A Sicilian New Year

We woke refreshed and hungry.  The area around our apartment—which we had not been able to see the night before—was beautiful and lush, all rolling hills and vineyards, with Mount Etna looming between the clouds in the distance.  Mount Etna is the highest and most active volcano in Europe.  After some breakfast, we talked with some fellow guests and the proprietor about how best to see the volcano.  I had read that if you go with a guide, you can see lava flows, but the proprietor told us there had not been any eruptions lately.

Instead, we drove up, up, up for about a half hour, arriving at the Rifugio Sapienza, where there are several snack bars and souvenir shops, and a gondola you can take from there, at 1900 meters to 2500 meters.  It was significantly colder, and we all bundled up with all of the layers we had, plus hats and gloves.  We plunked down 83 euros and hopped aboard a gondola.  It was only then that I realized I might not be so happy in a small box hanging from a wire cable up a mountain.  I’m not a fan of heights, but I often get myself in situations and only realize that I should have considered my options more carefully once my breath is coming fast and shallow.  Well, there was no getting off at that point, so I tried to banish all thoughts of getting stuck, of the cable snapping, of the wind whipping our rickety box around.

Once we got off, I breathed a sigh of relief and took in the beauty.  Patches of snow dotted the ground and the volcanic gravel crunched under our feet.  We climbed up a fair bit more, but were unprepared for a real hike.  The air felt thin in our lungs, and we got out of breath quickly.  We had traveled above the clouds, and it felt like we were on another planet altogether.  The kids made snowballs and created rockslides on the hills.  We walked far enough to work up a nice appetite for lunch, and then took the gondola back down.  The ride back down seemed much faster.

Once again, the restaurant we had picked out for lunch was closed, so we went to Orchidea Pizzeria.  Again, reviewers raved about the pizza baked in a wood-fired oven.  Orchidea was open, but no pizza.  Our waiter recommended the canneloni, which was not on the menu, so we figured we should try it.  We ordered one plate to split but got two, which was just as well because it was delicious.  I had a mushroom soup, made with several kinds of meaty mushrooms the proprietor picked himself on Mount Etna.  It came with a bowl of freshly made croutons, about 2 inches square, and was a meal on its own.  I was so full when we finished that I worried we had made a tactical error—we had reservations to eat New Year’s Eve dinner at the agriturismo.  But that wasn’t until 9 o’clock, so I figured we’d have room by then.

I was supposed to go taste the agriturismo’s wine at 6 o’clock, but fell asleep under the down comforter and then had a long, hot bath instead.  When it was time to go down to dinner, I still felt full.  I should not have worried—dinner was, in Alec’s words “aggressively bad.”  When we arrived at the dining room, it was already packed, and the wait staff promptly set plates of appetizers in front of us.  Given that it seemed we had arrived late, we thought perhaps the first course had suffered from sitting around waiting for us.  But no, the subsequent courses—and there were several—were no better.  We were grateful for the lunch we had eaten earlier, but distressed to find such a poor meal at the agriturismo.

Fortunately, the atmosphere helped make up for it.  Most of the tables held parties of 12, 18, 20 people—families with babies, children the ages of our kids, a few grandparents sprinkled in here and there.  Everyone seemed to be in a good mood.   They tucked into their food, the wine flowed, and a pianist played American standards like “Imagine,” “New York New York,” and “Piano Man.”

Just before midnight the waiters came through to pass out sparklers, and everyone counted down and started singing.  Outside we could see all kinds of fireworks being set off in the towns below.  Alec and C.C. stepped outside for a better view, but Milo and I got swept up in a conga line before we could join them.  A patio off of the dining room had been tented and set up as a dance floor, and a DJ started blasting the dance music—“Billie Jean,” “YMCA,” “Celebrate.”  The place was hopping.  Pretty soon most of the wait staff were dancing with the guests.  After plenty of dancing, the kids started to wilt, and we headed back up the hill to our room.  So far, 2011 is pretty good.

