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June 19, 2010 Sicily’s shutters: Defenders against the brash sun. Mysterious louvered eyelids. Guardians of secret lives.
Shutters here are called persiane (Persians).
The hot ghibli winds have blown in from the Sahara, along with sand. Come mid-afternoon, you close the shutters tight and lie down in a dark room on cool sheets. Guilt-free. Everyone else is doing it, too.
Later as the sun begins to drops, the village wakes and, one by one, le persiane creak open.
May 29, 2010 I’ve cooked up the idea of installing in my kitchen a tile baseboard (called battiscopa, literally hit-broom) with a floral design. It’s going to be more than twice as high as a normal Sicilian baseboard. When I explain my brilliant idea to the project manager, he knits his shaggy eyebrows into a scowl and gives his head a sad shake. “No, Gianna.” I get a whiff of his strong aftershave. “Perché no?” Why not? He shoots me a look you might give a very slow learner. “Non si fa in Sicilia.” It’s not done in Sicily. Oh. I search for the right words. I tell him the ceiling is very high “e a me piace i fiori.” And to me pleases the flowers. “Non si fa,” he repeats with steely authority. It’s simply not done. Does he think one non-traditional battiscopa will throw the whole island out of whack? This isn’t the first time I’ve run smack into the Wall of Tradition. Sicily is a culture that values the Old Way, the Way of Granny. I adore this about the island, really I do. In fact, I’m restoring my house in the Way of Granny. Mostly. I’m preserving and enhancing whatever is old. The floor tiles I’ve chosen for the kitchen are traditional Sicilian ones made in Palermo. The floral tiles are also an old Sicilian motif. But I just want to tweak things a bit here and there, add my own little spin. In the end, I defy the project manager. The new stonemason masterfully installs the butterscotch-colored daisies while crooning Sicilian love songs. “Beh, non e brutta,” the project manager concedes when he sees the battiscopa. “It’s not ugly.”
*** *** Readers, can you help me? Will you consider voting for my Sicily photograph in the Islands Reader’s Choice poll? Here’s the link. The link will bring you to a photo I shot of a Sicilian woman in Capo Passero (in the extreme southeast corner of Sicily). You can vote by clicking on *My Favorite* underneath the photo. (I could win a photography course and you could win a camera!) GRAZIE MILLE! (To see thumbnails of all 22 photos in the competition, click this link.) May 17, 2010 Doing the bathroom twice was not fun. In the aftermath of Round One, I was tempted to give up and flee Sicily for good.  Results of Round One “You get no respect from your crew,” noted a friend. She persuaded a local bigwig to throw his weight around, Sicilian-style, as my proxy. That did the trick. Early one morning a new piastrellista, tile setter, showed up on my doorstep smelling of cologne and rubbing sleep from his eyes. He toiled away in a no-nonsense fashion, furiously attacking his predecessor’s work. Glass shattered kaleidoscopically. “Io sistemo tutto,” he kept repeating. I systematize all. (Sistemare is one of the highest Italian virtues.) To fuel his fury, I ran to the local bar for tiny cups of thick black coffee and sweet ricotta tarts. Round Two produced an apple-green bathroom. The tiles are ceramic and plain—not the pricey designer ones of yore. But you know what? Good riddance to those fancy-pants glass tiles. I like the brighter cheap-o ones better.  Results of Round Two I hate to trivialize Andre Gide’s words by using them in this mundane context, but I’ll do it anyway: “One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.”
May 6, 2010 My kitchen sink arrived from Tuscany in a beat-up truck with a blue plastic curtain. The truck came to a halt in front of the house. A burly driver got out and slowly slid open the curtain to unveil the sink as if were an opera d’arte. Which, in a way, it is. Having walked into my renovation blind as a bat, I’ve been, generally speaking, a catastrofista. But not this time. The sink is perfect. It’s made of graniglia—whatever that is—and is supple as silk. I run my hands over it the way you’d stroke a cat.
It awaits a backsplash of colorful Caltagirone tiles. I no longer need to bathe from two old buckets or stoop over an old shower drain to brush my teeth. I have a sink! I’ll be washing dishes in this sink soon. That’s right: No dishwasher. My life in Sicily is all about getting into the rhythms of a slow island life, stepping back into another century, learning to dawdle. Less is more is my new mantra. This does not mean that I’ll give up my computer and subsist on snails and wild chickory, but it does mean I’ll forgo a dishwasher. A dryer, a freezer, a car. Even a TV. I’ll start savoring the way stars light the night. The way vines drip with grapes. The way doves strut and coo on bleached terracotta roofs. *** ***
You can win this cookbook! Toni Lydecker’s Seafood alla Siciliana is somewhat smaller than coffee-table size, with thick, glossy paper, wonderful recipes, very pretty photos, and stories about Sicily’s cuisine. All you have to do is leave a comment on any of my blog posts between now and May 9, and I’ll enter your name for a random drawing on May 10, 2010. (You can enter one comment a day, max.) The only hitch is that you must provide a US or Canadian address for the shipping, so my apologies to readers on other continents. May 2, 2010 “Where come from?” asks an artisan who stands puffing a cigarette in a doorway in Caltagirone. He looks like a Sicilian baron, with lush lips, an important nose, and hair shiny with pomade. “The U.S.” “Ah! I have cousin Stefano Battaglia, he live in New Jersey. Maybe you know?” “No0000. It’s a very big place!” “Take me to America!” the man says with a sudden smile. “America more beautiful than Sicilia.” I wonder why Sicilians always respond like this when I say where I’m from. Are they hungry for a compliment or do they really believe America is a better place? When I tell him Sicily is più bella, he frowns, like he doesn’t believe me. I’m in Caltagirone for my ceramics fix. Some recent purchases: a fragile pot, pasta bowls, and a holy water font, all in Caltagirone’s colors of citrus yellow, Ionian blue, and basil green.
Little mom and pop shops brimming with tiles and jugs and mugs line the famous stairway. The quality varies, and you have to bargain. Some of the best artists are represented in the Palazzoceramico, on your right after you’ve gone up a handful of steps. There’s a museum and a cute coffee shop inside, too. Or you can fuel up on espresso on the main piazza, Piazza del Municipio. Go up the staircase into the big building with the three arches, and you’ll bump into this cafe.
Crane your head upwards and a huge, tangled battle scene with the Moors will come into view.
Caltagirone is one of the eight baroque World Heritage Sites in southeast Sicily. It has lush churches, a superb ceramics museum and pretty gardens. Restaurants are few and far between, but I can recommend la Piazzetta for its good quality and prices (try the cool semifreddo with warm chocolate sauce for dessert). Shops close between 1pm and 4pm (of course), but most are open on Sunday.
One more thing: Don’t forget to strike up a conversation with the charming pensioners standing in clumps all over town. Have you been? Do you have other recommendations? *** ***
Toni Lydecker’s Seafood alla Siciliana is somewhat smaller than coffee-table size, with thick, glossy paper, wonderful recipes, very pretty photos, and stories about Sicily’s cuisine. All you have to do is leave a comment on any of my blog posts between now and May 9, and I’ll enter your name for a random drawing on May 10, 2010. (You can enter one comment a day, max.) The only hitch is that you must provide a US or Canadian address for the shipping, so my apologies to readers on other continents. |
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You can win this cookbook!