This weekend I did not waste the 50-degree and sunny weather.

I walked a bit, I thought a bit, I researched a bit, snapped a bit and ate a bit. I could feel myself reacquainting with that old #cobbled feeling and all I could think was “Thank god I didn’t forget how to type properly formed sentences because of perpetual darkness”.

I am realizing as I look more into Cobble Hill, I am finding one dominating fact – “Historically an Italian neighborhood.” Having a community with a common cultural identifier is not unique to any one city, but some have stronger roots than others.

Why is Cobble Hill historically an Italian community?

There are certainly other neighborhoods that blare their Italian roots in all five boroughs; from Little Italy (obviously) to Staten Island, their origins as cultural enclaves are pretty clear.

I want to find out about Cobble Hill.

Long story short, I didn’t get any immediate answers this weekend. But I did start somewhere fun.

Sam’s.

I wrote about picking a pizza place so I decided to use my list and pick a pizza place. Except I didn’t actually get pizza, and I got distracted by a very talkative bartender.

Sam’s is old school. The waiter knew all the little kids sitting at the booths, chatted amicably with the parents about a variety of things from church to soccer (or football; even though I’m pretty sure the parents had no idea he was talking about European football).  The bread was put on the table with a warning not to eat it – you better make sure you have room for the pasta. A phrase and warning I had only ever heard from my friend’s Sicilian grandmother.  I loved every minute of it.

I went for comfort. I went for meatballs. No regrets.

Sam has been around since the 30s and it shows; years of history could be felt on its walls. It’s one of the last comfortably warm and low key Italian places on a street that is slowly filling with trendy upscale restaurants; but it was a start for me to see why Cobble Hill is a historically Italian because it’s historically Italian.

So starting the search, figured some historically Italian food could only inspire me.