Photos of the Day

Top and Middle: Mount Etna; Bottom; Mushroom Soup

Girona, to Trapani, to Segesta, to Santa Venerina

The day started badly.  We set the alarm for 6 so that we could pull our things together and get to the airport on time.  I popped into the shower before anyone else woke up and sang a little tune—the thought that I would be eating lunch in Italy made me giddy.  But then I emerged from the bathroom, and the kids were beastly, and so I quickly turned into Mean Mom.  We took not one but TWO wrong turns getting to the parking place near the airport, and suddenly we were way behind schedule.   My father always insisted on getting to the airport hours before a flight.  Once, when a snowstorm was forecast for the day of my sister Jody’s flight, he wanted to take her there the night before.  I am not quite that bad, but I hate rushing to the airport.  I can get irrationally tense even when I have plenty of time.  So this situation, especially with two small and grumpy children, was not so good for me.   The check-in guy assured us that we’d make the flight, and we all began to breathe a little easier. Then, as we were about to walk across the tarmac to board our plane, we realized that C.C. did not have her rolling suitcase, so Alec ran back and retraced our steps, locating it in the place we had loaded up on snacks and drinks, so as to avoid Ryan Air’s price gouging.

We landed at 11 am, and I had spent an hour the night before researching places for us to eat lunch.  My technique is to look on Chowhound, Trip Advisor, and the Slow Food website, trying to find a trifecta.  Italy is home to many slow food restaurants.  The movement was started in Italy by a man named Carlo Petrini, who wanted to promote local food prepared with care—the antithesis of fast food.  Slow food restaurants are certified by the slow food organization, and have a snail sticker in their window right next to the stickers showing which credit cards they take.

Calvino’s Pizzeria, in Trapani, is not a certified slow food restaurant, but the reviews on both Trip Advisor and Chowhound were so off the charts that I decided we had to head straight there from the airport.  Reading the descriptions of the hot pies slathered with fresh sauce, local olive oil, and mozzarella made my mouth water. 

Trapani is a port city, famous for its salt and sardine industries, which go way, way back.  Excavations have uncovered ancient salt works in Trapani, where the Sicilians of yore boiled seawater from nearby marshes.  It sticks out of the rest of the northwestern part of the island like a tiny finger pointing into the Mediterannean.

We found Calvino’s easily, and a parking spot as well.  From a block away, we could see that the doors were open, and we quickened our steps.  The doors were open, but when we walked in, the place was empty, which seemed odd given what I’d read the night before about the chaotic atmosphere, the rabbit warren of small rooms bursting with diners.  “Hello?” I called out.  I peeked into the kitchen window and saw the back of an Italian grandmother-type retreating into its nether regions.  A young man came out.  “Pizza?” we asked hopefully?  “Si,” he replied.  And then he held up seven fingers.  “Sette?” I asked.  “Sette o’clock? Noche?”  I asked.  “Si, si,” he said.  “Oh, no,” I said.  I am sure that if you snapped a photo of my face at that moment, you could have put it right next to the word “crestfallen” in the dictionary. 

“Where should we eat now?” Alec asked.  The pizza man seemed to understand the question, and told us to go around the corner, to the Osteria la Bettolaccia.  So we walked back out into the bright sunshine.  When I have my heart set on something specific to eat, I have a very hard time recovering.  Fortunately, I had a back up plan.  I needed more than just the pizza guy’s recommendation.  I looked in the book I had taken notes in and saw that the other place I had written down in case something went wrong with Calvino’s was… Osteria la Bertolaccia—the same place!  My spirits lifted immediately.  We walked the two blocks to the restaurant, only to find the door locked.  The sign outside said they opened at noon.  It was 12:40.  I remembered that, when we had been in Barcelona a year ago, many restaurants closed altogether between Christmas and three kings day.  Maybe we would encounter the same thing in Sicily.

Alec walked to the kitchen door and knocked, which seemed like a silly thing to do.  But that’s how desperate we were.  Sure enough, someone answered!  “Chiuso?” he asked.  “Yes, the door is closed but the restaurant is open!” answered our new friend.  He went around and unlocked the door from the inside.  It seemed odd to me, but I was so grateful and happy to find the osteria open that I chose not to question it.

The Osteria la Bertolaccia is slow food certified.  It is a homey little restaurant with beamed ceilings, terracotta floors, and about eight simple tables.  Bad eighties rock plays a little too loudly from the speakers, somewhat incongruously.  We ordered pasta for the kids and shared a plate of caponata, cheeses, olives and sun dried tomatoes.

