January 20, 2012
I went to a dinner party not long ago at the dark and windswept edge of what locals call the Sea of Africa. The Sicilian host served a salmon antipasto. Then out came a tasty tomato-and-white-wine pasta followed by chicken involtini and perfect roast potatoes. Elegantissimo.
For dessert he tore open a package of chocolate supermarket cookies and passed the box around the table. A cute and quirky grand finale. Something about it said “We are famiglia.”
Here’s an idea for a slightly more elegant dessert that I’ve also had here. It’s almost as simple. Buy a good cheese or two (Gorgonzola, Parmigiano, or goat cheese, for instance). Pair the cheese with a dollop of interesting honey (maybe something more upscale than the plastic bear?). You could add a fig or a date or a few pear slices if you’re feeling fancy. Serve with Sicilian moscato, port, or another round of wine.
Do you have a simple dessert recipe to share?
January 15, 2012
Who is this guy?
What’s in his arms?
I screech to a halt.
What’s in his arms is a bundle of dreams.
But I don’t care about that yet. I just want to know what he’s picked alongside the road because Sicilians are always picking stuff alongside the road, and dammit, I wanna know how to survive on wild edibles, too.
It’s fennel. I breathe in the sweet licorice-y scent.
“It grows wild year round in Sicily,” Alfio says. “I make pizza with fennel, and pasta con le sarde. Come on over sometime and I’ll make you pizza.”
Right there on the road, with my emergency lights flashing, Alfio (pet name for Alfredo, he says) recounts his life and his dreams. He’s an out-of-work chef. Italy’s economic crisis has hit Sicily hard. But Alfio hopes to open a macrobiotic restaurant, a fancy-pants one, with a Mediterranean twist and plenty of fennel.
“Non vedo l’ora” I say, I do not see the hour (meaning: “I can’t wait”), and climb back into the car with a sprig of fennel pressed against my nose.
Good luck, Alfio!
***
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January 10, 2012
My husband died a month ago, the woman says.
 @J Huizenga Do you know how long we were married? Fifty-four years.
You are surprised? Yes, because nowadays such a long marriage is rare.
 @J Huizenga And do you know why? Because people today are egoists. They think only of themselves. They want what they want.
How did Paolo and I stay together for 54 years? I cooked him whatever he wanted. If he had a hankering for spaghetti carbonara, I made it.
And Paolo never ever complained about anything I cooked.
 @ J Huizenga Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
January 5, 2012
Well, Mount Etna–Pillar of Heaven, as the Greeks called her–is spewing her ash again as I write this. First blast of 2012. Clouds of smoke are visible all the way down here.
We toured around her just last week. Small puffs of smoke, like breaths on a cold day, blew from her crater into the gray-blue sky. She looked breathtakingly serene then, but there’s always more than meets the eye in Sicily.
Vulcan, god of fire, was tink-tinking away in her burning bowels.
How odd to live cheek-by-jowl with such a force of nature.
Stone homes–still inhabited–nestle against the black scabs of lava that are etched like witch’s fingers down her green shoulders. Some homes, like the one below, are just a distant memory.
 Lava fields outside Randazzo Randazzo, closest to the summit, is a dark town on the north slope built entirely of lava stone.
 Church of Santa Maria in Randazzo  Center of Randazzo In spite of the danger, Sicilians feel an intense affection for Etna, identifying deeply with her volatile nature.
The boys in Randazzo deck themselves out in black–to match their surroundings I presume–and behave just like Etna, puffing great rings of smoke into the sky.
 Scene in Randazzo Does your life lack excitement?
Here’s a house for you. It’s just under Etna, and for sale!
***
Tips for tourists: Wine tours and trekking are favorite past-times around Etna. The north face of Etna is a gorgeous place to drive around–full of vineyards, baronial manors, and mountain panoramas, but when you get to down-at-the-heels Bronte (home of the famous pistachio nut), the roads become trashy–especially shocking to see in the presence of this great natural wonder.
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January 1, 2012
After days of chilly wind and rain, 2012 started just purrfectly.
There was bright white sun on the piazza.
And a gigantic, baroque Kiss-Fest.
I smooched with my newspaper-tobacco man. I don’t know his name, but he held me in a tight embrace.
I pecked the pink cheeks of the myopic, eccentric composer who once invited me and my husband into his house to show off his antique objets, family coat of arms, and pianos.
I kissed the village aristocrat, who towers head and shoulders above all the other little men of his WW II generation.
My husband, a rather shy and undemonstrative sort, had to embrace these same men. Their abrasive stubble unnerved him, and he got his sunglasses tangled up in the specs of the myopic composer. “I’d only let Sicilians get away with this,” he said.
I did not get photos of him cringing and doing the Sicilian Smooch-Smooch Ritual (darn), but here are others from New Year’s morning on the piazza:
 brioscia integrale con miele 
 
***
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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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