scale of fines for committing the crime of eating and trying to get some culture at the same time.

On one hand, I really do understand this. I'm pretty regularly dismayed at how grungy some of our best tourist spots in town can be...though truth be told that may be more about the natives than the visitors. Which is distressing.

On the other hand, though...well. It's funny. I was about to try to make the point that there's nothing wrong with walking and eating at the same time, but then that's for sure one of those Americanisms that draws a bit of ire from people who arguably know better than us how to enjoy their food, like Italians and the French. I love street food (OH HEY--did you know tonight is the last Night Market of the year?! Come see us send off the summer in Chinatown! [rain or shine, beeteedubs.]) as much as anyone, but the best street food is really hand food--stuff you don't need utensils to eat, like tacos or danger dogs or charred meat on a stick.

So street food is one thing...but maybe not all foods should be street food? I think what I'm coming around to is that most foods should be eaten sitting down to allow for a certain amount of savoring. Yes. Writing this all out has helped me come to the conclusion that if, say, you get a cup of gelato at our 13th Street store and then stroll over to City Hall--particularly if you're a visitor--you're inevitably going to be too distracted by both phenomena to really appreciate either. I mean, you can't really delve into Philadelphia's most awesome, hand-crafted, perfection-embodied creation if you're trying to take in the world's largest masonry building, right? So. For sure come get some gelato! And some espresso. But set a spell before you go zipping down the sidewalk. You're never going to really appreciate the little chunks of candied hazelnuts in our bacio gelato if you're walking.

And really--last Night Market of the year tonight! Come say hi!
 

It's Costume Time!

Whether or not you're young or old, everyone likes dressing up in Halloween costumes. No matter if it's your first time trick or treating, or if you're that frat guy who goes every year as the "Breast Inspector" (clever, brah), we all love pretending to be in character for the night.

When my brother and I were kids, my parents would switch off making our Halloween costumes from scratch. My mother would usually have us be some sort of literary figure like Robinson Crusoe or Anne of Green Gables. My father was much more of a carpenter, and would construct elaborate costumes out of cardboard, foamcore, or rubber.

My dad also loves puns. When I was four my father had this wonderful idea to make my costume a giant cardboard cylinder with holes cut out for my arms and face. One side he painted like a Morton Salt shaker (complete with little girl and raincoat), and the other like a Duracell Battery. My costume was... "Assault and Battery". The other parents thought it was a riot, but I had no idea what the joke was so I just went running around yelling "I'm Salt!", and falling down a lot. 

In any case, no matter what ridiculousness you dress your kids or self in this year, make it a point to come down to Capogiro 20th Street. We will be participating once again in the Rittenhouse Row Trick or Treat festivities and will give you lots of candy.

What rhymes with spider and is not as scary?

Cider.  Apple cider.

Speaking as an apple cider connoisseur, Capogiro’s cider is premium.  It tastes like they liquefied the perfect fall landscape, heated it up with some autumn spices (we can add cinnamon and/or nutmeg if you'd like), and served it to you in a mug.

Ironically, I am a barista that dislikes coffee, so I am particularly excited to sip on some cider at work.  For all my fellow non-coffee drinkers out there, come in and enjoy a cup of steaming hot cider.  In our part of town, there aren’t many changing leaves, but there are plenty of fall fashions making an appearance on our corner.

Come in, sit by the window, order a piccolo zucca (pumpkin) gelato, and enjoy a cup of steaming cider to fend off the chill!  Maybe even add a dollop of dulce du leche (caramel swirl) to your cup to make it even better!!

-Tori

It's the time of the season for CapoYunk

As this rainy summer winds down towards muggy Autumn, we here at CapoYunk must bid farewell..NOT.
Well, technically not. Our cold weather hours as of now have been declared!

 Starting November, Capogiro Passyunk's hours will be as follows:
Thursday - Sunday : 2pm-10pm
Monday - Wednesday: cLoSeD

Stay real

Who thought this was a good idea, anyway?

