Chicago's Festa Pasta Vino: Viva il Formaggio!

Even Elvis wants a piece of this action.

Yes, long live cheese...as in, the extreme cheesiness and enjoyment of Festa Pasta Vino, billing itself as Chicago's only Italian festival, taking place every Father's Day weekend in the Heart of Italy subneighborhood in Pilsen (basically a two-block stretch of Oakley Avenue between Cermak and Blue Island. (link to Festa page)


It's worth a trip to this ancient, tiny Italian enclave any time of year, a truly old Chicago neighborhood that boasts a number of fine mostly Northern Italian restaurants, among them Bruna's, which my husband and I have enjoyed many times with friends.  It's the kind of place Michael Corleone might have gone to meet Sallozzo and McCluskey but more romantic and nobody gets shot in the head.  They know their way around a chicken Vesuvio, let me tell you.

Bruna's: Old-school Italian done right.

Anyway, dear friend Ann and I, with whom I seem to have my wackiest adventures, found ourselves accidentally at Festa Pasta Vino as the result of a dinner date at Bruna's.  After a fantastic meal of chicken vesuvio, eggplant parmagiano, and some wine, we stepped out of the restaurant into the tiniest, coziest, cheesiest festival in Chicago.

The funeral home is handy if you eat/drink yourself to death.

My phone camera pictures won't do it justice, but here are a few choice morsels of the experience.
* Rented plaster statuary stuck at intervals down the middle of the street.
* A guy named Frank, who looked just like Joe Pesci, sweating stoically under an excellent Centurion costume and an inexplicable Billy Ray Cyrus mullet wig.
* Having my photo taken with Frank the Centurion. 
* Lighted-up plastic grapes festooning vendor booths.
* The requisite license plate holders saying you touch-a my car, I break-a you face.  
* Fake gold-plated giant necklaces spelling out CLA$$Y.
* A former Jersey Boy on the main stage belting out "Working My Way Back to You, Babe."
* Legendary Chicago radio fossilized stick insect Dick Biondi, who came out and talked about his favorite performers, such as Bobby Darin.  Dick was then presented with an electric guitar painted red, white, and green, which I was seriously afraid would snap him in two with the effort of holding it up.
* The mysterious Piedmont Club, about which I was able to find NOTHING on the Internet, which intrigues me no end.  Do let me know if you find out anything.  It needs to be the set of a movie, I think.
* A charming gentleman with an interesting backstory which discretion forbids me from relating, who bought us drinks at Bacchanalia.
* People walking into bars and restaurants with open drinks in their hands, sometimes both hands.
* The diminutive West Town (Anzilotti-Bacigalupa) Funeral Home, where Vito might easily have taken Sonny after they massacred his boy.
 
* Adding yet another fun, goofy experience to so many I've been fortunate enough to have with my buddy Ann.  Many more in our future, I hope, dear lady... :)

Happy Summer and Happy Friday everybody - and remember, mark your calendar for next Father's Day Weekend for Festa Pasta Vino.