What about Sicily??

 I haven't posted anything on Sicily for 6 months??!!

Lucia making pasta con il tenerumi

And so many things have happened since February!  I've watched loads and loads of YouTube videos of the Pasta Grannies and In Taverna con Lucia on my iPad, because I've been spending 30 to 60 minutes a day on the recumbent bike exercising my knee.  I don't think I've mentioned Lucia before.  She's a very energetic Sicilian cook that videos herself making lots of dishes, many of them typically Sicilian.  Sort of like a Sicilian Maangchi:  lighthearted, funny and unassuming.  Naturally she speaks very rapid Italian but I can slow the playback speed to 75% and that helps a lot.  I also use the automatically generated closed captions but they can be pretty poor sometimes.  

One of her latest videos was on using the Italian Cucuzza squash, a very long summer squash with velvety leaves and white flowers that open up at night.  I grew it once many years ago but couldn't find a way to use it.  Lucia chops up the leaves, peels the squash and cooks it with tomatoes and onions and serves it with pasta.  

I've also subscribed to the La Cucina Italiana newsletter so every single day I get an email from them linking to 5 or 6 recipes or articles on Italian cuisine.  Ashamedly I've been reading their English version instead of the Italian one.  I remember picking up copies of the Italian magazine at the swap shop in the married student housing in Albany (that's CA not NY) in the 1970s.  I carried them around with me for years and finally gave them away a few years ago (along with the Spanish Encyclopedia Salvat), keeping only one copy for nostalgia's sake.

A few days ago La Cucina Italiana's email linked to an article on Sicilian food with links to additional Sicilian recipes.  And they don't just have recipes but articles on the regions:

• Agrigento, Sicily in Two Days
• Sicilian Cuisine: East Versus West (Catania vs Palermo)
• The Bounty of Sicily's Sicani Mountains
• Harvesting the World's Best Capers on Sicily's Island of Salina
• Retro Meets Baroque: Where and What to Eat in Southeast Sicily (Ragusa)

Of course, it is all about the food.  So what's my next step?  To sign up for the Italian version of the newsletter!

Mt. Etna

This is a photo from a 2011 eruption

Last Tuesday, February 16th, Mt. Etna erupted in a strombolian explosion, which is one with relatively mild blasts (like the nearby Stromboli volcano off the north coast of Sicily).  On the 18th it erupted again in the southeast crater.  Go-Etna, an organization that offers excursions of Mt. Etna, describes the eruptions.  Perhaps Overseas Adventure Travel will revisit its decision to relocate our stay in eastern Sicily from Catania to Zafferana Etnea on the southeastern flank of the volcano.  The village of Pedara that was struck by the volcanic stones ejected is only 10 kilometers south of Zafferana and Zafferana was the epicenter of a recent (2/11/21) earthquake of magnitude 3, preceding the eruptions.  So which is worse?  The volcano or COVID 19?  As you might guess, I am rooting for a return to our accommodations in Catania.

The Ongoing Sicilian Food Saga

Usually I can find cookbooks in our local library system but there were two books about Sicilian cooking that I had to order as used books:  Pomp and Sustenance: Twenty-Five Centuries of Sicilian Food by Mary Taylor Simeti (an American who married a Sicilian and moved there in 1962) and Sicilian Food & Wine: The Cognoscente's Guide by Francesca Lombardo and Jacqueline Alio (two Sicilian women who claim to present "the most genuine, candid, unabashed side of Sicilian cuisine. Nothing nouvelle, just the very real thing.").  

Sicilian Food & Wine talks about the food (which I like) without recipes but Pomp and Sustenance also includes recipes.  I'm never sure which kind of cookbook author I prefer:  the native who grew up with the food, or the foreigner who is able to identify which dishes are unique to the region.  A healthy mix of both kinds of cookbooks is probably best.  I must admit that so far I prefer Pomp and Sustenance mainly because it includes the history of the dish and Lord knows Sicily has plenty of history!  It also includes drawings and photos and Sicilian Food & Wine is stark by contrast.  It would have been nice if I could have obtained the Italian version of the latter so at least it would give me some practice reading Italian.

