Pool Report of Obama at Philly's Italian Market

Two news flashes from our 20-minute walking tour through Philadelphia's
Italian Market: Sen. Barack Obama got testy when a guy kept interrupting
him for a photo, and we learned of several foods that the candidate
actually likes to eat.

Obama strolled down the sidewalk, passing a coffee house and
a gelatto stand. He greeted a woman and her baby and shook hands with
shopkeepers. In front of Scott & Judy's fresh produce stand, he greeted
Josephine Rubens, 67, who lives around the corner "by the church," in the
same house where she grew up. She raved about the neighborhood's many
conveniences. "Everything's in walking distance," Rubens said.

Moving along, Obama dashed in and out of a pastry shop and
shook hands with a pair of street vendors. "We're backing up traffic," the
candidate noted as he hurried down the block. He ducked into Claudio
Specialty Food, a meat and cheese shop as perfectly turned out as a
Hollywood set. "You guys go ahead, I don't want to cut in line here," he
told a group of women (as opposed to guys).

Obama perused the cheese selection and bit into a slice of
provolone. "I'm thinking I need some cold cuts," he noted, nibbling on the
cheese. "The fresh mozzerella sounds good. But I want to try to the
salami." He dropped a thin slice into his mouth. "Good stuff," he declared.
Owner Sal Auriemma wrapped up a quarter pound of salami, baked ricotta that
Obama compared to pound cake, provolone and mozzerella.

The two bantered about the rising prices of Auriemma's many
imported products, due to the weak dollar. "I told him to beef up the
dollar," the owner later relayed. As Auriemma prepared the order, Obama
turned to flirt with little Emily Bauso, an adorable toddler with pink
earrings, who was waiting in line with her mom, Stephanie.

As the senator left the store, Auriemma said he was inclined to support
Obama on April 22, noting that he wasn't a Clinton or McCain fan. "I guess
of all of them, yeah," he said. He refused to let Obama pay, but the
senator insisted, handing Auriemma a $20 bill and waving off the change.
Obama moved down the street to Di Bruno Bros., a slightly
swankier and trendier meat and cheese shop. He sampled the asiago and the
Birchrun Blue, a new farmhouse blue made in Chester Springs. "That's good
stuff. What else you got for me?" Obama said.

"How's business been?" he asked, as the men behind the counter
scurried about, looking for other products for Obama to try. "People like
to eat well, you know. That's one thing that never changes," answered
Ezekial Ferguson, one of the workers, and a self-described big Obama fan.
Ferguson held out a slice of patanegra, a fancy Spanish ham,
explaining that it had only recently been legalized in the United States.
"What do you mean just legalized? It's so good it's like a drug or
something?" said Obama. "Pretty much, yeah, just wait," said Ferguson.

He explained that the ham came from a type of black-hoofed
Iberico wild pig that wanders around eating acorns, "which turn into
delicious fat in its muscle tissue, and also make it really healthy for
you." That drew a chuckle from your poolers. "All I know is it tastes
good," said Obama. "That was delicious."

Apparently the conditions for aging the ham from these exotic pigs were not
up to snuff with the USDA, until very recently. Now one producer in Spain
is licensed to import it. "That fellow's only $99.99 a pound," Ferguson
announced. "So I ate a dollar's worth," Obama said.

He settled up for his quarter pound of "Shellbark Shark" goat cheese,
priced at $25.99 per pound and produced at a West Chester farm from a herd
of 33 purebred Nubian goats. He also posed for a photo with Ferguson and
his workmates.

Obama's final stop was Cannuli Bros., a butcher shop founded in 1927, with
the slogan, "World Famous Oven Roasted Boneless Pigs." Obama looked around
at the chops and sausages and lamented, "I'd shop now but I won't be home
'til tomorrow."

There was a side story that was happening while all this was going on. A middle aged man kept harassing Obama for a photo throughout the whole OTR.

Putting the string of conversations they had together it seems that the man wanted a picture but Obama refused because they had another run in (off camera and before the OTR) somewhere when the man interrupted Obama taking a picture with a child. Here are the exchanges.