Nicolosi Halloween 07

Ok, so you're invited to a Halloween party and you aren't creative enough to think up a costume. At least Maryellen and I had her two black cats, Pete and Repeat, for props, but we had to leave them home. Maryellen's shirt said "I don't do costumes." She wears it every year.

Isn't this scary? Where is my Oil of Olay when I need it? The only secret to aging is giving up closeups and looking in the mirror!

The Sicilian Old Boys' Network

In almost every piazza in every town in Sicily, the old men leaves their wives at home and meet and sit on the bench. What do you think they are talking about??? It must be a universal "guy" thing.

Here's one with a slow but determined stride. I bet you any money, he's headed for the piazza to join the other guys. I'm sure he wouldn't want to miss the gossip. . .

Cappuccino, Dolce, and Me...Perfect Together

From the day I stepped foot on this island, I have been enamoured with the bar culture. Uh, not what you may be thinking. This is a place where you go for coffee and sweets. True enough, you can also slug back an alcoholic drink, but why do that when you can drink cappuccino? Truthfully, it puts Starbucks to shame. Two cappuccini and a dolce for about 3.50 euro, which is under $5. And it tastes so much better. The locals stand shoulder to shoulder at the counter, drinking their espresso. Just when you think you'll never get served, they all leave because they only take a minute to down a shot and then they are outta there.

Every town has many bars, about as many bars as Catholic churches in Sicily or Baptist churches in Atlanta. One on every corner, or just about. Not only are the pastries delicious, but they are prepared with an eye for food art. Just look at them all! Remember, presentation is 9/10 of the law.

Not a bad Sunday morning ritual. I worship the goddess of cappuccino and dolce, and am eternally grateful for them coming into my life. You would, too!

Vino! Vino! Vino! Gambino

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of visiting the Gambino winery, high up on the eastern slope of Mt. Etna on the outskirts of a town, Linguaglossa. A group of us went to do some wine tasting with a light lunch included for a modest 12 euro. A short but informative tour of the winery was led by a true gentleman with a good command of English. Wine is to Sicily as water is to Atlanta, only there is much more wine in Sicily...It is a way of life, part of the culture, and a part of every lunch and dinner.

There is enough known and published about Sicilian wines to fill a 128-page book, Wines of Sicily. Again, depending on the region, climate, and soil conditions, many different and distinct wines are produced from many varieties of grapes. Vino rosso, vino bianco, and even white wine made from red grapes! Table wines to fill your own jug, DOC wines, and dessert wines. One can easily purchase a liter of table wine for one euro ($1.40 and way better than two-buck-chuck).

The Gambino winery sits in the middle of 111 hectacres of grapevines ranging from 5-25 years old. (The single plant in the photo is 25 years old). Rows and rows as far as the eyes can see, picked by hand.

The grapes are pressed and the wine stored in French oak barrels for 6-9 months before being transferred to large stainless steel vessels for further aging. The first wine to ferment in a new oak barrel is called the first passing and is aged for 6 months. This is where the wine aficionados say, ah...it has overtones, or is it undertones, or a finish? of...oak. So I guess you can't go wrong saying you detect a slight oak flavor. You will sound so smart. As you can tell, I'm anything but a wine snob, but I'm learning.

We tasted two whites, two reds, and enjoyed antipasti of salami, cheese, marinated mushrooms, artichokes, and two varieties of sun-dried tomatoes. Did you know you can sun-dry cherry tomatoes? They were also kind enough to give us some chestnuts. Thinking they were cooked, I peeled one and took a big bite. The lesson I learned there is no matter how much wine you've tasted, a raw chestnut is awful and makes you want to clean off your tongue with your finger! Yuck, yuck, yuck. Don't do it.

So, when in Siciliy, do as the Sicilians do...drink lots of vino! Why not? I'm old enough!

Cold Pressed Extra Virgin?

Olive oil, that is. . . Olio di oliva. 'Tis the season for harvesting olives in Sicily. I finally got to see the pressing of olive oil! I've always been fascinated by how things are made and have enjoyed watching craftspeople at their craft, so this was perfect. It was a big weekend for all things olive oil. I was able to visit an oleificio one day and visit with some folks who have several hectacres of olive trees the other day.

Italy is the world's largest producer of olive oil and Sicily is said to have the finest, both in fragrance and taste, due to Sicily's particularly rich soil, some of which is volcanic in origin. Within Sicily, different varieties are grown, depending on the region, climate, and soil. From what I've gleaned, the extra virgin olive oil (EVOO to Rachel Ray) is derived from the first cold pressing of the olive. In Sicily, only the first pressing is sold and used. Anything after that is considered "less than" and is extracted from the leftovers with heat. The sheets of brown husks after the pressing are actually recycled and used for fertilizer.

