July 19, 2010
Sicilians love their mare in summer. There’s been a mass exodus from the inland baroque towns; everyone’s hit the beach. The odd thing is that when Sicilians “go on vacation,” they travel en bloc, with all their friends and neighbors. So Ragusani move 15 kilometers away to the summer village of Marina di Ragusa for July and August; Modicani move to Marina di Modica; people from Noto go to Marina di Noto—you get the picture.
“Why would you want to go on holiday to a place where you don’t know anybody?” asks a Ragusan friend when I express surprise at this herd behavior.
Those who can’t afford a second home in Marina pitch tents on the beach and mingle with extended families from sunup to sundown, gobbling up gelato and platefuls of pasta alla Norma. Just before the Festival of San Giovanni Battista on August 29, everyone migrates back to Ragusa, as if a mighty shepherd is herding them all back at once.
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June 23, 2010
Peaches grown on the lavic slopes of Mount Etna! They’re called pesche tabacchiere, and love poems should be scribbled to them.
I gobble them up, consoling myself after the new bathtub leaks (again) and the painter calls to say he cannot come (again).
They’re flat, with a juicy pale-yellow flesh. The size of mini-donuts, but even sweeter. They remind you of how things must have tasted in Eden. In fact, the fruit vendor says they were the original peach. “How peaches were,” he says, “when they were born.”
I don’t know if he has scientific evidence for this, but I am completely convinced that this is the way peaches—and everything else—tasted in Eden.
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April 2, 2010
Easter morn in Modica: The resurrected Christ threads his way through back alleys, seeking, seeking. The black-shrouded Virgin comes forth, searching, searching.
High noon: Bells peal. Mobs mill. Families hang from balconies. Mother and Son reunite. Her black mantle slips off to reveal a cape the color of a Sicilian sky. Wooden arms swing open. Doves fly. Statues kiss.
12:05: The crowd, warmed by the spectacle and the Easter sun, kisses, too. Then home they go to the family extravaganza to fatten themselves on ricotta ravioli, Easter lamb pies, sweet breads, salads, marzipan lambs, ricotta-rich cassata, and everything else you can think of.
Buona Pasqua!
Have you seen a moving Easter tradition in Sicily or elsewhere?
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January 19, 2010.
In the mud-walled winter town of Santa Fe . . .
I dream of a Sicilian spring.
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