In the meantime I am trying to practice my Italian with YouTube videos.  There's a British subscription called Pasta Grannies that films various older cooks (not all women) cooking special local dishes in Italy.  They offer 17 videos in their Sicily playlist and the advantage to these videos is that most are only 3 to 6 minutes long so you don't have to suffer through any very long preparations.  Today I watched Anna's fish couscous from Sicily (with wonderful tiles in the kitchen) and Nicola's Sicilian pizza called sfincione di Bagheria.   

This is so much easier than reading a cookbook and they do all the work!  Too bad we can't eat the end product.  And sometimes you might not want to eat the end product: next I'm watching Rosetta making pasta with sardines for Father's day!  I swear I will try it when we are in Sicily since it is pretty much the national dish.  The fennel should help.  Or I could opt for pasta con le sarde a mare: pasta with sardines at sea.

By Train from Palermo to Mt. Etna

 [February 28, 2021:  The BBC Great Continental Railway Journey of Sicily on YouTube has been removed and so while I search for a replacement, here is the short clip on Michael Portillo's visit to Gangi and its Mafioso history directly from the BBC.]

In this BBC Great Continental Railway Journey, Michael Portillo takes the Sicilian railway from Palermo, to Agrigento, to Siracusa and finally up to Mt. Etna.  He uses Bradshaw's Guidebook dated 1936 and so Mussolini and Fascism are highlights in this episode.  Michael will never be lost in the crowd because his clothes are so vibrant, garish in fact.  Not at all British. so it must be his Spanish heritage, although he doesn't mention the Spanish influence in Sicily at all, merely the "Bourbon".

1930 Photo

In Palermo, besides going to the Ballaro street market where he eats pasta con le sarde and actually finds it quite good, he pays a visit to the monumental post office on Via Roma next to the main train station.  It is called the Palazzo delle Poste which I don't believe I have read about.  Very very interesting as it was built under Mussolini and has gigantic Greek columns but also a futuristic interior which is quite beautiful, especially the conference room and the stairway.  

Mussolini tried to make everything efficient so he would probably be disappointed that the post office is the epitome of inefficiency, according to Off the Beaten Track in Palermo.  He also wanted the trains to run on time but that was only in Northern Italy.  Sicily was neglected, except for the Mafia, which Mussolini wanted to eradicate.  To illustrate that, Michael takes a side trip to Gangi, a previous Mafia stronghold in the interior of the island that Mussolini surrounded and kidnapped the women and children so that the mafiosi eventually surrendered.  Now Gangi is considered one of the most beautiful villages in Italy.  Perhaps you have heard of the nearby restaurant Tenuta Gangivecchio or looked at one of their cookbooks, La Cucina Siciliana di Gangivecchio.

Michael also visits the Greek temples of Agrigento and talks about Luigi Pirandello, the playwright born in Agrigento and what his relationship was to Mussolini and fascism.  

Then he visits Siracusa, a very interesting historic city which rivaled Athens in the Greek world.  Too bad we are only going to spend a morning there on our trip to Sicily.  Since Siracusa is on the coast, Michael takes a boat ride where he eats arancini (cone-shaped there as opposed to round like oranges in Palermo) and cannoli.  But it is the little pear-shaped tomatoes that caught my eye.  Such a pure deep lipstick red!

In keeping with the Mussolini theme, Michael visits the Monumento ai Caduti in Africa, commemorating the Italian invasion of Abyssinia (now Ethiopia) in 1935-6, another monument that you don't hear about too much in tour books.  It was created in 1938 by Romano Romanelli and was destined for Addis Ababa but was later (1952) erected in Siracusa which was the jumping off point for the invasion.  Although fascistic and imperialistic, it is a very imposing work of art.

