The Last Cannoli

Although Maria Grammatica gets all the press among pasticcerias in Erice, Sergio had told us to buy our breakfast pastries at San Carlo Pasticceria.  In the morning, Alec braved the chill and set out on a pastry buying mission, while I stayed under the covers.  One of the things I love about bakeries in Spain and Italy wrap your goodies up in little packages even if you are just buying them for yourself.  They look like presents, and put me in a celebratory mood.  The specialty pastry of Erice is the Genovese, which looks like an oversized ravioli dusted with confectioner’s sugar.  Genovese are typically filled with pastry cream, but sometimes you can find them filled with nutella.  Our children ate two each for breakfast.   Alec and I split one of the pastry cream ones, which was still just a bit warm, and then tasted the rest of the booty he had brought home.  Like most Sicilian pastry, much of it is made with almond paste.  And there were also dry milk biscuits, perfect for dipping into coffee or tea, delicate, fan-like pastries filled with fig, and little round bocconcini.  I visited the shop later that morning—it is tiny and immaculate, and run by a very old woman with a steely hair tucked under a white baker’s cap, a sturdy body, and sensible shoes.

We strolled through the nearly empty town for a few hours, browsing in shops and exploring the gardens around the castle; although the chill had remained, the sun was war and felt good on our faces.  The castle affords an amazing view of Trapani below, the salt flats, and the sea.  It’s easy to understand why this piece of high ground was so important to so many groups over many hundreds of years.

Although we had heeded Sergio’s advice in the morning, I had read enough about Maria Grammatica’s cannolis to need to try one.  And besides, she seemed to be the only one in town who made them.  Grammatica grew up in a convent in Erice where she learned how to make the cookies and cakes she sells in her shop; the book Bitter Almonds: Recollections and Recipes from a Sicilian Girlhood tells her story.  And when it comes to cannolis, she knows what she’s doing.  Grammatica’s, like the one I had at Sant’Andrea, is a bit creamier than the ones I’d had in Syracuse, and it also had small pieces of dark chocolate mixed into the fresh ricotta filling.  I thought long and hard about which of the four cannoli I had eaten would get my vote for best cannoli of the trip, but I had trouble deciding.  Maybe that one on the street at the market in Syracuse.  Or Grammatica’s.  Hell, they were all terrific.

After our sugar stop, we retreated to the room to rest awhile—we all got under the covers and watched Free Willy.  Then it was time to make our big last supper decision.  The night before we had asked Sergio where we could get some good pizza.  “Well,” he said, “if you want the best pizza in Sicily, you have to go to Trapani.”  Alec and I looked at each other.  “Calvino’s?” I asked.  “Of course!  But you may have to wait, and they don’t take reservations.”

Going to Calvino’s meant driving all the way back down the mountain, and then up again.  They didn’t open until 7 pm.  And we had a 6:30 am flight the next morning.  So pizza meant an hour or two less sleep (and maybe some puking on the part of our kids), given the drive time and wait time.

But really, it wasn’t much of a decision—of course we went!  We parked near the water and arrived at the restaurant just after 7, relieved to see the lights blazing and people streaming in the door.  The building that houses the restaurant was a brothel before it became a pizzeria, and the dining area still consists of a maze of small rooms.  There is a large, brightly lit front room where folks place to go orders.  A counter is stacked high with cardboard pizza boxes, and you can see into the kitchen where racks and racks of dough rounds rest on long pizza stones that can each hold 5 or 6 pies.  It didn’t seem too crowded yet, and we walked through the front room to the dining room and asked for a table for four.  The gatekeeper shook his head.  “No,” he said.  “Riservado.”   So much for not taking reservations. Not again, I thought.  “But we’re flying home tomorrow,” I pleaded, flapping my arms in case he didn’t understand English.  “No.”  He was nice about it, but firm.  There didn’t seem to be a single chink in his armor.   The smell of melting cheese, and the sharp aroma of singed crust from the wood-fired oven was almost too much to take.

“What do we do now?” I asked Alec. 

“We get it to go, and we eat it on the street,” he replied.

