March 7, 2010
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Run, don’t walk, amici, as fast as your little legs can carry you, to Caffè Sicilia. It’s in the magical town of Noto in southeast Sicily, home to Captain Mimo.
Caffè Sicilia is a humble place, old-fashioned and perfect. (Please, dear owners, resist the urge to Tuscanize.) It’s basically a sweet shop, blooming with cakes and puddings and ices.
Live with abandon. One, two, three cakes—who’s counting?
Marian Burros, in a 2005 New York Times article, called Caffè Sicilia’s Corrado Assenza a “mad genius” and the “most daring experimenter with the strong sweet and savory elements in Sicilian cooking.” His ingredients are—among other things—bergamot, basil, saffron, fennel, honey, orange, jasmine, wild berries, citron, all of which he harmonizes in ways that delight and surprise.
We were a group of four. Among us, we’d ordered twelve cakes. After cramming our mouths, we sat back stunned and red-faced.
The next thing we know our server, a woman with a thick braid snakimg down her back like an old honeysuckle vine, trots out with a tray bearing 16 spoonfuls of marmalade.
“Guess the ingredients,” she says, “and you win a gelato.”
We lick the pure dabs of goodness from each spoon, carrying on a hot debate. Bergamot? Citron-tobacco? Pistachio -fennel? Turns out we all fail miserably at this game. But we’re rewarded with ice cream anyway, “for playing with passion.”
After an experience like this, Sicily will take hold of you and never let you go.
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February 16, 2010
Starting in February, Sicilians take to the hills and valleys to hunt for wild spring asparagus.
The first time I stalked asparagi was with a party of friends in a wildflower-strewn valley just beyond Ragusa Ibla. We were led into battle by my friend Gio’s father, Signor Battaglia, a tailor with a zeal for women and wild edibles.
Though the skinny spears grew waist-high, they weren’t easy to spot. They lurked in brambles and behind stone drystone walls. For several hours we rambled through the golden freshness playing a kind of Where’s Waldo with asparagus.
“Look! There are five right ahead of me,” Signor Battaglia would say. He’d stop dead in his tracks to let our eyes focus. But the flora was tangled and we were asparagus-blind. He’d scowl with mock impatience, then inch forward to tap each tender green shoot with the tip of his cane. We’d erupt in surprise, and someone would clamber over a rock wall or wade deep into the brush to pluck the tall spears with a satisfying snap.
When we’d collected enough wild food to feed a village, we headed back to the house to prepare lunch with our dewy ingredients.
I’ve written elsewhere about this meal and special man, Signor Battaglia, who for me is the incarnation of Sicilian joie de vivre.
I thought about him yesterday and started craving asparagus. Since I’m not in Sicily at the moment, I had to settle for stalking spears in the vegetable aisle at Trader Joe’s. I found some good organic skinny spears. I love asparagus best roasted, so here’s what I did:
1. Snap off woody ends.
2. Wash well (store-bought variety can be gritty).
3. Put in baking dish and drizzle with olive oil.
4. Roast at 350 for about 15 minutes.
5. Grind coarse salt and pepper and add a little spritz of lemon if desired.
6. Serve at room temperature as an antipasto or hot as a side dish.
Asparagus has health benefits galore: it clears urine (yup!); contains fiber that encourages digestion; and supports heart health thanks to folate, vitamin B, and the master antioxidant glutathione.
Do you forage for wild edibles? What do you do with asparagi?
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Here’s a link to a blogger in Italy doing a series on wild edibles.
January 27, 2010
Picture endless groves so laden with blood oranges that the orbs fall with abandon, rolling around in flowering fields and bouncing onto roadways. Fiats and Ferraris roar by, mashing the ruby-red flesh to a bloody pulp.
That’s what it’s like around Catania this time of year. Etna smokes away in the distance, aloof to the carnage at her feet.
I was surprised the first time I saw what Sicilians do with their luscious blood oranges (besides squashing them on highways). They mix them up with onions and call it a salad!
This is all you need for blood orange salad: blood oranges, onions, and a good olive oil. (I found these California blood oranges at Whole Foods.)
Peel the oranges, getting rid of as much of the white pith as you can. Slice them, sprinkle with onions, a good olive oil, and course black pepper, and voilà, you’ve got the quintessential Sicilian salad.