Couscous is one of the typical dishes of Trapani; because of the promixity of Sicily to Morocco, there are Moorish influences in the uses of spices and nuts, the way fruits and vegetables are deployed in a dish.  In Morocco, the couscous would have been served with meat and potatoes, our server told us, but here in Trapani it is served with fish.  Alec ordered it (see below), while I ordered Busiati alla Norma, another typical Sicilian dish.  Busiata is the type of pasta; it is a long, tight corkscrew, about the width of tagliatelle and looks like it was made by wrapping the tagliatelle around a thin rod, thinner than a straw but thicker than a skewer.  The sauce is made with basil, tomatoes, pecorino, garlic,   The pasta and sauce intermingle with cubes of fried eggplant—not too many, but enough to give the dish some depth and bite.  When the waiter put my plate on the table in front of me, I leaned down and breathed deeply.  The aroma alone was enough to make me feel that I had arrived.  I ate the pasta with a glass of inky nero d’avola.  The waiter brought the kids paper to draw on once we depleted our own stash.  We had Sicilian ricotta cake and strong coffee for dessert.  Our first meal in Sicily, and the Osteria la Bertolacci had thrown down the gauntlet for the rest of our meals.

We had reservations to stay at an agriturismo in Santa Venerina for the next two nights, and we had a four hour drive ahead of us.  We planned one stop, early in the drive, at some ruins in Segesta—supposedly the best preserved temple on an island full of ruins.  It seemed worth the slight detour.  The kids clowned around in the ancient theatre, and ran around the temple counting its columns.  The ruins took longer to see than we had anticipated—at this point we would be getting in at about 8:30.  Although I was certain I had reserved dinner at the agriturismo, when Alec called to tell them what time we would be in, they told us the restaurant was not open for dinner.  So I began searching on the iPad for somewhere to eat in Giarre, which was near Santa Venerina.  I found a place that looked terrific and plugged the address into Dolores.  When we arrived, the sign on the door informed us that the restaurant was closed on Thursdays.  Who ever heard of a restaurant closing on Thursdays?  Sundays, Mondays, these days I can understand.   But Thursday?  I did not have a Plan B this time, but did a bit more research on the fly and came up with another place to try.  At this point, we were all getting tired and, although our lunch had been very filling, the kids needed to eat. 

We drove to the next place, which had all kinds of lights outside, walked up the front steps, and found the door locked.  Again.  Alec started knocking, figuring that it had worked at lunch time.  And sure enough, the door was opened by a young man in a Santa hat.   What’s with all of these restaurants keeping their front doors locked?   The restaurant was loaded with gimmicks—touch screen menus that didn’t quite work embedded in the tables, small paper tablets to plop in hot water that transformed into napkins.  The kids were happy with their mediocre pizza, and we shared a just okay pasta dish and a very good arugula and tomato salad.  It was no Osteria la Bertolacci.

By the time we arrived at the agriturismo Murgo, after driving up and down the wrong Via Zafferana several times and finally knocking on some doors, we were so tired we could hardly see straight.  I gave an exhausted thank you for the down comforters on our bed, shuttered the windows, and we all fell into a deep sleep.

Photos of the Day

Alec's lunch at the Osteria la Bertolacci, the door of the restaurant with laundry hanging above, and the theater at Segesta

To Sicily, by way of Girona

Barcelona boasts two airports, but really only one of them is in Barcelona.  The other is in Girona, about an hour and 15 minutes away by car.  We’re flying out of Girona to Sicily tomorrow morning.  Because we’ve never been to Girona—and we had heard it’s terrific—and because we generally need three hours to get out of the house even if we are 90% packed, we decided to drive down today and check it out.

Girona is a decent-sized city with—you guessed it—a medieval walled old city in the middle.  We got an inexpensive, clean room at the Hotel Condal just outside the old city walls, and arrived just in time for lunch.  But just too late to see the Arab Baths, which close at 2 pm every day—remember, we can’t get out of the house early.  No matter what.  We had a great lunch at a creperie—hard cider, enormous salads, savory and sweet crepes.  The dessert crepe with salted caramel, sautéed apples and toasted slivered almonds had just the right balance of sweet, tart, salt, fat, crisp, and gooey. 