Finally, Michael winds up on Mt. Etna, that famous volcano of Sicily.  Michael takes the cable car to the top of Mt. Etna but what is more interesting I think, is the Circumetnea, a railway established in 1895 that makes almost a complete circle around the volcano.  In 1937 they introduced La Littorina, a futuristic Fiat motor coach that they still use in the summer for special rides.  The website, Unusual Places, has an article about it with many photos.

So you can see that this rail journey covers places we haven't seen in other videos about Sicily and it is interesting to learn about the fascist period of the 1936 Bradshaw Guide.

More Sicilian Body Parts

Today in an article in Saveur by the National Italian Tourist Board -- Finding the Real Dolce Vita: A Delicious Adventure Into Palermo’s Secret Dessert Scene -- I learned of another Sicilian dessert that I had not heard of before (how could that be? I asked).  It is Fedde del Cancelliere or Chancellor's Buttocks, which have been updated with a shell shape instead of a derriere.  They are made of pistachio paste or marzipan shells filled with blancmange and apricot jam.  We'll have to be on the lookout for them!

The Fedde led me to an article on Santa Lucia's feast day where they mentioned another pastry named after a body part, le Palle del Nonno (grandfather's testicles -- and wouldn't you know it, testicles is feminine...).  These are supposed to be ricotta and chocolate beignets.  That also sounds good but I don't know if I would ask a restaurant if they had any.

Oh, those Islands around the Tyrrehnian Sea

 

It is only natural that when one studies Sicily, one drifts northward and runs into those two other large islands: Sardinia and Corsica.  And one can't but notice how very similar Sardinia and Corsica are to each other, apart from one being French and the other Italian, but also in comparison to Sicily to the south.  Apparently Corsica became part of France in 1768 when Genoa sold it to France, long before Garibaldi could liberate it and join it to Italy.  Unfortunately Corsica had declared itself a Republic in 1755 but France crushed the republic in 1769.  So that is why they speak French in Corsica, although Italian is a regional language.

Both Corsica and Sardinia are islands that look inward towards the mountains rather than out towards the sea, purportedly due to the frequent invasions by the Barbary Pirates (but undoubtedly also by other Europeans).  Thus their cuisine centers on sheep and cheese rather than seafood.  On the other hand, the invaders of Sicily occupied the island, which was larger and contained fertile land as well as mountains and much of the livelihood remained centered on the sea, although in Sicily there is a rivalry between the developers of the land (farmers and pastoralists) and the fishermen (the hunters and gatherers of the sea).  Because of this and because the multiple invaders brought their own cuisine and foodstuffs, the Sicilian cuisine is more varied than that of Sardinia and Corsica.

There's a recently published book on Sardinian cuisine: Bitter Honey, Recipes and Stories from the Island of Sardinia written by a former London chef who moved to Sardinia a few years ago, Letitia Clark.  Many of the recipes are traditional (such as the handmade pasta, malloreddus) but she injects her own spin on things and does include some seafood as now it is more common, especially with the tourists.  And the photographs are lovely.  However, I would have liked it if she had put the food glossary at the front of the book and had expounded a bit more on fregola and pani carasau.  But maybe the English are more familiar with such ingredients than we are here in the United States.  And of course, one needs a video to see how to fill and shape the pasta called culurgioni, a ravioli filled with potatoes, cheese, egg and mint.  Thank goodness for YouTube!

Many years ago (2007), I was intrigued by another Sardinian cookbook, Sweet Myrtle & Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia by Efisio Farris.  That's where I first learned about their bitter honey, botarga (the preserved mullet roe), and malloreddus.

But it's always nice to SEE the food and its preparation and that's where, like Sebastian, I could spend my life watching YouTube.  Rick Stein in the BBC's Mediterranean Escapes, visits both Corsica and Sardinia before he continues on to Sicily.  In fact he spends relatively little time in Sicily before he moves on to Puglia.

• Culinary Wonders of Corsica & Sardinia
• Authentic Tastes of Sardinia & Sicily

And if you like Rick Stein, you'll be happy to know there's a Rick Stein's India.  Oh those Brits!

