Stumbling . . . Running

Cathedral column in Erice, Trapani, Sicily

We were made to endure twelve compulsory years of catholic school education … co-institutional learning. Girls in one building with the nuns with their restrictive habits. Boys in another with the Franciscan brothers, with their flowing hooded brown robes with knotted rope belts.

Fear is a powerful emotion.

The Sisters of Mercy and Daughters of Wisdom made economic use of it, creating an environment of education through fear and threatened humiliation. I instinctively learned to keep my eyes lowered.

They packed us into classrooms of 50+ students. I guess the intimidation was a necessary device for keeping order. Rows of desks began at the back wall and were spaced so tightly that you could barely bend over for a book without the top of your head brushing the desk across the aisle. Getting under our desks in the event of a nuclear attack would have proved more than difficult.

Minds full of curiosity we were steered to a dead end of limited choices. The Daughters of Wisdom were oblivious to the cultural revolution raging outside the confines of the diocese. You could be a nurse or secretary or teacher. We were instructed to pray for a vocation.

Big sigh!

It took me many years to find my way…to stop lowering my eyes in submission.

I fled NYC during the bankrupt years of the seventies landing in the Catskills near Woodstock, NY. There I stumbled into the garden and never looked back…running the rest of the way. I sometimes catch myself still running.

Running 'away from' or 'back to' something I’m not quite sure.

Walking the streets of Casatellemmare del Golfo I occasionally cross paths with a nun. They return my smile, unlike other pedestrians I encounter.

WEEDS: Sicilian Sweet Pea and Fennel

The delicious perfume of the sweet pea ranks it way at the top of my list of favorite flowers. I was delighted to discover, years ago, that it is native to Sicily. Most of the hybrids that are grown in gardens today originated with the Sicilian native. On my walks to the rocky shoreline in Castellemmare I picked small bouquets of the wildflowers. In that respect I certainly was quite an oddity.

The sweet peas grew alongside Vipers Bugloss, Artemesia, shoulder high Euphorbia and, of course, fennel. I was surprised at the crossover of similarity in the diversity of wildflowers / weeds to be found there. Some plants I had never encountered... or more correctly ... had encountered only their new world relatives.



One of the most widespread of the weeds to be found was wild fennel. I don't know if it became wild as an escapee from cultivation or if it was brought into cultivation from the wild. Three to four foot feathery plumes of foliage were visible everywhere.

And the taste! It was by far the most intense anise flavor.

I added thin slices of fennel to every salad I made. Crisp and refreshing.

Traditionally, fennel was something eaten at the end of the meal. Cut into quarters, it was eaten as a refreshing digestive.

It was only years later that I thought to cook fennel. braised. roasted. grilled.
My all time favorite recipe that uses fennel is from Annie Sommerville's Fields of Green.

Potato, Fennel and Leek Gratin

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
3 large leeks, white parts only, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced, and washed, about 4.5 cups
1 teaspoon ground fennel seed
salt and pepper
2 Large fennel bulbs, quartered lengthwise, cored, and thinly sliced, about 4 cups
5 garlic cloves, finely chopped
2 tablespoons chopped fresh herbs: Italian parsley, thyme, marjoram
1 cup cream
1cup milk
1 bay leaf
1/2 teaspoon peppercorns
1/2 teaspoon fennel seed
3 fresh thyme sprigs
3 parsley sprigs
2 ounces provolone, grated, about 3/4 cup
2 ounces Parmesan cheese, grated, about 2/3 cup
1 1/2 pounds large Yellow Finn or red potatoes
12 Nicoise or Gaeta olives, pitted and coarsely chopped