Along the river, a Christmas market featuring local artisans is still in full swing; in Spain, January 5 is Three Kings Day, and it is even bigger than Christmas.  People are still doing their holiday shopping—the sales won’t begin until January 6. Apparently, January 5 is when the three wise men reached Bethlehem. I had no idea they were so late.  It’s a good thing Mary gave birth in that manger instead of a modern hospital, or she would have been kicked out after two days, and no one would have realized Jesus was such a special guy.  In fact, many parents in Spain are grumpy about the rise in Papa Noel’s (Santa Claus’s) popularity, because it means two sets of presents on two different days.  The kids count on it.  The pragmatic parents realize, at least, that if the kids get gifts on December 25, they have something to do for the endless vacation that follows.

So, after a day of unpacking, doing several loads of laundry, and repacking, we are off again.  How did we choose Sicily?  Well, it met our three basic criteria of:  1) not being too cold; 2) not being too expensive; and 3) being someplace we’ve always wanted to go.  We checked the Ryan Air website and found flights for 47 euros per person round trip.  For those of you who have not flown Ryan Air, it’s a real treat, beginning with the online ticket purchase.  By the time we added luggage fees, 40 euros in “passenger fee web check in,” a 40 euro “administration fee,” the fee for using a credit card, etc., we were paying 360 euros total.  But it’s still a total deal. 

We flew Ryan Air for the first time on our way back from Vigo, and let me tell you, it’s really something.  You have to calculate your luggage very precisely, because you can only bring one carry on bag—whether it’s a purse, a computer case, a tote, or a (rather small and strictly measured) suitcase.  You pay for checked luggage by the piece, and you have 15 and 20 kilo options.  If you pay up to 24 hours before you fly, a 15 kilo bag costs 15 euros per flight, or 30 euros round trip.  If you do not pay for it beforehand, and show up with it at the airport, it would cost more than double that—65 euros round trip.  If you book that same 15 kilo bag at home, before you fly, and then your bag weighs, say, 18 kilos when they weigh it at check in, you have to pay that same 35 extra euros plus a 30 euro fee for getting it wrong.  I think I have all of these fees right, but I’m not swearing on my first born.

Oh, and I forgot about the priority boarding fee—8 euros for each of us, round trip.  After my first trip on Ryan Air, I can seriously say that that 8 euros may be the best money I’ve ever spent.  There are no assigned seats on Ryan Air, and people start lining up at the gate WAY before it’s time to board.  If you are travelling with kids and, like us, unable to show up anywhere early, you absolutely need to fork over the priority boarding fee.  Once the flight begins boarding, all hell breaks loose, with people bum rushing and stashing their luggage in any open space they can find.  I have a friend who told me that the first time she flew Ryan Air—with her three small children—she did not know about this priority boarding business.  By the time they boarded the plane, there were no seats for them to all sit together.  And you know how people who do not want to help you when you’re in a bind simply won’t look you in the eye?  Well, that happened to her.  The flight attendant, witnessing her plight, whispered to her that she should just find a row with an empty seat, put one of her kids in it, and tell the person next to the child that the child had severe motion sickness.  The passenger would be out of that seat quick as a wink.  Then she’d have to repeat the process with others in the row, assuming they had not already overheard the prior conversation and moved voluntarily.

Don’t expect to get any rest on a Ryan Air flight either.  As soon as it’s safe to move around the cabin, the flight attendants begin to do laps of the center aisle, selling all kinds of things.  On our hour long flight from Vigo to Barcelona, we were offered hot food, packaged snacks, drinks, and lottery tickets (2 euros each or 6 for 10 euros).  We were given catalogues so that we could shop.  We were also given in-flight magazines, but these were collected again before landing.  You cannot even get a cup of tap water on Ryan Air.

I can almost remember the golden age of flying—I took my first flight in 1972, when I was 8 years old.  My sister Leslie, who was 12, and I flew to Minnesota to spend Christmas with our cousins and grandparents.  We dressed up.  The flight attendants—stewardesses back then—dressed up.  It felt special. It felt like we were going to a party.  On Ryan Air, it feels more like you’re taking the bus from Port Authority to Atlantic City.  I would not have been surprised if I had been given a roll of quarters and my own personal slot machine.  On second thought, I’d probably have to buy the quarters.

