May 17, 2012
In Italy I find myself whispering—for I haven’t stopped talking to my mother—”Are you living this too, madre mia?”
It feels as if I’m picking up where she left off. A leitmotif of my life has been actually doing the things she talked about doing but didn’t because she was saddled with four kids. My mother deposited her dreams into me, like moms always do to daughters.
Gradually the house has become a home. The decision was long, and so far it seems right. Je ne regrette rien. Non mi pento di nulla.
Here are snippets from my new world (yes, I have a thing about green):
 
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March 9, 2012
Near the end of my house renovation in Sicily, I was so broke that I begged chairs that friends and acquaintances were tossing out and shopped the Modica flea market (the last Sunday morning of every month on Corso Umberto I) for doorknobs, lamps, and dishes. Even my garbage men knew to sift through their trash for the American lady.
I furnished the salone last. Its centerpiece is a skid. As in Skid Row.
Shamelessly scavenged from la strada.
(Brutta figura, Sicilians would say.)
I lugged it down to Giuseppe, my neighborhood carpenter, and asked him to give it a real good sanding. He did, and it shines.
Then I threw down a couple o’ cushions, filled up a bowl with oranges, added two found objects (Grim Reaper scythes), a pile of books, et voilà.
A bona-fide living room.
At night I light swarms of candles, and the skid looks like a million bucks.
Do you decorate with found objects?
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Read more about my life on a shoestring in Sicily here.
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 Giuseppe, a fine Sicilian carpenter Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
November 20, 2011
It’s been a while since I’ve had a giveaway, so here’s today’s deal.
The early bird gets the worm. Between now and 12 midnight EST on Nov 22, leave a comment on this or any of my last 5 posts, and you’ll be entered into the drawing to win this touch of Sicily. (The winner will need a mailing address either in North America or Italy.)
The tile from Caltagirone is 4 inches square and a half inch thick. Use as a trivet on your holiday table or give as a gift.
Caltagirone is famous for its ceramics and grand tiled staircase, which I copied in miniature in my house.
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January 31, 2011
I spied a lonely old oil jar lurking in a corner of Piero’s antique shop. “Pick me, pick me!” it breathed.
And so I did. It has found love in my bright kitchen. Dating from the late 1800s and used by Sicilians until about 1950, this jar isn’t much different from the ones the Greeks–who introduced olive trees to Sicily millenia ago–used for storing olive oil.
It wasn’t expensive. Everything in the antique shop owned by Piero Occhipinti (literally Peter Painted Eyes) is reasonable, and it’s the only such shop in Ragusa Ibla. (Of course you have to bargain, like you do for most everything in Sicily.) If you cannot make it to a Sunday flea market while you’re in Southeast Sicily, visiting Piero’s shop is a good substitute. He sells distressed violins, old books, baroque candlesticks, ornate desks, faded old pottery from Caltagirone. He’s rummaged around Sicily’s antique fairs since he was 10, so he knows what he’s doing.
By the way, girls, Piero is single and looking… (And not just for old Sicilian treasures.)
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Piero Occhipinti Antiques, 335.539.6735, Via le Margherita, 11, Ragusa Ibla, Sicily. If his shop is locked up, you can usually find him refinishing furniture in his nearby laboratory on Via Orfanotrofio 51/53.
 A new home in my kitchen Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
August 19, 2010
I’m furnishing my home with trash.
The orange trash guys drop by on a daily basis. One day they’ll cart away secco, dry stuff. The next day it’s umido, wet stuff. Another day it might be plastica or carta or lattine. I still can’t figure out what the last thing is. To make matters worse, each kind of rubbish must be tightly wound up in a different-hued bag: lava-black for secco, pistachio-green for umido, and so on. I don’t expect to ever really catch on to a system that’s as complicated, in its own way, as Sicilian codes of honor.
But all that’s beside the point. What matters is not the debris they haul away from the house, but what they bring in. Last week one of them, eyes ablaze, said, “I hear you like old stuff, Signora.”
“You heard right, Signore.”
“Well, I have a piece of an old Sicilian cart. Do you want it?”
I took it, of course, along with his picture in the too-bright sun.
Then the next day along comes this: a rusted grinder, still smelling seductively of caffè.
So we’re in business, me and the garbage guys. Will the house soon look like a moldering antiques bazaar?
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My Tourist Tips for Southeast Sicily
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