Sicilian Sweets

Mostarda di Mosto

I've already mentioned some of the sweets that are common in Sicily like cannoli and breasts of Saint Agata.  Recently I came across Mostarda di Mosto (Mostarda di Uva) or grape must pudding, which must be from the Greek influence on the island because a search for "grape must pudding" brings up a lot of Greek recipes for Moustalevria, even the Spruce Eats has a recipe for it, and the ingredients are the same: boiled down grape must (juice from pressed grapes), some sort of flour for thickener, walnuts and cinnamon.  To get the Sicilian recipe you need to search the Italian term.  For a very traditional recipe, using the terra cotta molds that you see in the photo above, visit Scorzette.com's recipe for Grape Mustard.  And for more on the terra cotta molds, called formelle, see Mostarda and Cotognata -- Sweets in Molds.  I wouldn't mind picking one up as a souvenir.

Sicilians enjoy a lot of fruits and the prickly pear cactus fruit (fichi d'India -- Indian figs) are especially popular for gelatos and puddings and eating out of hand (they simply swallow all those seeds).  There are particularly large ones called bastardoni, produced by cutting off the first set of flowers so that the second set ripens in the fall and produces a larger fruit when there is more rainfall.  These are a specialty of eastern Sicily.  The earlier crop of smaller fruits are called agostani, because they ripen in August.  You can also make mostarda out of fichi and fichi d'India.

Another Sicilian fruit dessert that I have always found fascinating is the watermelon pudding or gelo di anguria.  They sometimes put the pudding into a pie crust and typically use chocolate bits to mimic the seeds, although now with seedless watermelons there are many more versions without the chocolate.  Sometimes they sprinkle pistachios on top.  You will find pistachios sprinkled on top of lots of things, sweet and savory.  The town of Bronte on the western side of Mt. Etna is famous for pistachios, the only place in Europe that grows them.

And you will find gelatos and granitas made out of both prickly pears and watermelon.

Rosetta Constantino, a Calabrian, has a book out on Southern Italian Desserts, covering Calabria, Campania, Basilicata, Puglia and Sicily.  She has recipes for numerous Sicilian sweets, including the Watermelon pudding, cannoli, gelato and cassata.  You'll find lots of nuts (almonds, pistachios, hazelnuts and sesame seeds) and lots of ricotta in her recipes.  And for those whose ancestors came from Campania, she has a recipe for sfogliatelle, those multilayered pastries filled with ricotta that we used to buy in the Strip District.

Catania

 

Catania in eastern Sicily is the other major city on our OAT trip that we are not going to stay at now due to the Corona virus.  Catania is the second largest city in Sicily and lies close to Mt. Etna, that volcano featured in Lesson ii of Latin for Americans, the textbook that Mother bought for us one summer decades ago in Spokane.  Its first real lesson is about Sicily:  Roads in Sicily are not good.  New roads are not long.  There aren't large forests in Sicily.

Not a very positive picture of the island.  I never got past lesson iv in that book but I've held on to it, always hoping someday I would fulfill Mother's wish and learn Latin.  But I know a little Italian.  Does that count?

It's been a lot harder to find good information on Catania than it was for Palermo.  A Google search brings up ad after ad after ad, all renting villas.  But I've been looking for information about Palermo since my first Italian class years ago so perhaps now I know more specific terms to use in a search.  In any case, here are a couple of newspaper articles for an introduction.

"The Sights and Smells of Sicily’s Second City", by the Frugal Traveler in the New York Times is an appreciative article from May 2018, particularly of the Fish Market (Pescheria) near the port.  The market has more than fish, fortunately, and all commentators have liked it, especially Rick Stein in his Mediterranean Escapes.  I don't know if we'll get to the market as we are now staying in Zafferana, a village 45 minutes away from Catania and we only have a walking tour of the city in the morning.  

"East Sicily: what to see plus the best bars, beaches, restaurants and hotels" from The Guardian of June 2017 covers more than Catania and is more appreciative of Siracusa.  "Catania is hard to love at first sight: noisy, trafficky, and built of dark volcanic stone. But in time, the charms of this studenty city emerge."  One gets the impression that the British are more interested in beaches than in gritty cities.  And another source says the dark buildings are from the smoke and ash, although the elephant statue is supposed to be made of black tufa.