Heat oil in a large skillet; add the leeks, ground fennel, 1/2 tsp salt, and a few pinches pepper. Saute over medium heat until the leeks are heated through, then cover the pan and steam until wilted, about 5 minutes. Add the sliced fennel, garlic and 1/2 teaspoon salt; saute until the fennel is tender, about 5 minutes. Transfer the vegetables to a bowl and toss with half the chopped herbs.
While the leeks and fennel are sauteing, pour the cream and milk into a small saucepan; add the bay leaf, peppercorns, whole fennel seed, and herb sprigs. Steep the cream over low heat for 20 minutes. Pour through a strainer and season with 1/4 tsp salt.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and lightly oil a 9 x 13 baking dish. Mix the cheeses. thinly slice the potatoes and layer one-third of them in the bottom of the dish, overlapping the slices and rows as you go. Sprinkle the potatoes generously with salt and pepper, followed by the olives, half the leeks and fennel, and one-third of the cheese. Make another layer of potatoes, followed by salt and pepper, the remaining leeks and fennel and one-third of the cheese. Top with the final layer of potatoes and pour the hot cream over. Cover the dish and bake for40 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese and bake, uncovered, until the potatoes are very tender and the gratin turns golden and a little crisp, another 15 minutes. Sprinkle with the remaining chopped herbs before serving.

serves six

Beyond the Sea

Castellemmare del Golfo 2008
I came back to that tune over and over... Bobby Darin singing.
Epitome of coolness.

Here, beyond the sea, evenings could drag on at times in the confines of my studio apt. I didn't venture out after dark. Mostly I was content to cook a great meal, sip some Nero d'Avalo and listen to music... read, write, sort through the photos of the day.

I listened to Tony Bennett, Louis Prima, soundtracks from Everything is Illuminated and Once.

When I tired of the selection of albums I had along with me I put together a play list that I titled: Castellemmare del Golfo 2008.

My parents were music lovers. My father, in particular, had quite an eclectic taste in music. New albums were added to his collection weekly; a habit I adopted as soon as I had a weekly paycheck.

Walking up and down these ancient streets, I'm surprised to hear bits of familiar tunes...often someone singing. On Sunday afternoons the streets are abandoned. EVERYONE is sharing a Sunday meal with family. It's my favorite time to walk the streets. Through open windows I can hear the sound of silverware tinkling against china plates, voices in conversation at the table and... music.

Again I'm surprised by the similarities. I'm not so different, after all, from these distant cousins. Family, food, music are the recurring themes. I would feel comfortable at their tables, in their kitchens...if I could speak their language. I'm working on it. Overhearing these dinner conversations is just another form of music to my ears.

(Fact: Sicilian is the first Romance language to have been formed from spoken Latin. It is older than Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese or Romanian. We are an ancient tribe.)




The Play list:
A Thousand Beautiful Things 3:07 Annie Lennox
The Weight 4:34 The Band
Another Lonely Day 3:46 Ben Harper
Sweetest Decline 5:41 Beth Orton
Amazing Grace 4:24 The Blind Boys Of Alabama
Spirit On The Water 7:43 Bob Dylan
Beyond The Sea 2:53 Bobby Darin
Since I Fell For You 3:05 Bonnie Raitt
Time After Time 4:02 Cyndi Lauper
How It Ends 7:00 DeVotchKa
Charlotte Mittnacht (The Fabulous Destiny Of...) 3:07 DeVotchKa
Easy From Now On 3:08 Emmylou Harris
Hello Stranger 4:00 Emmylou Harris
I Heard the Bluebirds Sing 2:26 Greenbriar Boys
'Cept You & Me Babe 4:32 Greg Brown
Just By Myself 4:46 Greg Brown
Falling Slowly 4:08 Hansard / Irglova
Fallen from the Sky 3:27 Hansard / Irglova Once 26 2/27/08 1:24 PM
Crazy Mama 2:31 J.J. Cale
The Hunter 4:53 Jennifer Warnes
Stand By Me 3:27 John Lennon
Blue Umbrella 3:53 John Prine
Genesis 4:20 Jorma Kaukonen
Dark Night Of The Soul 6:45 Loreena McKennitt
That Old Black Magic 2:56 Louis Prima & Keely Smith
Do You Believe in Magic? 2:06 The Lovin' Spoonful
This Old Porch 4:19 Lyle Lovett
Dance Me To The End Of Love 3:58 Madeleine Peyroux
Don't Fence Me In 3:02 Mary McCaslin
In Spite Of Me 2:35 Morphine
Come Away With Me 3:18 Norah Jones
Crazy 2:44 Patsy Cline
Maybe I'm Amazed 3:55 Paul McCartney
Every Breath You Take 4:15 The Police
You Don't Know Me 3:17 Ray Charles
Save The Last Dance For Me 2:30 Sam Cook
I Hope That I Don't Fall In Love With You 3:55 Tom Waits
I Want You 1:23 Tom Waits
Dancing In The Moonlight 2:52 ?
Warm Rain 4:16 John Herald
The Well 4:47 Jennifer Warnes
Wild Nights 3:34 Van Morrison

