Grazie, Eataly!

(images courtesy la gazzetta italiana and inspired goodness)

Assuming you are a fellow member of the "Italian Food is Awesome" Club, run, don't walk to Eataly, in Flatiron.

Available within the walls of this upscale Italian market (Mario Batali is one of the owners) are SEVEN restaurants and an insane collection meats, cheeses, oils, pastas, veggies, coffee, gelato, wine...you get the idea.

(images courtesy ken carbone @ fast code design)

Because we are brave and almost always hungry, we ventured into this seriously crowded, highly publicized space on a recent Saturday afternoon to pick up ingredients for a dinner party that evening.

At the end of our trip, we came away with delicious marinated olives, 2 types of wonderful cheese, crusty bread, pancetta, fresh pasta and a bit of proscuitto so good that it might melt your brain (thanks again to the kind butcher who let us taste before we bought and also saved us from foolishly picking up the $65 a pound variety).

Check out our delicious antipasto platter below (notice the toes of the hubby's shoes on the left waiting anxiously for this photo to be snapped).

Next, along with our guests, we whipped this delicious pasta carbonara recipe, downed a few bottles of red wine and played board games. Let's just say it was certainly a creative game of Scattegories.

Grazie, Eataly. For serious.