But fortunately there are blogs:

The Cutlery Chronicles:  10 Places To Eat At And Things To Do In Catania In Sicily, in which Londoner Leyla Kazim and 3 friends review a residence for HomeAway in Catania:  A high-end five bedroom, five bathroom, luxury penthouse palace, right in the heart of Catania, set over two floors, with a roof garden and terrace, two huge kitchens, full of art, and an outstanding view of the mighty Mount Etna.  (The photo on the left is obviously not of the palazzo.)  Now this is my idea of a vacation because they go to the market on Saturday morning and cook on Sunday.  Unfortunately this was just a weekend trip.

Minne di Sant'Agata

The Complete Food Lover's Guide to Catania from Luca's Italy lists the foods one must try in Catania, which include arancini (masculine and cone-shaped in Catania, feminine - arancine - and round like an orange in Palermo), especially those made with eggplant (alla Norma); cartocciate and cipolline which are filled savory pastries; arrusti e mangia (grilled horsemeat); and especially Pasta alla Norma, that famous eggplant and pasta dish named after Bellini's opera.  Even more unique are the Minne di Sant'Agata, the breasts of St. Agata.

I am sure that, in time, I will come up with more excellent sources on Catania, although they might be in Italian.  Or Sicilian.  Here's one dish that is especially appropriate, Spaghetti al nero di Seppie dell'Etna, which is squid ink pasta with squid ink sauce, ricotta salata and tomato sauce.  It looks like Mount Etna with snow on top and molten lava.

More Sicilian Food

I got a just-published book from the library: The Sicily Cookbook by Cettina Vicenzino, a Sicilian author so it should be authentic.  It isn't as traditional as some of the other cookbooks on Sicilian food and does a new take on some old dishes.  For instance, she has a "pasta with ricotta, kumquats and tuna bottarga" and a "Sicilian brioche burger."  Have I cooked from it?  You know I hardly ever cook from cookbooks; I never seem to have the ingredients.  However, I am sure Fernando would love "Double Jerusalem artichoke with black lentils and crispy chicken feet" and "Tripe with black chickpeas".

But I've also been scouring YouTube for more Sicilian food videos -- food videos because I much prefer markets to museums.  There are three short videos (~18 minutes) on Palermo's street food by a New Zealand couple: Sheena and Thomas on their channel, Chasing a Plate, where they document their travels around Asia and Europe.  These videos cover the majority of unique Palermitano street food dishes and a couple of classic restaurant dishes as well.

Palermo Street Food #1 covers the Ballaro food market where they eat frittola (boiled and fried calf innards), boiled octopus, sardines rolled up around a breadcrumb filling (sarde a beccafico) and babbalucci (snails).  Everything seems to be served with a squeeze of lemon and a sprinkle of parsley.  Oh, and of course, olive oil and sea salt.  Then they go to a trattoria for some cuttlefish pasta and swordfish pasta, followed by cassata and torta sette veli (which even shows up on the Greatest British Bake Off) at a pastry shop.

Palermo Street Food #2 again begins at the market where the first dish is that famous spleen sandwich, pani ca meusa.  If you don't like offal you can opt for chickpea and potato croquettes on a roll (pane e panella e crocche).  This is followed by something we should all like: gelato in a brioche.  Palermo also has its own version of pizza: sfincione which is supposed to be best from a food cart but they can only find it at a bakery.  Then it's off to the Vucciría market for more offal: stigghiola, grilled lamb intestines on a skewer.  It's good they are from New Zealand and like lamb.

