June 10, 2010
There are rivers, cascades, torrents of steps in Sicilian hill towns.
 
Ragusa Ibla is a natural gym—better than a Stair Stepper. No wonder the locals live such long lives. It must be the steps (oh, and the olive oil that old-timers drink like water).
I gain no weight here, though I eat like a monster: great bowls of pasta alla Norma, cones of toasted almond gelato, artichoke flowers, deep-fried donuts filled with sweet pistachio cream, wheels of cheese.
    
To the hundreds of steps in town, add twenty-five more in my house. I lie in bed at night, head spinning and spinning. Legs aching and aching. And I’m happy.
***
Does this life look fun to you?
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June 6, 2010
“I know you,” said a tall man with olive eyes as we crossed paths last week.
I racked my brain. Had we met?
“We drink coffee at the same bar,” he laughed. “All stranieri, strangers, are famous here.”
I cringed.
“Do you know Louise from England?”
I shook my head.
He pointed to a low, crumbling building adjacent to the cathedral and pulled out a ring of keys. “The church is trying to sell this building. Do you want to see inside?”
The two dank rooms inside were pigeon-pooped and depressing, but I saw two old chairs I liked in a pile of junk.
“I gift them to you, Signora.”
I politely protested.
“But they’re worthless!” he said.
Old Sicilian church chairs—seats lovingly caned with a thick, rough twine—have been replaced by pews.
Heading up the stairs to my house, a salvaged chair under each arm, I felt another rush of Sicily-love.
There was also regret. Why had he let them go so lightly?
***
ADDENDUM: It’s true that the little church chairs were riddled with wood-munching bugs—tarli, as they’re called here. But there’s a simple solution. My friend Roberta (left) taught me the antitarlo recipe: Buy a syringe at a farmacia, don pink plastic gloves, fill the syringe with toxic goo, plunge it into each and every pinhole (there were millions), then wrap the chair, Christo-like, in plastic and let rest for 2 weeks. Unwrap and enjoy with a glass of Nero d’Avola.
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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.”
***
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***
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 20, 2010
Shoes wear out fast in Sicily, and so do feet.
I buy every Dr. Scholl’s pain relief product on the market. I slather callus goop onto the soles of my feet. I wrap them in moleskin. I’m gellin’.
But I gladly suffer the pain. Because nothing can beat the sheer romance of old cobbles.
When your heels hit these medieval stones, they sing! (The stones that is, not so much the heels.)
I love the texture of cobbles under my toes, and the shine rubbed in by generations of hooves, wheels, and feet.
***
Readers, can you help me? Will you consider voting for my Sicily photograph in the Islands 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.)
***
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May 13, 2010
Of all the things I love about living in Sicily, at the top of my list are the venditori ambulenti, roving vendors.
Can you believe a produce market comes to me?
All I have to do is hang around the house in my sweats and wait for the vendor’s croaking call (Carrote! Asparagi!) to get a garden-fresh lunch. Sometimes, when I don’t appear in the street fast enough, he rings my buzzer to announce his arrival. I shuffle out in house slippers with the other Sicilian housewives.
The back of his truck overflows with floppy lettuces, cauliflower the size of your head, ripe tomatoes, wild artichokes, and just-plucked oranges—their green-leafed stems still attached as proof of freshness.
He never weighs anything. The total price is always €1.50, no matter what. Today I chose some fat fennel, wild strawberries, and a kilo of plump tomatoes. He smiled and tossed in two unexpected cucumbers “for the tomato salad.”
He shows up a few times a week, always chomping a toothpick. He flirts like crazy with all the housewives (Sicilians never outgrow this game). He shares his recipes, and I pretend to understand his rapid-fire Sicilian.
Then there’s the hawker with a megaphone who pulls up in a white van. He carries around a whole mini-market: tomato paste, biscotti, lentils, toilet paper, you name it. He saves me a trip down 100 steps to the nearest little Alis market.
I ask you: is this not a beautiful thing?
***
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Thanks everyone for your recent comments. A big CONGRATULATIONS to Christine Hickman for winning the random drawing on May 10 for Toni Lydecker’s Seafood alla Siciliana. Christine lives part-time in Perugia (Umbria), where she runs cooking classes. What a perfect fit for the book! Check out Christine’s website at sonomarcella.com.
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All photos and text on BaroqueSicily are Copyright of Jann Huizenga ©2009-2015, unless otherwise noted. Material may not be copied or re-published without written permission. All rights reserved.
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