“Of course!” I didn’t care about where I ate the pizza, as long as I was eating that pizza before the end of the night.  We ordered two small and two medium sized pizzas—a margarita for the kids, one with mushrooms and one with artichokes, for us, and one with salami for Alec.  It’s a good thing we asked what acciughe were, almost as an afterthought, when we ordered, or we would have had a whole lot of anchovies on our hands.

By this point the front room was jammed, and I tried to surreptitiously take some pictures, but the guy at the register saw me.   I thought he was about to scold me, but instead he invited me into the kitchen where the guys posed and mugged for the camera. 

We ended up piling our pizza boxes on the narrow counter in the front room, and sharing the space with a middle-aged man and his mother, and another family of four.  I guess they hadn’t gotten the memo about reservations either.  We were all in it together.

The pizza came out hot and bubbling and delicious.  A slightly chewy crust, fresh tomato sauce, strong black olives, fresh oregano.  It completely hit the spot.  I can’t tell you how many pieces I ate because I simply lost count.  But I have to tell you—and I may get tarred and feathered for this by the Sicilians—I like New York City pizza better.  Either the high end pies at Franny’s in Brooklyn, or a good, solid slice like Ben’s in the Village.  And then there’s the ultra thin crust pizza at Pete and Elda’s in Neptune, NJ.  Don’t get me started.

The family we shared the counter with told us where to go for our last gelato, but it was closed, so we went to the next place down the road, where we saw the middle-aged man and his mom.  And with that, we had our last Sicilian meal.  An excellent trip overall, food wise and otherwise.

Photos of the Day

Our breakfast pastry package; inside San Carlo pasticceria; C.C. and Milo saying "om" on the castle wall; Calvino's

PALERMO!

The title of this post is in all caps because I felt like the city of Palermo was shouting at me.  We had one day in Palermo, so we set our alarm for 8 am in order to make the most of it.  But when it rang, I smacked it and rolled right over.  The kids did not wake us up, and we slept another hour and a half.  My throat had started to feel a little scratchy, and I felt like I needed the rest.  I hate that feeling of coming home exhausted from a vacation anyway. 

Nicolo had left a package of fresh cornetti on a little table outside our door.  A quick comparison of a croissant and a cornetti tells you a lot about the difference between the French and the Italians.  The croissant is refined elegance—even those filled with chocolate or ham are restrained, the pastry a bit crispy on the outside.  There is nothing subtle about cornetti. To eat a cornetto filled with ricotta or chocolate is to give yourself over to it.  The pastry is soft and yielding, the filling oozes from the center; you can’t help but get some on your hands and mouth.  It doesn’t matter.  If the croissant is a woman with a perfectly fitted skirt just short enough to show her legs to best advantage, the analogous cornetto woman can pull off unbuttoning one too many buttons on her blouse, wearing redder lipstick than most of us can manage.  Both work somehow.

We dressed, packed up the car, and set out for the Ballaro market.  Loud Arabic music played, vendors hawked their wares at the top of their lungs—many varieties of squid, octopus, olives, sheep heads, every kind of citrus, cheap plastic toys, socks.  It was chaotic and beautiful and assaulting, kind of like Palermo itself. I bought some bracelets made from hand-painted glass beads, which almost definitely came from Africa and not Sicily.  Alec replaced some of his lost socks, and Milo got silly bands.  C.C. got to touch a shark.

When we got to the door of the Palazzo dei Normanni, we learned that January 6 is the Epiphanny, a holiday in Italy.  The palazzo closed at 1:00 pm, and it was just past.  The kids ran around in the garden for awhile and I lay on a bench in the warm sun.  We grabbed lunch in a tiny trattoria—only okay but very cheap, and then caught a taxi to the stadium.  We didn’t tell the kids where we were going until we pulled up in front.  We arrived a little late, and the old stadium practically rocked from the roar of the fans.  We picked up a knock off Pastore jersey for Milo—Palermo’s colors are Pepto Bismol pink and black—popped it on him and showed our tickets.  Security at these games is incredible—our tickets had our names printed on them, and we had to show our passports to get in.  We arrived a little late, but just in time to see Palermo score the first goal; the crowd went wild.  The home team won, 3-0, and everyone seemed happy.