I've always wondered about the history of how humans decided to eat certain things. Like lobsters--who was the first brave dude to decide that this:

was somehow worthy of eating? (Pretty sure that the lobstrosities from Stephen King's The Dark Tower books are a direct result of the author's status as a Mainer. Dad-a-chuk, and all that.) I can only imagine that some courageous proto-human was taking an afternoon dip and saw a lobster scuttling along the seafloor...and then somehow made the leap that the enormous bug would be delicious if conquered, cracked open, and consumed? I dunno.

And oysters. How...when would...I mean, Sarah finally got me to appreciate (and yes, really like) oysters a few months ago, and I'll for sure eat them with zeal these days. But how..how did the first person (again, proto-human) decide to shuck one open and slurp it down? Did Homo Habilis even have vinegar around to whip together a mignonette? And who finally brought the horseradish to the party, anyway? Good on you, horseradish guy.

Rambutan. JEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ rambutan. I've definitely mentioned them before but HOLY CRAP do they terrify me. WHY WOULD YOU EAT THAT?!? Don't get me wrong, I love our rambutan sorbetto. Tastes like tea to me, but we all know how subjective flavors can be. I can only imagine that the culinary background on these is something like this:

• Rambutan falls on proto-human's (let's call him Bill) head, splits open. 
• Bill sees what just hit him, glistening, terrifyingly translucent, probably throbbing if you get too close to it. Bill runs away in terror.
• Bill's proto-dog, too desnse to be afraid (c'mon, we all love dogs but they're hardly mental giants), tastes the rambutan, decides it's delightful, and wolfs (heh) the whole thing down. Proto-dog, unsurprisingly, promptly horks the pit up. 
• Bill reconsiders his stance on the rambutan issue.

So yeah. Food's just weird sometimes, but all in all generally awesome. Sometimes though, like something out of a youth reading horror novel, the scariest stuff is presented as the most innocuous and wholesome when really its truth is pretty terrifying (I'm looking at you, mega-corporate food "producers.") Anyway. Let's not rant, huh? Eat weird food. Does a body good. 

Your Fall Vegetable Garden in our Gelato Case

For some of you gelato lovers, our exotic flavors seem as strange as Willy Wonka’s 3-Course Meal Chewing Gum.  But sampling our Zucca or Acorn Squash Gelato won’t turn you into a pumpkin or squash, and we don’t have any strange Capo-lumpa workers that will burst out into song and roll you away. 

Traditional flavors like Stracciatella, Pistacchio, and Nocciola are in most customers comfort zones.  But Fall is the season of change!  So step out of your comfort zone and try something like, Peperoncini (Hot Pepper), Zucca (Lancaster Longneck Pumpkin), or Sweet Potato with Pecan Praline.

Remember, Capogiro employees are pretty generous when it comes to giving samples, so give it a try before you order the same old thing!

-Tori Styner

Beer and cool weather: the most wonderful time of the year!

Beer: is it the best thing out of Germany ever? Pretty much going with yes. Well. Garden gnomes do come a pretty close second, so we'll call beer German creation #1 and garden gnomes #1A. They're both delightful all year round!

If you were really my friend--and we are friends, right?--you'd buy us both plane tickets to galavant off to Munich, because it's the opening weekend of Oktoberfest and I could sure stand to get out of town for a minute. It's definitely on my bucket list, along with going to the Phillies' Spring Training and eating Rocky Mountain Oysters in the Rocky Mountains.

Given the sizable German diaspora scattered about this great commonwealth, you'd think there would be some pretty epic Oktoberfest celebrations. There are a few to be sure, but not nearly as many as I would have thought. So! Munich it is. 

Since the Munich celebration is the originator, it's predictably monstrous in scale. Somewhere between six and seven million people will stop by during the 16 days the festival lasts this year, and they'll consume upwards of seven million liters of beer. (Which...something about that seems off. I mean, a liter of beer is definitely a big pour, but most people are only having one? Not buying it, somehow. But what do I know?) And all of that beer will be brewed in Munich exclusively and with strict adherence to the super old school German beer purity laws known as Reinheitsgebot. 

So! C'mon. Spoil a guy a little and let's fly to Germany for the weekend. Beer and sausages and pretzels and smart women in dirndls...I promise not to embarrass anyone by trying to scrape all the German I used to speak out of the back of my head.