California blood oranges can’t quite compare with the Sicilian varieties (Sanguigno, Tarocco and Moro), but they’re still pretty good. Substitute thin slices of red onion for spring onions if you prefer.
What do you think? Let me know if you try it. Do you have another favorite recipe with blood oranges?
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Suzette Hodges has written me to share her blood orange recipe. Thanks, Suzette!
Here’s a wonderful salad using blood red oranges:
Dice up one blood red orange (large pieces); sliver 1/2 red onion (or any type onion); chop some figs (as much or little as you like); crumble goat cheese; top a plate with spring greens; add each of the ingredients atop the salad, as much or little as you like; drizzle and olive oil/mustard dressing over all. Delicious!!!
December 23, 2009
Happy Holidays, dear Reader. If you’re in southeast Sicily at the moment, the Duomo Restaurant in Ragusa Ibla would be a memorable place for a holiday splurge. It’s formal, festive and fun. Calme, luxe et volupté.
Chef Ciccio Sultano—the only chef on the island with two Michelin stars—is a humble genius.
Il Duomo is just behind Ibla’s curlicued Baroque cathedral and so close to my house I could lob a fat olive from my balcony and hit it. I’ve eaten da Ciccio four times and have always emerged elated, sated.
My sister and I celebrated her birthday there in 2007 with one of the prix-fixe tasting menus. I’ll never forget a plate called Earth, Sky, and Sea—a lemon-sauced antipasto of rare pigeon and plump oysters on a bed of whipped potatoes. Astounding. I felt a little sad about the pigeon and wondered if he was related to the flock of pink-eyed birds that nest in my roof tiles. Chef Himself made an appearance bearing a vibrant tomato sorbet “to cleanse the palate.” Next up: ricotta cheese ravioli in a pasture-green puddle of puréed fava beans. A long parade of goodies ended with carob mousse swimming in ricotta cream and, finally, sorbetto di mandorla, almond sorbet.
In June 2009 I celebrated there with two friends, Rosamund and Roberta. We guzzled a bubbly prosecco so fast that the details of our feast are a bit fuzzy, but who could forget the starter: Sicilian truffle gelato—with black truffles from the Nebrodi Mountains south of Messina—on crostini. I laughed out loud as I picked it up and nibbled it like an ice cream sandwich—crusty-soft and savory-sweet (sounds odd but it was heaven). What kind of a man invents this? Here’s a photo—can you see the gelato peaking out from the crostini and truffle slices?
A few hours into the meal, these gorgeous goat chops stuffed with chickpeas, liver and parsley appeared in front of me:
This was Rosamund’s seafood dish:
My latest meal there, in October, was equally amazing. The grand-finale nearly killed us—a bianco mangiare alla mandorla served together with a sorbetto di pera con mosto.
Chef Sultano is known for his innovate approach to Sicilian cuisine, but the creations are not random. “Sperimentare ma nel solco della tradizione,” he says. Experiment, but within the groove of tradition. His dishes change according to the seasons.
You can find cooking videos (in Italian) on his website, ristoranteduomo.it, including one for pistachio couscous.
Look at this. I couldn’t tell you exactly what it was, but don’t you think it’s an abstract/painterly/sculptural masterpiece?
Closed all day Sunday and Mondays at lunch. Tel. ++39 0932 651265
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December 12, 2009
Girls, would you let this fellow…?
Well, I did. Not only did I let him sell me a melon far bigger than I could ever eat, I let him feed me some. Its November flesh was pinky-orange, perfumed, and so overripe and juicy that I was dribbling like a love-struck fool.
The man could have sold me just about anything—rotten apples, stinking fish, whatever.
When my sister, an Angeleno, arrived in Sicily for the first time several years ago, she took a look around and said, “Very pretty men. We should be Hollywood scouts.”
They’re like stallions, Sicilian men—tossing thick manes and flashing wild black eyes, putting out cigarettes as if they’re pawing the ground with a hoof.
Not everyone is impressed. Seated at a cafe on a Sunday afternoon, while my sister and I murmured our approval of the preening Antonio Banderas-types trotting up and down the street, my Sicilian friends Giò and Rosaria, 30-something divorcees, pulled sour faces. “Horrid!” they cried. “Horrid!”
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