We picked up the car back at the palazzo, then drove an hour to Erice, where we would spend our last two nights.  We met Sergio, who owns the apartment we rented, below in Valderice, and followed him way up the mountain to the old city.  It must have been 10 degrees colder up on top, with a chilly wind.  Sergio directed us to the best trattoria in town, Monte San Giuliano, and we had to hurry to get there before they closed.  There is not much business in Erice in January.  I got more busiati, which had almonds, tomatoes, and pecorino in the sauce, and Alec had a pasta with chestnuts, cheese, and, well, I can’t seem to remember the rest.  It was good.  We headed back in the dark to our little nook, cranked up the heat, and fell into a sound sleep, the wind whistling outside.

Photos of the Day

Top 2: images from the market; Bottom: Milo at the Palermo game

Arrivederci, Mrs. Scuderi

We decided to blow out of Syracuse a day early—we had seen what there was to see, and had a long drive to our next planned stop, so we thought we’d break it up with a night and day in Palermo.  Alec also found out that the Palermo soccer team had a game on the afternoon of the 6^th (afternoon games are not so common), and we thought it would be fun to go.  Javier Pastore is the franchise player, and Barça had negotiated—unsuccessfully—to get him.

On the way we stopped in Enna for lunch, at La Trinacria.  (The trinacria, a three-legged figure, is the symbol of Sicily).  Enna sits atop a very high hill, which made it the only interior town in Sicily for a long, long time—its location made it very difficult to attack.  The restaurant is unassuming and the food terrific.  Alec and I shared papardelle with pistachio pesto, and raviolini filled with eggplant , artichoke, and ricotta salata and sauced lightly with pomodoro. 

The good thing about changing travel plans at the last minute in a place like Sicily in the middle of winter is that it’s not too hard to find a place to stay.  We found an apartment with an adjoining room in an old palazzo—the Palazzo Conte Federico—that was both the most expensive lodging of our whole trip and a steal at 150 euros.   When we rang the bell, the massive front doors swung slowly open so that we could drive into the courtyard.  Nicolo, a charming young man, met us and showed us our rooms in a 12^th century tower.  Skins and pieces of armor hung on the walls, and the furniture was mismatched and old, but it was warm, well-equipped and comfortable.  Nicolo had stocked our tiny kitchen with juice, milk, coffee, cookies, and water.  He invited us to come up to his apartment when we were settled.

We walked across the courtyard and up the steps of the other size of the palazzo—the 15^th century side.  Nicolo answered and said, “Welcome to my home.”  It turns out that it’s his family’s palazzo—they have inhabited it since it was built 500 years ago.  He gave us a tour of the rooms, which featured original hand-painted beamed ceilings, murals, murano glass chandeliers, and a lot of old weapons.   Niccolo grew up there and still lives in the palazzo with his brother and parents (who happened to be at the beach villa just now).  Mom is Austrian, a soprano, and a triathlete; Dad is a Formula One racer.  Each has a trophy room in the palazzo—I suppose you can do these sorts of things when you have a title.

We ate dinner at a restaurant called Sant’Andrea.  We had to walk through Palermo’s rabbit warren of streets to get there.  The streets were dark and I found it easy to get disoriented, as can happen in medieval areas that were not built using a grid.  Palermo is an in-your-face kind of place—loud, dirty, pushy, a little threatening.  And then, tucked into the middle of a neighborhood with nothing else signalling that it’s a nice place, sits a lovely little restaurant.  Sant’Andrea bustled quietly.  We had heard that Sant’Anrea excelled at fish.  Everything on the other diners’ plates looked great.  Unfortunately, I ordered wrong.  The fish of the day was mackerel—not my favorite—so that eliminated a few choices on the small menu. Alec and I shared an appetizer tasting plate, which had some good things on it, but I ordered bucatini with bottarga, and it was just too fishy for me. I should have had the risotto. We also ordered grilled beef for the kids—trying to switch things up from their twice daily pasta meals—but they hated it.  And they were tired.  Alec really liked his sea bass, but the rest of it was a bust.  The magician who wandered from table to table bought us a little time, but once we found out there was no more chocolate cake, for the kids, we knew it was time to skedaddle.  I ordered a cannoli with the check, not wanting to leave my research unfinished.  Creamier than the ones I’d had in Syracuse, the ricotta cheese studded with tiny nibs of dark chocolate.  Really good.