Photo of the Day

Weather vane in Girona

501 Spanish Verbs

I have a new bedside table book--the classic 501 Spanish Verbs.  I currently reside in a valley on the roller coaster that is the language learning process.  What I’ve realized in the last week is that I have focused on content in my reading and speaking, with little thought to verb tense.  There are roller coaster high point days, on which I feel as though the words come rushing out of my mouth in effortless paragraphs.  And then there are the low points, on which I stumble on simple requests, and question the correctness of the paragraphs I spouted the day before.

So my current trough prompted me to ask my Spanish teacher, Jorge, what I should do about my verb problem.  “Do I just need to memorize them?” I asked?  “Pretty much,” he responded, advising me to do conjugations in my head while cooking dinner, taking a shower, brushing my teeth. I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun.

I have a good vocabulary, and know the meanings of many verbs.  But conjugate them in past, present, future, subjunctive?  Don’t hold your breath.  I have been barreling through conversations using any verb tense that comes to mind, and now I’m beginning to get some sense of what I must sound like.  It’s not pretty.  I don’t bother to discriminate between the two main past tenses.  I figure that as long as I am conveying that I am not talking about chowing down now, or in the future, I’m good.

I have heard a lot of Spanish spoken in the last eight years, and you can get pretty far this way.  It’s kind of like playing by ear, only it’s speaking by ear.  This is how children learn their mother tongue, after all.  The only difference between them and me is that they have supremely absorbent little sponges for brains, whereas mine has begun to resemble a dried up old walnut that is also likely premenopausal.  I can scarcely remember why I left one room to go to another, much less which verb to use.

Of the 501 verbs included in this new and improved edition—which also comes with a DVD and a CD—53 are labeled as the “essential 53 verbs.”  For each verb, there are 7 simple and 7 compound tenses.  I figure I can whittle that down to ten or maybe even 7 total.  And by the end of my time here, I can probably memorize those.  To my surprise, Alec said he’d like to join me.  Pretty romantic, no?  Even more than me, Alec has learned Spanish by ear.  Only his ear is better than mine.

The question of the night is—should I bring the enormous verb tome to Sicily?  Probably not.

P.S. I've decided to eliminate the Human Highlighter Suit Tally.  The shirt's kind of stained, and Milo doesn't wear it as much now that it's mucky.  He did get a Victor Valdez goalie jersey for Christmas, but let's see how it goes before we start another tally.

Photo of the Day

Oranges growing in Barcelona, on December 28!

The Vigo Routine

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 10

By Day 3, we have established our Vigo routine:

1.     Sleep as late as possible.

2.     Get up, eat some breakfast, and putter around for several hours.  I honestly cannot account for what happens between 10 am and 2 pm.

3.     Suddenly it’s 2 o’clock, so you go out with the kids to get some fresh air and a bite—just long enough to say you’ve been out.

4.     Return home in time to receive relatives, and eat some more.

5.     Stay up late talking and snacking.

6.     Go to bed and repeat.

Yesterday, I decided to make a chocolate mousse for dessert.  Raquel had all the ingredients, and I thought it would be a nice change from turron.  The only problem was that there was no electric mixer.  I enlisted Alec and Nick to beat the egg whites, but they still fell a little short of ideal.  Plus, since I had started so late, I wasn’t sure if it would have enough time in the fridge to set up.  Still, it was Julia Child’s recipe—which I highly recommend—so I crossed my fingers.

Our brief outing was to downtown Vigo.  Although the air had a real bite to it, flowers bloomed everywhere—pansies, cyclamen, birds of paradise, and the most amazing camellias.  We walked around, got some ice, and came home just as Raquel’s brother Suso (I’m sure I am spelling this wrong) and his family were arriving.  Raquel and Mila had cooked up a huge batch of giant prawns as an appetizer, and then we had fresh tagliatelle with a sauce of tomatoes, cheese, and more shrimp.  We were supposed to eat the scallops, but no one had remembered to defrost them, so they’re still there. The mousse had not set up completely, but Raquel insisted we serve it anyway, in bowls.  Every last drop got lapped up, even though our guests had also brought pastries from a local bakery—tiny tarts of cream, strawberries, apple, chocolate.  And a dessert wine that tasted like liquid raisins. 

