PITTSBURGH - Food plays an integral role during the holidays, and buying food for the season's celebrations can be as much a tradition as eating it.

It's this tradition that found lifelong friends Butler Mayor Leonard Pintell and city Treasurer Ralph D'Antonio eating their way through Pittsburgh's Strip District Wednesday.

The tradition is a relatively new one, based on both men's belief that part of a good life is eating good food. It began five years ago when the two decided to venture into the Strip together for a little holiday shopping.

The result is an unabashed party-before-the-party that is guaranteed to expand the waistband.

Families with deep food roots taught Pintell and D'Antonio about the surprises and treasures to be found in the Strip, the wholesale produce and food delivery district along Penn Avenue just north of downtown Pittsburgh on the Allegheny River side of the city.Pintell's father, Pete Pintell, traveled to the Strip as a buyer and grocer for the Butler-based Friedman's Supermarkets, where he worked for more than 60 years."I remember coming down here with my father to buy produce," Pintell said while driving south on Route 8."We'd get there about 1 in the morning. Back then it was all free market, and you'd walk around to find the best price. And there was this little restaurant in the middle (of the market area). It had the best food."D'Antonio's mother, Margaret D'Antonio, was well known in Butler for her expertise in the kitchen, and her influence sends the former schoolteacher to the Strip for ingredients throughout the year. He has even used trips to the area as a way to entertain his grandson, Rocco, during baby-sitting excursions."It got to the point that some of the ladies down there even knew him," D'Antonio said. "They'd say, 'Hey Rocco,' when we'd walk in."But trips to the Strip for Pintell and D'Antonio never mean as much as they do on cold winter days leading up to Christmas - the hustle, the bustle, the sights, smells and tastes.

The first stop - and stop in this instance means jumping from the car into the double line of one-way traffic on Penn Avenue, so Pintell can look for a parking space and D'Antonio can get to shopping - is the Pennsylvania Macaroni Co.Always crowded, the store carries Italian food products from fresh pasta to cheese and everything in between. It's the cheese department that D'Antonio and Pintell make a beeline for, each with a shopping basket on their arm.Fifteen minutes later, D'Antonio acquires a shopping cart, a sharp trick considering that as the store fills, carts are going at a premium.The two men hook up with Carol "Dearheart" Pascuzzi, one of Penn Mac's cheese experts, and the cheese starts to fly.Pieces, slices and chunks are sliced from rounds, small and large with slivers passed across the counter for immediate tasting. Pascuzzi grabs, cuts and bags Pintell's and D'Antonio's selections, asking time and again, "What else, dear heart?"Fresh asiago, Stilton with cranberries and dry ricotta are just a few of their picks.A few steps away, five-gallon buckets hold about a dozen different types of olives, which D'Antonio tastes. He makes sure to deposit the pits into another bucket on the floor."These are my favorites," he said, holding up a long sieve-spoon featuring a few bright green castelvetrono olives that offer a fruitier, less salty taste than the standard jarred Spanish olives.Onward to the meat counter for proscuitto parm - an aged Italian ham sliced paper-thin - that almost melts in the mouth, and a chewy, mildly spicy margherita sweet salame.Bags of nuts, balsamic vinegar and fresh pasta round out the Penn Mac experience for the two shoppers."That's all for Christmas Eve," the two men said.After quick stop at the car to deposit their bundles, Pintell and D'Antonio are off to find seafood for the Christmas meals.

Wholey's is one of two choices in the Strip for seafood, the other being Benkovitz, but Wholey's is closer to the car Wednesday and it's a quick trip inside the fish, meat and produce market where shrimp and lox are bagged.The chill of the fish store is replaced by the warm blanket of Mancini's Bread, where Pintell grabbed a couple of warm pepperoni rolls to "keep the furnace going," he said, referring to his shopping ability.Back up the avenue, against traffic and across the street, to Jimmy and Nino Sunseri Co., it's on to another Italian market that offers hot food and pastries.D'Antonio stops at the store for confetti, basically Jordan almonds with a thinner shell, and pistachios.Both men get a bag of sfogliatelle, a puff pastry encasing ricotta cheese, fruit and almonds that is more like a sweet meal than a dessert.Finally, the teasing and tasting is over with a quick lunch at Il Piccolo Forno on 21st Street, just off Penn Avenue. The three storefronts with interior doorways feature a very simple coffee bar followed by a bakery and short-list food menu and then a small store.It's time for cookies, coffee and small bowls of pasta in simple olive oil and pesto sauces. After all the picking and nibbling, everyone is full, and it's time to get back to Butler.

Pintell's car heads for home, filled with the heady smells of the Strip - sharp cheese, warm meats, earthy bread and creamy coffee - with all the promise of Christmas as a wrapped and ribboned box under a decorated pine tree."This trip reminds me of when I was a boy and going to the Strip with my father, the horses and buggies and the generous spirit of the people," said Pintell. "They always gave to the Sisters of the Poor when they asked for food, so when I go to the Strip all of those memories come flooding back to me."It is those memories he and D'Antonio hope to keep alive for their families and friends with the cheeses and meats and breads, the smells and the tastes that say "Merry Christmas" for two Butler men.