By the time we trudged home, after getting the kids a gelato fix on the way, my nerves were frazzled.  I was starting to feel worn thin from the travel, and from the 24/7 family time.  Alec knows me well.  By the time I finished doing “grumpy time” with C.C., he had already run me a hot bath.  I sank down into it with the New Yorker and didn’t come out until I was pretty sure the kids were asleep.

Photos of the Day

Top:  View from the Syracuse apartment; bottom: Milo in Enna

Gelato in Noto

Until today, the best gelato I have ever eaten was in Rome, at some huge frozen treat pleasure palace the name of which I cannot call up right now.  But I have done my research, and enough people have testified that Noto has the best gelato in Italy, if not the world, that I had to make the trip—it’s only a half hour from Syracuse.  Foodies and bloggers seem divided about whether Caffe Sicilia or Bar Pasticceria Costanza produces the best.  There was only one thing to do—try them both, with lunch in between.  It’s well known that you can eat more if you keep changing up the flavors—savory, sour, sweet, back to savory… you get the picture.  So I figured having dessert both before and after lunch would be the best strategy.  If you ever find yourself in Noto—and I hope you do—I suggest you do the same.

In addition to its reputation for sweets, Noto is also beautiful.  Inhabited, over time, by Greeks, Romans, Moors and Arabs, the town succumbed to an earthquake in 1693.  What you see today are the baroque buildings that were built as part of the reconstruction.

We arrived in town just before noon, as drizzle became rain.  Alec dropped the kids and me off at Caffe Sicilia and went to park the car.  I had left one of our two umbrellas in the cab we had taken home from the Grinch two nights before and, unlike New York City, the sidewalks in Sicily do not sprout umbrella sellers the second the rain begins..  We all had raingear, but at this point the day was not conducive to seeing much of Noto.  Fine by me—all of my agenda items could be completed while seated indoors, at a table.

After all of the fantastic reviews, I half expected there to be a line out the door, or at least a wall of photos of celebrities eating Caffe Sicilia treats, and framed clippings trumpeting the deliciousness of the café’s products.  But no, it looked just like any other local Italian joint, with a full bar on one side, a pastry counter on the other, and tables in the back.  I ordered three scoops of gelato—a fruit flavor called fior de spezie, a chocolate flavor called Montezuma, which I figured would be spicy but instead had bits of candied fruit in it, and a lemon/mandarin/almond flavor.  It was good but honestly, it didn’t knock my socks off.  Perhaps I had ordered wrong and should have stuck with flavors I know and love.  I also ordered a hot almond milk drink, which had been whipped and frothed so that the whole cup was creamy and thick.  It was slightly sweet, topped with crunchy chopped almonds and addictively good.  Alec’s choice, a pear chocolate torte, was phenomenal.  It was tall, like a cake, with a very thin layer of a subtle almond-y white paste on the bottom, topped with a thick layer of semisweet moussey chocolate and then a thinner layer of pears encased in a lovely crust.  I would have taken a whole one home if I could have figured out what to do with it.

We had planned to do a little sightseeing between our first dessert and lunch, but by the time we were done all of the palazzos and churches had closed for the afternoon riposo, which is the Italian siesta.  There was nothing to do but keep eating.

We headed straight uphill to the Trattoria del Crocifisso. This translates to “Restaurant of the Crucified” in English.  Not exactly appetizing, but this is Exhibit B of how Italian is the best language.  When you hear “trattoria del crocifisso,” you don’t even mind what it means.  TdC recently became certified as a slow food restaurant, along with eight other Sicilian restaurants.  The slow food website provides a lot more information, and lists of restaurants.