The butcher sang out loud today.

In his voice I could hear my dad singing along to Jerry Vale.
A familiar tune …… a dramatic song about a beautiful love.

Here in Castellemmare I enjoy my stops at the butcher shop more than at any other market. They are sweet, smiling, happy men in their clean white aprons...maybe father, Sebastiano, and son. Their market is scrubbed and fresh. Slabs of meat are cut to order. In addition to the cuts to order they offer sausage, thin cutlets, specialty meats and cheeses. On Saturday mornings women arrive with lists for the week's meals. They are individually catered to...smiles and songs abound.

Today I asked for chopped beef. He carefully chose just the right cuts with a perfect proportion of fat. Into the grinder. He then took the meat over to a counter where he seasoned it… "Sale? si!" pepper? ... mixing it thoroughly and making it into six perfect patties, stacked with discs of plastic between.

They enjoy sharing their few words of English as I share my few words of Sicilian.

Living in Queens in my high school years, my first boyfriend was a butcher boy, Tony. He did deliveries on his bike; riding for miles under streets darkened by the elevated "J" train. My sister used to tease me and sing “Butcher Boy” to the tune of that girl group tune, “Soldier Boy.”

I’ve always made it a point to get to know the butcher...now I like knowing the farmer. Years ago when my mother first visited me at my upstate New York home she was impressed by the butcher I had found. Vito admonished me once when I asked for a special cut to make bracciole. Shaking his head and waving his knife in the air he said, “You women... who grew up with butchers!” Yes we were a lot unto our own. A seemingly dying breed of consumer.

My childhood home in Brooklyn was across the street from a meat processing plant. It may have been one of the first of Boar’s Head’s plants. Carcasses of meat would arrive. Great truckloads of waste bones would get hauled away. The view from our second floor apartment didn't encourage lingering. Here they made bologna, liverwurst, and frankfurters. In their bloody aprons, the butchers would stand outside the wide doors for gulps of fresh air.

It was also the place where young neighborhood men could get their first jobs. Our block was often parked with the fasts cars of the fifties that belonged to these young men. I never really took much notice of them. My interest in boys came after we had already moved from this place. My older cousins would reportedly come to sit on our stoop to check out those boys with their slicked back hair and Lucky Strikes dangling from the corners of their mouths.

A slice of bologna never made it passed my lips. The smells that emanated from the neighboring plant were enough to put anyone off cold cuts. I often accompanied my mother on her weekly visits to the butcher shop, though. It was around the corner, replete with saw dust and wood seated iron stools. The friendly butcher would give me slice of bologna, much like the baker might press a cookie into the hand of a favored customer. Too shy to say “no thanks” I would just stand there hiding my face in my mom's dress... holding the dreaded round of mystery meat.

Here I am... half a world away from Brooklyn and Queens... in an ancient town on the north coast of Sicily ... and hearing the song of a butcher I'm transported back in time.

It occurs to me that one place is not so different than the other.

The Distant Temples

An angel in the form of a smiling produce man appeared to us today. If only I had consulted the guidebook I would have at least had some cautionary advise. “If you are driving into Agrigento, be warned that the one-way system in the old town is a nightmare.” What I would have done with that info I’m not sure. But at least I would have been warned.