The process goes something like this. Olives are harvested mostly by hand or machine "rakes" that shake the branches, allowing the olives to fall into nets. The olives are then brought to the oleificio, where the leaves and small branches are removed by hand. Then they are placed into a machine that pulvarizes the olives into a chunky paste-like consistency, and then spread by machine onto porous disks. These disks are stacked on top of each other until the stack is large enough for the press. With the machine applying pressure, one can actually see the oil dripping down the sides of the press.

People can bring their own olives in return for a certain amount of oil, or the oil can be bought outright from the oleificio. The desired cold pressed, unfiltered extra virgin olive oil is green and murky, with a distint olive aroma and a fresh olive taste.

Our friends in Noto, Denise and Christopher, who own hundreds of trees, have recented harvested and pressed their own oil, and netted 350 liters after giving the harvesters half the yield. They talked about their experience as ex-pats, and admittedly their choice of where they want to live is driven by where olive trees grow. This a love affair indeed! They generously gave us 3 liters in addition to a wonderful home-cooked lunch. Yes, bread dipped in olive oil was the first order of business.

Next time you buy olive oil, be fussy. Look for Italian (if not Sicilian) olive oil, cold pressed, first pressing. The greener the better. OK, I admit it. I've turned into an olive oil snob!

I Portali Grand Opening

Window shopping in Sicily was never more fun than today, October 25, 2007, at 10:00am. It was the precise time of the grand opening of a new mall in Sicily. OK, picture this. . .hundreds of Sicilians lined up outside the door, waiting for the mall to open. Well, not exactly lined up, because there is no such polite organization here. You just think you're in line until someone pushes ahead of you without apology. It was more like a mad rush. And I do mean rush. Were the stores giving away there merchandise on the first day? Was a celebrity waiting inside? Perhaps a rock star? It turns out that word travels fast and the diehard shoppers browse the previously seen brochures, studiously memorizing the bargains.

Apparently the really, really big deals were to be found in the electronics store (Sicily's answer to Best Buy). We pushed our way into the store like salmon swimming upstream, and observed that the hottest buy was a blowdryer for 3.90 euro. That's about $5.50. I might add that as we entered the store, a man, in his exuberance, clipped me with his arm across my throat. Could this be the origination of the term "cutthroat?" No such thing as "one per customer" here. People had stacks of them in the arms, walking rapidly to the cashier. I mean, how many blowdryers can a person use, or even a family? I kid you not when I say that people were dragging huge plastic bags full of purchases out of the store and down the mall. Dragging...

This photo was taken within 15 minutes of the mall opening. They sure didn't waste any time! See the stacks of blowdryers?

Next we walked around to several other stores, mostly upscale and pricey by any standard. How about a pair of silky "Hello Kitty" jammies with bling for $100? How about an entire store of "Hello Kitty" stuff? Does that name sound at all Italian to you? That would be "Buon Giorno Gatto". It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Another popular and crowded store carried housewares. The prices were pretty good, but again, the problem was that the cashier lines were so long and slow that I'd still be there trying to pay instead of writing this blog.

The mall itself is glitzy and bright with water features, tropical plantings, marble floors, with loud rock music playing (in English). It was reminiscent of when malls started to become popular in the States. My first experience was going to the Cherry Hill Mall in New Jersey, back in the late 60's.

The other general phenomenon that always amazes me about Sicily is there love affair with things that we would consider American. For example, some of the store names themselves bear English names.

Here is a version of the ever-popular dollar store, another madhouse with wall-to-wall people and long lines at the checkout. Notice the Hallowe'en skeleton in the window. This is not a Sicilian holiday or tradition, but anything to copy the Americans and make money seems to be where it's at.

My friends, Mary and Jacque, and I ended our mall experience with. . .you guessed it. . .cappuccino and gelato. The best, most smooth and yummy gelato I have ever had, or do I just say that every time?

Grocery Shopping in Sicilia

Every trip to Carrefour is an experience, and is the hugest grocery store I've ever seen. In fact, you can also buy clothing, household items, toys...Hmmm, it's starting to sound like a Super Wal*Mart! This store is in a large, modern mall (the only mall I know of), and you'd better not go on the weekend or you will get run over by a shopping cart or two, or three, or four.

I think their way of thinking is that if one aisle of yogurt is good, than two aisles is better. Same with pasta, same with meat, same with cheeses, same with seafood, same with veggies. Needless to say, the selection is fabulous. We can learn from their system of self-weighing produce. You put your selection on the scale and press a picture of what you are buying, and it spits out a tag with the price. Cool, huh? Why didn't Publix or Shop-Rite think of that?

I was lucky to get these photos before being stopped in my tracks by the seafood manager, who when he saw my camera poised, commanded, "Non foto!" Well, he saved you from seeing the

photo that was to be. Raw squid, octopus, shrimp, and you-name-it. Gifts from the sea.

Here you see pasta on sale. That's what "offerta" means.