We had an excellent meal, beginning with arancino di melanzane, a tart of eggplant and ragusa cheese, served in a warm puddle of melted ragusa cheese.  I had involtini di pesce, a swordfish roll filled with eggplant, pine nuts, raisins and cheese served on a salad of green lettuce and radicchio.  And Alec had rabbit stewed and served over sweet/sour carrots, celery, onion, peppers and mint.  We skipped dessert.

It was really pouring when we emerged from the restaurant.  We headed toward one of the palazzos, which was on the way to Costanza.  We were drenched by the time we arrived, and the woman working at the reception seemed genuinely concerned about our well-being—especially the children.  She wiped their faces with Kleenex and made them stand in front of her space heater.  When we told her, on our way out, that we were on our way to Costanza, she suggested we leave the kids with her—I’m sure she thought we were irresponsible parents.

But no, we trucked on down the hill and found Costanza shrouded in scaffolding, its locked door practically hidden from the street.  The only hopeful sign were the poinsettas sitting in front of the door.  Surely it was not closed, and why would it be closed on a Tuesday?  As we huddled in the doorway trying to figure out what to do, a man entered the door next door.  I followed him and asked about the café.  It turns out that he worked there, and told me they opened at four.  It was 3:53—we continued to huddle.

Costanza is another ordinary bar/sweet shop.  A large mural of the last supper graces the wall above the bar, and a small case displays about 8 different flavors of gelato.  This time I went with a different strategy, and ordered the chocolate, the hazlenut and the ricotta.   Now, before you make any comments about me eating six scoops of ice cream within 4 hours, remember that this is Italy, and the portions are small.  It was not problem.  This gelato rocked.  It made all other gelato I’ve had in my life taste like Mr. Softee, and I’m a girl who likes a Mr. Softee on a hot summer day.  I have never tasted anything so good as that ricotta gelato.  How do they do it?  Years and years and years of practice, I guess, along with the best ingredients.  It was sweet but not cloying, smooth and rich and ricotta-y.  Alec’s pistachio also blew our minds.  I wish I could have fit more, and tasted the other flavors.  But I was done for.

By the time we walked out, the rain had stopped, and the duomo was lit by the sun, becoming a beautiful rosy gold.

We drove home, and had only a half our to get out of our wet clothes, put on some dry and not so clean ones, and make it to the puppet shows.  Sicilians have been putting on puppet shows for at least 200 years, and not just for children.  Some cities, like Palermo, had many, many theatre companies.  There is a theatre in Ortigia—the Piccolo Teatro dei Pupi, and we had decided to check it out.  The puppets were impressive, the story epic—hard to follow, really.  I can tell you that there were sea monsters, a knight who was double timing his lady, and lots of battles with swords that left piles of felled puppets on either side of the stage.  The kids liked the Grinch better, but I’m glad we saw it all the same.

Photos of the Day

Packing light is overrated

So much for packing light.  We endeavoured to change our ways on this trip and be minimalists.  I packed only one pair of pants besides the ones I wore on the plane, and everything went with everything.  The kids’ clothes fit into their small roller suitcases that they could bring on board.  All of Alec’s and my clothes—together—fit into a medium-sized roller suitcase.  Shoes, toiletries, etc. went into a bag with the kids’ car seats.  We were proud of ourselves when we surveyed the smaller-than-usual pile of bags to be packed into the car.  The Syracuse apartment came with a washer, so we figured we could do a couple of loads of laundry midway through the trip and we’d be fine.

What we did not expect was so much rain, and kids playing in the rain, and clothing taking more than 2 days to dry.  And kids getting filthy and wet in the snow and lava gravel on Mount Etna.  We did not figure in the fact that the only things I put in a drawer at the agriturismo—Alec’s socks and underwear—would not make it back into the suitcase.  I was in charge of the “final sweep” before we headed out, and I failed miserably.  Having also left the phone charger and Alec’s watch in the room in Madrid, I think I’ve lost that job for life.  Which means years of waiting for Alec to do the final sweep without huffing and looking at my watch, which will be really annoying for me.

