April 8, 2010
The men in my town are good at sitting around.
I like this; it makes the streets feel homey.
Retired guys gather at circoli, men’s clubs, like the above circolo for operai (workers) in Ragusa Ibla.
The Circolo di Conversazione for noblemen is on Piazza Duomo. Note the heavy brocade drapes and the fact that the aristocrats lounge on wooden chairs instead of plastic ones. Inside swing old cut-glass chandeliers.
The Circolo di Conversazione is across the street from the fishermen’s club. Someone told me the two groups never mingle or even exchange a buon giorno, but I’m not sure if that’s true.
Tourist tip for women in Sicily: don’t let the fixed stares of sitting-around Sicilian elders put you off. They’re curious, bored, sweet as pie. I started a conversation with these members of Circolo San Giorgio—yet another club in Ragusa Ibla—and the men responded with Old World courtesy, eager to use their schoolboy English to discuss New Jersey cousins, American politics, and World War II, when the Allies charged through the area during Operation Husky. They even invited me inside!
I wonder what the wives are doing while the husbands are sitting around.
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April 2, 2010
Easter morn in Modica: The resurrected Christ threads his way through back alleys, seeking, seeking. The black-shrouded Virgin comes forth, searching, searching.
High noon: Bells peal. Mobs mill. Families hang from balconies. Mother and Son reunite. Her black mantle slips off to reveal a cape the color of a Sicilian sky. Wooden arms swing open. Doves fly. Statues kiss.
12:05: The crowd, warmed by the spectacle and the Easter sun, kisses, too. Then home they go to the family extravaganza to fatten themselves on ricotta ravioli, Easter lamb pies, sweet breads, salads, marzipan lambs, ricotta-rich cassata, and everything else you can think of.
Buona Pasqua!
Have you seen a moving Easter tradition in Sicily or elsewhere?
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March 17, 2010
Sicily is an old wall, pitted and crumby as stale cake.
Burning with Pompeian colors.
Glowing with graffiti.
Wrinkled as an ancient face.
Yellowed as old newsprint.
Fresh-plastered walls don’t have half the charm.
UNESCO money has poured into Southeast Sicily’s eight World Heritage towns. Let’s hope restorers don’t get too zealous.
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March 7, 2010
xxx
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 25, 2010
I met him in the baroque town of Noto.
His name was Domenico Sculli.
“Call me Mimo,” he said.
He spoke good English. “I was boat captain for 42 years. I know whole world. Japan, Australia, Siberia. I lived in South America. Only place I don’t know is China. I came back home for retire. But many friends already gone.”
“Are you happy to be back in Sicily?”
“Look!” he said, sweeping his hand through the air. “Noto is so beautiful!”
I nodded.
He pulled a photo from a worn leather wallet.
“This is how I was forty years ago. You see I was very, very handsome.”
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xxx
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