Imaginary vacations

Living in Boston I’ve become accustomed to heavy accents and local vernacular  I think it’s great, (or I think it’s WICKED AWESOME), and always makes me feel tied to my city. Pittsburghese is pretty amazing, so many pronunciations and sayings… We reached out to some Pittsburgh dwellers to have them help us write the text for our Pittsburgh print in Pittsburghese. here are a few fun things we found on the web. –  First here are some exercises to warm you up – If you want to know all the details of Pittsburghese check out this article by PBS. – Here is your list of vocab to practice. – Watching these videos will get you speaking like a pro. This one is my favorite. We paired our favorite Pittsburghese sayings with some of our favorite Pittsburgh celebs. Zachary Quinto, (how cute is he?), Andy Warhol, Christina Aguilera, Michael Keaton, Gene Kelly, Wiz Khalifa, Lurch and (one of my all time favorite actresses) Frances McDormand.

A 2006 study concluded that Pittsburgh has over 446 bridges, beating Venice by 3 – I wonder how many they have 6 years later? The oldest bridge that is still in commission is the Smithfield Bridge (our number 9) which opened in 1883. Many of the cities bridges are painted that bright yellow gold, an official color of Pittsburgh. I can only imagine how much that color pops on a gray day, creating graphic shapes against the cityscape. That thought was the main inspiration for our Pittsburgh pattern. Check out more of Pittsburgh’s major bridges. (All images via wikipedia, please visit and check out more bridge pics by these photographers!) 

I love to eat so our food posts are some of my favorites, I have to say Pittsburgh has some very yummy native foods. 1. IRON CITY BEER Every city should have their own beer. 2. ISALY’S CHIP CHOPPED HAM I made one of these sometime ago, (I’m sure the one I’d get in da ‘Burgh would be 2340958 times better than mine), and I’d say it was a kin to the pulled pork and the shaved steak sandwich. Here are some crazy recipes you can try at home.3. PRIMANTI BROTHER’S SANDWICH Grilled meat, an Italian-dressing-based coleslaw, tomato, and FRENCH FRIES between two pieces of Italian bread. Amazing. Here is how to make your own.4. HEINZ KETCHUP Being from Boston, one of the homes of Theresa Heinz Kerry, I’m quite familiar with the name. I owe a huge debt to Heinz because if our son won’t eat something, you can bet he will if he can dip it in Heinz. 5. KLONDIKE BAR I love these. My dad used to eat them all the time. I once bought the “lower-cal” Klondike bars and realized they were just half the size of the regular bars – and I was ok with that. See here were they were made. 6. CLARK BARS  I’ve never had a Clarks Bar but I plan to run out and get one. The Company was born in two back rooms of a house in Pittsburgh’s North Side in 1886.