We found a laundry service and dropped a load of clothes there—and between the wet clothes hanging in the apartment and the clothes out of commission at the laundry, we were a sorry sight.  C.C.’s jeans could have walked down the street by themselves.  Milo’s sweatshirt bore traces of his last three meals.  And Alec had been reduced to wearing a pair of my white gym socks with his black shoes, and pants on which the top button had broken.

Minimalism be damned—next time I’ll bring the extra suitcase.

The lure of the market

A couple of weeks ago I was thumbing through a back issue of Vanity Fair, and came across the monthly 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair Poll.  One of the questions asked:

“If one of the folling things could happen to you without any effort on your part, which one would you pick?”

a.     Receive $10,000 tax free

b.     Get a college or advanced degree

c.      Become fluent in another language

d.     Be one year younger

e.     Lose 10 pounds

For once, my instinctive, immediate answer was not practical or pragmatic.  I would become fluent in another language.  Italian.  It is, hands down, the most beautiful language, both the way the words sound and the rhythmic musicality with which people speak it.  I find it soothing somehow, whether the person speaking it is arguing or singing.  It lulls me. Exhibit A: the other evening at the agriturismo, the kids were running around outside with some Italian kids.  C.C. popped into our room to ask me how to say “firefly” in Italian.  I looked it up on my iPad.  The word is lucciola.  I ask you, is there any other language that has a more beautiful word for firefly?

And, if I could speak Italian fluently, I would have the added incentive of coming to Italy more often.  Maybe I could even get work here…  Perhaps in my dotage I’ll take Italian classes at the New School with all of the other crazy old ladies in the village.  (As for the poll, more people than you might think—39%--would take the $10k tax free, which is added proof that our economy is in the tank and more people than ever are living on the edge.   Either that or they are just pissed off that their supply of cheap credit has disappeared and what they really want is a good shop.)

When we emerged from our bedrooms after a good sleep, we were practically blasted out of the kitchen by Goth rock blaring out in the hallway.  I poked my head out and saw that the door of the apartment across the way was open and seemed to be under renovation; it must be the workers, I thought.  But when Alec went to investigate awhile later, he found the door next to us wide open as well.  Mrs. Scuderi, the elderly woman who lives there, waved at him from the neat little table in the living room, where she sat.  It seemed incongruous, but the music was clearly coming from her apartment.  We asked Giorgio, the owner of our apartment , about it later on when he came to collect the rent money from us.  He shrugged and pointed to his temple as if to say that Mrs. Scuderi is a few cards short of a deck.

We went back to the market, as it was supposed to be in full swing on Monday; it was.  We had not intended to purchase any fresh food, but before we were halfway down the row of stands, Alec had decided to replicate the pasta C.C. had had at Sicilia in Tavola two nights earlier—it had melted cheese and cherry tomatoes, and he would add little local clams for us.  The cheese is from the nearby town of Ragusa—it’s called ragusana, and the younger variety melts beautifully.  We also bought enormous lemons the size of Nerf footballs (see below) and sweet oranges for a citrus salad.  (It turns out the lemons are mostly pith, with about the same amount of fruit as a normal lemon—no wonder people were buying 4, 6 or more of them).  Buying the produce, Alec heard a man’s cellphone ring.  The ringtone?  The theme from the Godfather.  I couldn’t make it up.

At Caseificio Borderi—a small shop with a stand outside, I asked a young man working there to taste one of the cheeses in the case.  Before I knew it, a much older man behind the counter presented me with a two bite salami and cheese sandwich on lovely fresh bread.  He pointed to the cheese I had asked to taste and smiled.  It was delicious—creamy and a little bit pungent, and the salami a little bit spicy.  Of course I bought the cheese.  But just as I was fishing for my money, a woman appeared from within the shop carrying a tray of just-filled cannolis, the ends dipped in chopped almonds.  I pointed at those, too, and my sandwich tantalizer wrapped one in a piece of brown paper; he knew I would eat it right then and there.  I did.  Fresh ricotta has to be one of the dairy products that makes my mouth happiest.  I am so grateful that the good stuff is pretty widely available now—how can it be that we all spent years eating that supermarket crap that lasts way too long in the fridge to be trustworthy?  I couldn’t decide whether the market cannoli, or the one from Sicilia in Tavola was better.  It didn’t really matter.