Mila got struck by an awful flu, which caused her to have to lie down as soon as the meal was served—she used her last ounce of strength to feed us.  It turns out that Gena, who had not planned to come that day, got the very same illness.  We did a quick rejiggering of the sleeping arrangements because Mila—who had given up her apartment for all of us and had been staying with a friend—was too sick to go home.  Mila slept with Raquel, C.C. slept with me, Myron slept in C.C.’s bed, and Nick took up his customary post on the couch.  We managed.  C.C. is bigger than Milo, but a much less active sleeper.

I will have to run around the block a few times before we embark for Sicily and start eating pasta and cannolis.

Photos of the Day

Fora in Vigo, the pastry tray, and.... Uncle Suso with the kids

Christmas

Human Highlighter Suit Tally: 10

Mercifully, the kids slept until 8:30 on Christmas morning, then had to endure the adults’ sluggishness and coffee-making while they (the kids) sniffed anxiously around the “stockings” and piles of gifts.  I say “stockings” because we did not bring ours from New York (you’d think that there would have been room in one of those 21 boxes, no?) and I never thought about getting any here.  So Raquel—in between cooking an enormous meal for nine—whipped one up for Milo, and C.C. used her boots.  Pretty soon we were surrounded by a sea of gift wrap, ripped up boxes and small plastic parts.  The adults were quickly enlisted to install batteries and assemble various toys, and the kids seemed happy with their haul.

Christmas morning is always a little overwhelming for the kids—not that they get SO much stuff, but still they don’t quite know what to play with first.  It takes awhile for everything to sink in.

The kitchen is pretty much off limits when Raquel and her sisters are cooking.  First off, it’s smoky and freezing.  Gena and Mila smoke, but they courteously confine themselves to the kitchen, and open a window so that most of the smoke escapes.  But really they have their work all planned, and extra sets of hands just muck up the works.  Christmas dinner in Galicia means cocido.  Everyone makes it, and everyone eats it at home.  Then they go visiting.  Gena had brought an enormous pot for the dish—it reminded me of my father’s clam chowder pot.  It takes several hours to cook the cocido, so you have to start pretty early.

To make cocido, you start with a big pot of water that you boil, and then add a lot of meat—ribs, a whole chicken, slabs of beef, various unidentifiable pieces of pig, and chorizo.  After this cooks for awhile, you add a whole bunch of whole, peeled potatoes—big ones.  Then you add the grelos.  There is no English translation for grelos—they are some kind of dark, leafy green, earthy and slightly bitter.  Some recipes call for garbanzos also, but Raquel says they are undigestable, so she leaves them out. 

When it’s all done, you scoop out all of the porky meat and put it on one plate.  On another you put the beef and chicken.  You put the grelos in one bowl and the potatoes in another.  The broth that’s left in the pot is saved for making caldo, or soup, another day.

Everyone sits around the table and takes some potatoes and grelos, and whatever meat they want.  Everything has been spiced up a bit with the paprika that has seeped out of the chorizo.  Milo showed me that they tend to put some chorizo between chunks of bread and eat it that way.  It was hearty, filling, delicious.  Not so different from something my Polish relatives would have eaten.  Every culture has its boiled meat, I guess. Barlow says that it is when a Galician is eating cocido that he is most likely to experience morriña.  I think everyone was simply too stuffed after the meal to burst into song; no one could move for awhile after Christmas dinner.

Later, at about 6, two of Raquel’s nieces and their families came to visit; they had already had their own cocido at home.  The apartment is very comfortable even with 7 of us living in it, but at our peak on Christmas Day we were 18, plus a beagle puppy.  Cramped, but still fun.  The kids played in one room, and small groups clustered in the kitchen, in the living area, around the dining table.  It’s not all my family, but it felt like Christmas all the same.

At some point after everyone left, we hauled out the cheeses and jamon again, some cava, and a big salad that had been made two days before but never eaten.  I realized as I drifted off to sleep that I had not left the house for at least 30 hours.  It felt good.

Photos of the Day

C.C.'s "stockings," and the cocido