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October 16, 2011 I found the Goat Man in Southeast Sicily near the village of Acate. “Three hundred,” he said when I asked how many he had.
He lit a Pall Mall and we watched the animals prance across the road.
They weren’t fast enough for the Goat Man. He lost patience.
I climbed back into the car, watched the Goat Man wave around a stick, and continued on to Acate. *** October 11, 2011 Two years ago my friend Angela had the symbol of Sicily inked upon her.
She had come to one of those major crossroads in life, the kind where you step into scary, unknown territory. She wanted to celebrate the moment. Stamping the symbol of Sicily on her skin seemed appropriate, she explains, because in recreating herself, she had to start the inside, from her island roots. She choose a baroque, feminine interpretation of the traditional trinacria (see flag below).
What is the trinacria, you may ask? The Kingdom of Trinacria–literally the Kingdom of the Triangle–is an old name for Sicily. The traditional Sicilian flag has three legs (representing the triangular island), three stalks of wheat (representing the breadbasket that is Sicily), and Medusa’s face. Medusa was a monster who is used as a talisman on Sicily’s flag to protect the island from evil.  The Trinacria on Sicily's Flag XXXXXXX How have you celebrated or marked a major crossroads in your life? *** Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
October 6, 2011 Computers aren’t big here. Nor is the internet. Email is seen as a nuisance, and you will rarely get a response from a Sicilian when you send one. (“I don’t check my email,” they explain.) There’s only one small internet “point” in the village, and one pizzeria with semi-functioning wireless. People do not bring their laptops to cafes. Except me. “Ah,” exclaim people I meet for the first time. “I know you! You’re the Lady with the Computer.”  The Lady with the Computer Yes, my Apple and I are inseparable. Thank you, Steve Jobs. You helped this Luddite embrace the computer age, and for that I was always a little in love with you.
October 2, 2011 Yes, Sicily’s folk culture is endangered, her old way of life fading away. I lose sleep over this. But Franco and Salvo are trying to stop the march of time. The men have a vision and a passion: to save an old flour mill, to grow ancient varieties of wheat for grinding, and to produce Sicily’s old-time bread. The mill in question, Mulino Soprano, had been in Franco’s family since it was built in 1822, but it had–like all the other flour mills in Sicily–gone to seed, closing in the early 1980s.  Salvo Arena and Franco DiStefano Thanks to “progress,” flour is industrial in Sicily today, pretty much devoid of nutrients and high in hard-to-digest gluten. The ancient varieties of wheat that grew on the island in Roman times have given way to a few globalized varieties. But Franco, 50-something, can still remember a childhood when the mill was a hub of rural life Sicily and a center of gossip, when he ran in fields of wheat and fell asleep to the sound of swooshing water. So Franco and Salvo spend all their spare time on weekends, while scraping together their own money, to bring back a slice of Sicily’s past.  The old water wheel  It's amazing how long it takes to grind a bag of flour!  Franco is proud of his antique varieties of wheat.  Salvo with his experimental breads There’s still work to be done. The men are experimenting with ways of baking bread; they plan to open a bakery, too. Already they’ve got a deliciously chewy brown bread–something that you can’t find in any bakeries here.  Bread made from ancient grain Way to go, guys! You’re local heroes to me! *** The mill in Contrada Cifali on the road between Chiaramonte and Ragusa, but is impossible to find unless you go with someone in the know. And that person would be Consuelo Petrolo, an adorable tour guide with excellent English. You can reach her at consuelo.petrolo@tiscali.it or visit her website. Consuelo can also find holiday housing for you in Southeast Sicily.
September 26, 2011 Which is your favorite Sicilian Gang of Four?
*** Congratulations to Lynne of the beautiful blog Decollete Glimpses who has won the drawing for the porta banana! *** Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
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