Palermo Street Food #3 finally showcases the famous Sicilian arancini, stuffed rice balls.  Then they go to another Trattoria for the also famous pasta con le sarde (pasta with sardines) spiced with raisins and pine nuts.  The other recommended dish was pasta alla grassa, which I hadn't heard of before but which is supposed to be quite Sicilian.  Like the classic Genoese pasta with green beans and potatoes,  pasta alla grassa includes potatoes as well as pieces of meat and sometimes peas.  It must be little known in the English-speaking world because all the Google search results were in Italian.  After the pasta course they have caponata and fried mackerel.  Oily fish like sardines, mackerel and anchovies are very common and popular and need to be followed by their next stop at a granita shop.

Finally, there is another BBC series: Rick Stein's Mediterranean Escapes, that has two hour-long episodes covering Sicily: Authentic Tastes of Sardinia and Sicily and Rustic Dishes from Sicily & Puglia.  He loves markets and handling the merchandise.  The vendors must have been appalled...

Change of Plans: Cefalù instead of Palermo

Day before yesterday we received a letter from Overseas Adventure Travel (OAT) informing us that they were changing the Sicily itinerary so that we are staying in less crowded more intimate towns, specifically moving our 3-night stay from Palermo to Cefalù and moving our 4-night stay from Catania to Zafferana.  This is a health and safety measure to avoid large cities and crowds.

And here I was all geared up to explore Palermo!   Before the change, Cefalù was an optional side-trip so I had only watched a Joolz Guide to determine whether to take it.  Now we fly into Palermo and then are transported to Cefalù about an hour's drive away.  Currently we'll be staying at the Victoria Palace Hotel, a small (30 rooms) modern (2017) 4 star hotel that looks quite nice and hopefully we'll have some sort of ocean view and not be stuck at the back.  In the photo below, the town (a 10-15 minute walk away) is way in the background where you can see the Norman cathedral that is famous for its mosaic of Christ Pantokrator.  You can also see how close we are to the beach, although in November I'm not sure how the swimming will be (the hotel also has an outdoor pool).

In the photo below, you can see how nice the side rooms are with their balconies, sort of like a cruise ship.

One review said that the breakfast buffet was on the rooftop and, from the photos, it appears that the selection of items is varied enough with bread and pastries and even bacon and eggs (for the Brits?).  But probably no full English.  

If we are still hungry, there is a pasticceria about half a mile away called L’Angolo delle Dolcezze which produces all sorts of things, including a frosted panettone for Christmas, although I suppose November is a bit early for that.  Even more interesting are the cakes for prima comunione.  They look like wedding cakes!  Laina would love them!  And there's always cassata.

There are also two supermercati a couple of blocks away from the hotel, one called Gourmet Decò and the other Giardina Despar where we can hope to pick up some novello wines in November, right?  Or we can buy some aranciata di Sicilia.  There's also a salami and cheese shop, Salumeria Incognito, a little further toward town on the main highway, Via Roma.

Our first dinner in Cefalù is on our own (as is lunch the second day) so I'm checking out the restaurants.  Le Chat Noir doesn't sound very Italian but the menu lists the name of the dishes in Sicilian dialect and it is supposed to be Sicilian.  On another side street, Via Vanni, there is Il Normanno, without a website but one review says: "Good food at fair prices, definitely recommended for a quiet meal away from the main streets."  OAT recommended Kentia with a view over the ocean and it looks lovely but rather expensive.  Al Porticciolo is similar and offers an online menu with lots of seafood.  Apparently both have a few fixed price menus ranging from 25-40 €, although I don't know if we can eat that much.  Ristorante Via Roma Vecchia is similarly located so we have our pick of seafood restaurants with a view.

Sicily Unpacked

BBC Two produces an "UnPacked" series about Italy, including 3 videos on Sicily.  They are hosted by an art historian, Andrew Graham-Dixon, and an Italian chef (cook he calls himself), Giorgio Locatelli.  You can find them on YouTube and they are well worth watching.