We bought honey, pistachio pesto, olive oil, and chocolate from Modica at Fratelli Burgio, just at the end of the market near the sea.  Fratelli Burgo, like many restaurants, has also been anointed as a purveyor of slow foods.  Apparently the slow food program is growing to include shops, bakeries, and producers of local foodstuffs.  The clerk packed all of the bottles for airline travel.

We went to the ruins over the bridge in the afternoon, and then let the kids loose in a local playground.  We ate our pasta and citrus salad for dinner, and broke up one of the chocolate bars—the one with pepperoncini, from Antica Dolceria Bonajuto—for dessert.  Chocolate from Modica, which is about an hour from here, is well-known for its quality and distinctive texture, but I had read that many producers calling themselves artisanal are anything but.  Bonajuto and Casa Don Puglisi are known to be reliable chocolatiers who add nothing superfluous, use quality beans, and melt the chocolate at very low temperatures, which is one of the hallmarks of Modica chocolate.  The chocolate itself has an almost grainy consistency—it reminds me of the texture of the disks of Mexican chocolate you can buy to make Mexican hot chocolate; Abuelita is one brand.  I have always eaten the Mexican chocolate straight up as well as melting it; chocolate from Modica is like that, only better quality.

Another successful food day in Sicily.

Photos of the Day

Top 3: Market photos (note the size of the ginormous lemons next to the cherry tomatoes); bottom: church ruins on top of the San Giovanni catacombs

I love being on an island.  The detachment of land from land feels liberating, as if floating in the sea lends a certain permissiveness to the inhabitants.  Right now, we are on an island off of another island—we are on the island of Ortigia, which is part of but over the bridge from Syracuse, which is part of the island of Sicily.  So I feel doubly blessed.  Ortigia is also tiny, so you are never far from the sea.

We were grateful for the sun after a few rainy, grey days, and set out to explore our little, ancient island.  The streets are narrow, the buildings centuries old, and white.  It’s very picturesque, but not in a Disney-fied way.  Laundry billows out from the balconies, graffiti mars the ancient walls.

Although we had heard that the morning market does not happen on Sundays, a few intrepid vendors—including one with a mobile delicatessen—had come out, so we bought bread and cheese, local salami, mortadella and olives.  We stopped at a pastry shop on the way back for some sweets and a couple of slices of Sicilian pizza, and decided right then and there to just go home and eat it.  Ortigia is very small, so you are never far from home.  It was a fine picnic.  We dipped our bread in good olive oil, and ate with our hands.  A propos of nothing, Milo at one point stated: “No one exactly knows Jesus’s whole name, except for his parents.”  We’ve been inside a few churches on this trip, and the Jesus iconography is quite prevalent.

There are things you do when you travel with children that you would never do travelling on your own.  Going to see a rinky dink production of The Grinch in Italian is one of them.  We saw a flyer for the show on the counter in one of the shops, and the kids were all over it.  On the way we stopped at Voglia Matta gelateria for our first gelato of the trip.  I had “Sicilian flavor” which tasted of pistachios and almonds.  And nocciola—hazlenut—which is a fallback flavor for me. The show took place in an old church in the archeological park—which was a much farther walk than we anticipated—and it was decidedly low-budget.  It consisted of two actors, one of whom played the Grinch and the other who played Cindy Lou Who.  But despite the language gap, the kids loved it.  Go figure.

In some conversation or other during the day, I referenced the “moon walk,” and the kids asked me, “What’s a moon walk?”  “A dance step Michael Jackson did.” Who’s Michael Jackson?”

Whoa.  We spent the half hour before bed looking at Michael Jackson videos on YouTube.  Our favorite was an old Rockin’ Robin clip.  “Is that their real hair?” asked C.C.

