What's Interesting This Week at Joseph's Market

Well, everything at this somewhat off the beaten path on the FAR west end of Chicago, but something you won't find at most other Italian markets:

• Sea Urchin (called, oddly, "sea eggs")

Actually, as long as I'm on talking about Joseph's, I should mention a few other things of note. The pizza, what pizza, it's what I might call blob pizza. The base is free form in area like a very difficult calculus problem and awfully thick, almost two inches. Yet, unlike Chicago sheet pizza it has a crisp crust and a bit of weight in the dough. You need strong toppings to stand up to this dough and the ricotta-vegetable I tried really does.

Ok, there's more. Some of the best giardinara I've seen/tried, a mess of mostly pickled jalepenos, reminding me a lot of one of my favorite Korean panchan. There is another giardinara with vegetables. Breaded octopus to be eaten hot or cold, several kinds of salami and hams all in excellent state and cut attractively on the bias and a cheese I'm not sure the type but marinated in oil and covered heavily with spices and chopped chives. The mystery cheese is very salty. A few wedges of that, several slices of salami, both giardinaras, some marinated green olives, a bit of marinated eggplant, crusty whole wheat D'Amato bread, and my lunch went down a lot better than da Bears.

Joseph's

8235 W. Irving Park

Chicago, IL