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May 27, 2015 Off to market I go. I need lemons, lettuce, leeks. But I get distracted by the T-shirts. Where’s the one for me?  I had plenty of those, but do I really want to celebrate them on a T-shirt?  Do I want to be a walking ad for Starbucks and bad grammar?  Wouldn’t this mark me as the most obnoxious person on the planet?  The people have not perfect English. All made in China, of course.  Dim idea writ large.  Cute car; dumb text.  Found it! ******** Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
May 25, 2014 Sicilians revere bread. The never lay it upside down. If they drop it by accident, they kiss it. They never throw it away. Well, if it’s moldy they can, but not before apologizing to Jesus. Since becoming gluten-sensitive, I idolize bread too. This is the round loaf sold by a man in a little truck who comes merrily tooting his way up the street everyday. Look what 80 cents will buy. I pinch it and sniff it and then prop it up on my sideboard, just so, to remind me of the good ole days when I could wolf down the entire loaf in one sitting, slathered in sweet butter and Sicilian orange marmalade.
Giorgio loads in the bread.
*** September 21, 2011 I can’t find in Sicilian stores what I really want: plastic baggies, Twizzlers, Gorilla tape, almond butter, skim milk, a simple T-shirt without mangled English, ant traps. Ants march into my living room in the evening as if they’re out–like every good Sicilian–for a passeggiata. I scour the hardware store and then ask my GoogleTranslate-prepared question: Ci sono trappoli per formiche? Are there traps for ants? The shop assistant looks at me and laughs. We have traps for mice, Signora, but they are too big for your ants. Ha ha. Anyway, while I’m rifling through the anti-pest section of the store, I come upon this mean-looking anti-pigeon device. I get four. Pigeons mate and roost and coo and poop on my balcony–of all the milllions of places they could’ve chosen! They’re not at all scared of a banging broom. Will these torture devices work?
Another weird thing I buy that day is a porta banana, a banana-carrier. Made in Italy, by the way. “Why?” I ask the salesclerk. “So that your banana does not get crushed in your bag,” she explains.
Leave a comment on this post (or a previous one) and you’ll be entered in a raffle to win the porta banana! (You must have an address in North America–not to leave a comment, but to win the weird green thing.) You could put a string through it and carry it as a banana-purse. *** Have you bought something odd recently?
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August 10, 2010 Where I come from, junk food is considered a major food group and obesity a national emergency. Italians make fun of our junk-food fetish, calling us—kind of cruel, don’t ya think?—culoni, big butts. Italians believe they’re eating a healthy Mediterranean diet. Take a look in an Italian hypermarket, though, and you’ll see aisles brimming with made-in-Italy junk food. But why in blazes do nearly all the packages bear American names? Can it be that Italians refuse to sully their own bella lingua by putting it on stuff that clogs arteries and fattens fannies?  These'll make you whistle Dixie  As in Yonkers, NY?  Kind of wacko, don't you think?  Named after the Fonz?  Only a hipster can appreciate a Cipster (pronounced Chipster)
 I love this! They stick the Italian plural ("i") onto an English word PS: I hope you appreciate these photos–Supermarket Security made me beg for permission from Store Manager, who looked at me like I was some sort of crazy blogger. *** June 15, 2010 We make up a long list—masking tape, towel racks, electric drill, olive tree, hooks—and drive through the scabby detritus of Upper Ragusa’s industrial zone to Brico, a do-it-yourself Sicilian version of Home Depot. The smell of the sea fills our nostrils as we pull into the blazing parking lot. I don’t approve of big-box stores or the mall-ification of Sicily, but my hardware-hungry husband has landed on the island, we have a rental car, and I’m a hypocrite. Kim tries to get in the exit doors, but they remain stubbornly shut.
We’re a little frustrated that we can’t decode what’s in all the pots and the tubes.
At Home Depot you get boring batteries and drill bits at check-out. Here you get great pots of basil and fragrant mint.
We agree that the best thing about Brico is the aromatic do-it-yourself coffee bar with mod Italian tables and chairs.
For forty cents you can get not only a delicious caffè espresso, but a caffè lungo, caffè macchiato, cappuccino, caffè corto decaffeinato, caffè macchiato decaffeinato, mocaccino, cappciocc (what’s that?) cappuccino decaffeinato, cioccolato forte, cioccolata al latte, latte, latte macchiato, latte al cacao, and te al limone. Plus at the press of a button you decide if you want the above dolce or amaro. It’s Starbucks (but much better) in a machine the size of a jukebox. Can you beat that, Home Depot? |
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We finally escape the hot fingers of the sun into cool Brico-dom. Kim marvels at the dainty shopping baskets, wondering where all the flatbed carts are.
Floor space at Brico is devoted to garbage cans no bigger than my purse, and to jars for canning marmalade. We buy an olive tree for the tiny balcony and a rug made in Iran. Matinee idols deliver service with a smile (where are the Home Depot employees when you need them?).