Photos of the Day

On to Syracuse

I set my alarm for 9:30 am so that I could make it to breakfast on time; I vowed not to miss a single meal in Sicily.  I had had eight hours sleep and felt pretty good.  C.C. had already woken up and was reading in bed, so the two of us crept out and had a nice time.  I asked the staff if we could get a late check out—our place in Syracuse would not be ready until early evening, and we knew that most everything would be closed on New Year’s Day.  Also, a slow, steady rain had begun the night before and didn’t seem anywhere close to relenting.  Given that the morning breakfast crew had been partying pretty hard when we had left at 1 am the night before, I don’t think they were in any rush to clean our room.  They told us to stay as late as we wanted.

The closest town to Santa Venerina, where we have stayed for the past two nights, is Milo.  We had to check it out.  It had started to drizzle by the time we got there, so we suited Milo up in his raingear and took a shot of him by the Welcome to Milo sign.  Milo and C.C. have always had these imaginary places they talk about called C.C. Town and Milo Town.  Every now and then they’ll tell us how you say this or that in C.C. Town.  Milo also has a very tiny imaginary person named Sudsun who lives in his ear.  As we approached the town of Milo, he announced, “There’s Sudsun’s house!” and pointed at a large villa on our left.  Apparently, Sudsun hopped out of Milo’s ear and into his house when we passed it, and got back in when we left.

We had made a reservation for dinner at a restaurant in Syracuse, but felt the need for a little lunch before we hit the road.  At this point, the rain was coming down in sheets.  I tried four restaurants, and all were packed with big families eating many-course, prix fixe meals that we discovered on the norm on New Year’s Day in that part of Sicily.  The kids really wanted pizza, but we were told that no one would be making pizza until at least 7 pm.  I guess it’s not really lunch fare in Sicily.

Finally, we found a place in Milo, the Nuovo Braciere, where we could order a la carte.  I had the house pasta—Caserecce alla Boscaiola—fat little tubes with a sauce of porcini mushrooms, parsely, cherry tomatoes and a touch of cream.  Perfectly cooked and delicious.

Fortunately, both kids conked out in the car, and we arrived at our rented apartment at about 6:30 pm.  The housekeeper, Mrs. Mañano (we called her Mrs. Tomorrow) met us outside the place with a man—her husband? her father?  And there was much discussion about where to park the car.  At one point, he made Alec get out and started parking it himself. 

The apartment is in a centuries-old building.  You open the street door and find yourself in a small courtyard that smells vaguely of cat urine. And, yes, the street outside is full of cats.  Its another one of those places where people leave plates of cat food out, which I don’t quite understand.  Maybe it keeps the mice away.  We climbed the stone stairs up and up.  Mrs. Mañano opened one big wooden door, which led to a small hallway with several other doors opening on to it.  One of these was hours.  The apartment is large, light, clean and simple.  Not the lap of luxury, but very well located and quite comfortable.  We unpacked, put a load of laundry into the washer, and then set out for dinner.

We chose Sicilia in Tavola because people raved about the homemade pastas and cannoli.  It’s one of those places where every spare inch is used.  A tiny antipasto buffet held grilled zucchini, radicchio and eggplant.  There were tiny eggplant rollatini and sundried tomatoes and olives.  I ordered hand-rolled spaghetti with tiny clams and shrimp, and a sauce that featured chopped pistachios, which are also grown locally.  I find I am having a hard time coming up with enough words that mean “delicious.”  It was super tasty.  Alec had a zuppe di pesce with clams, shrimp, mussels, squid.  And we both had cannolis for dessert.  The waitress took the shells out of a Tupperware container, filled them with homemade ricotta filling, dipped both ends in finely crushed pistachios, and dusted them with powdered sugar.  Strangely, Sicilia in Tavola has no coffee or tea.  Perhaps there’s no room for the machine.

We walked home through the brightly lit Piazza del Duomo, with its amazing buildings, and the kids enjoyed running around with no cars.  Deep in conversation about some fantasy game they were playing, they held hands the whole way back to our apartment.

Photo of the Day

Milo, in Milo