• Episode 1 -- Palermo -- begins at the fishing town of Sciacca on the southern coast which Giorgio visits each time he goes to Italy for the seafood.  But most of the episode is in Palermo where they view some very elaborate stucco art, attend one of the famous Sicilian puppet shows, and visit the Vucciria market.  They also discuss the Mafia.
• Episode 2 -- The Spanish Occupations -- covers Noto and the Val di Noto in southeastern Sicily, gelato, Good Friday celebration in Enna, Easter Sunday in Modica and the oldest Sicilian chocolate factory (Bonajuto) in Modica.
• Episode 3 -- Modern Sicily -- also covers ancient Sicily with a visit to Mt. Etna and one of her vineyards, Pachino and its tomatoes, red shrimp at Mazaro del Vallo, and a take on a tuna burger at a modern gastronomic restaurant.  They also visit the Archaeological Museum of Aidone where a statue of Demeter had been returned to Sicily from the Getty Museum in LA.

One thing I was struck by in this series was the dearth of women in the interviews.  I don't know if it is because the hosts are male or whether there is still a separation of sexes in Sicily.  Few women vendors in the markets.  No women fishermen or fish buyers. Andrew and Giogio do mention that at the Easter Sunday dinner in Modica, the men made the ricotta (shepherds) while the women baked the bread (a household task).  Maybe a holdover from the Arabs.

Hollywood in Sicily

Currently I have 3 cookbooks on Sicily because nowadays library books are automatically renewed and evidently nobody else has a trip planned to Italy.  They are:

• La Cucina Siciliana de Gangivecchio by Wanda and Giovanna Tornabene (they have two other cookbooks)
• Cucina Siciliana by Clarissa Hyman
• Sicily from the Silver Spoon Kitchen, published by Phaidon (which means it is heavy)

But even better than cookbooks are videos and yesterday I lucked out and ran across a series on YouTube by Paul Hollywood (of The Great British Baking Show) from Tonic called "City Bakes".  In one episode he visits Palermo and tries many of the classic Sicilian dishes, like arrancine (rice balls), sfincione (Sicilian pizza), cannoli, cassata (an elaborately decorated cake), and gelato in a brioche (he wasn't impressed).  He visits the Mercato Vucciria and his Sicilian friend tries to get him to eat the famous innards but he declines (I wonder if he eats eels, pie and mash).  He does omit a few dishes like the spleen sandwich (pane con le milza), the chickpea fritter sandwich (panino con le panelle), and pasta with sardines (pasta con le sarde) and he never goes to a sit-down restaurant but he still covers a lot in 45 minutes.  He really enjoys himself and so should you!

Fast Forward to Sicily

Last Thursday we bit the bullet, called Overseas Adventure Travels (OAT) and changed our September Machu Picchu trip to a trip to Sicily in November of 2021.  Hopefully by then the Corona Virus situation will have improved, plus this gives me a reason to brush up on my Italian, which has been abandoned since Osher no longer offers Italian courses.  

Commissario Montalbano

Last night we decided to brush up on our Italian and watched the third episode of Commissario Montalbano again.  It is one of the best episodes  and in a way sets the stage for the rest of the series.  For those of you who don't know, Montalbano is a character in Andrea Camilleri's mysteries that are set in Sicily.  The TV series is in Italian and some of the characters are quite humorous so it is easy to watch.  Plus Montalbano loves good food and goes to restaurants almost daily, although he never visits a market since his housekeeper Adelina cooks for him.  We've watched him eat lots of fish and arancini but never panino con la milza (pani ca meusa in Sicilian).  That's street food (cibo da strada):   spleen sandwich.  Fernando would probably love it but I'll have panelle, the chickpea fritter sandwich, instead.

Is November a bad month to go?  It's cheaper but next to December the wettest month, however Sicily is probably as wet as Southern California.  We arrive in Palermo on November 11th, St. Martin's Day, which is the start of the novello wine season so hopefully we can polish off a bottle of wine a day like we did in Rome, except we won't be eating on our own in an apartment.  Sicily's wines tend to be red and hearty, many made from the Nero d'Avola grape.  Of course there is Marsala as well...

It is too bad that sundown will come early in November so we won't be able to wander around as much in the evening, although at our age it is increasingly rare for us to do that.  On the other hand, I hear that Sicily has very good gelato so we might stay up for that.