Without indication of any kind, that I could decipher (Sicilian signage is often just a huge exclamation point!), some of the streets seem to all of a sudden become staircases. How many unwary travelers fly down there I wonder. I took to following another car in hopes of finding a way out. They parked. I went on…squeezing down a little street that just ended. I throw my hands up in frustration. A produce man is loading his little three-wheeled pickup. I suppose they must be used to the navigational shortcomings of tourists. His friendly expression and dark doe-like eyes put me at ease. He motions for me to make a u-turn, which only took a dozen maneuvers. Big sigh! He pulls out behind me. I glance at him in my rearview mirror. He points left. Now right. I miss the sign for the temples with all the checking the rear view. I pull over. He does the same. Aspetta. Now I’m making a u-turn across a main artery going down a VERY steep hill.

God bless you produce man!

We get thru round one of our journey thru the maze with optimism still intact.
Aspetta.

Valley of the Temples, sign points this way. I know I want to go down toward the water. But I am so wary of getting caught in yet another dead end. Signage disappears. On no. Up hill again. Back into the maze. One more time. We will try again.

But it’s not in the cards. I say to my sister, as I can either enter the maze for the third time or head for the Autostrada, “Take a look over the hill there… see the temples. That’s as good a view as you’re getting this trip.” Her understanding reply is: “If I were driving I would have abandoned the car long ago.”

I did have a wonderful meal in Agrigento. In what is called the 'modern' part of town…modern only in comparison to the ancient Greek temples…it is thoroughly medieval…we have one of our few restaurant meals.

After settling in to the sparse room of The Belvedere Hotel we venture out for dinner. I want something good. I need a reward for the drive (not knowing the worse was still to come in the morning). I choose a small restaurant up wide stone steps. The owner beckons. He brings me into the kitchen to show me the freshness of the ingredients. A huge platter of fresh whole fish is brought to the table. My sister is not an adventurous eater and the platter makes her cringe. I choose a fish, which is grilled to perfection and served whole. I don’t think my sister looks up during the meal. The side of pasta is in a simple fresh pommodoro sauce. Salad of lettuce and fennel. We share a cassata cake.

Carafe of house wine is easily vanquished.

From a fierce tribe

On street corners, as well as in the many local produce markets, wild foraged veggies are dominant alongside HUGE chartreuse heads of broccoli. Fennel seems to be the dominant weed on the island, in these parts anyway. Artichokes are in bundles with their two-foot long stalks. Dandelion greens are tied in bundles by some wiry grass. The greens are cut at the ground level leaving the root to send up another round.


It’s early spring. The almond trees are in bloom…as well as a huge array of wildflowers. Lemon yellow primroses cover hillsides. The hillside on the edge of town is terraced and offering an abundance of veggies. The whole place is a hillside. Stone steps connect crossroads to assist in the climb. The street drops away so quickly in some places that what is street level at the curb is two steps down at the building (that being in the newer parts of town only a couple hundred years old). The third floor of my building is at street level in the back. The old town has sidewalks that are about two feet wide. Just enough space for a person to walk with their bags and not be run down by miniature cars hurtling down narrow streets.

I’m practicing my hard disdainful Sicilian look…the look my mother would give me if I dared lay something on her dining room table. On the street no one says “Buon Giorgio.” If they look at you at all its with suspicion and hardness. We are a fierce tribe.

The grocer lady and the butchers are my salvation.

She is intrigued by my purchase of dandelion greens, potatoes, cannelini beans. Her approving look says, “Ah! You know what to do. You are one of us.”

I boil some potatoes reserving the water for broth.
Sauté a bit of onion and add the greens to wilt. Add potatoes, cannellini beans, and lots of olive oil. Eat with a hunk of sweet semolina bread. Glass of Nero D’Avalo.

When I finally get some euros I will stop eating like a peasant.

Maybe.

Departure and Arrival: late night snacking

Though individual homes in Castellemmare del Golfo may be equipped with Internet access… publicly it was not available during the off-season. Hence the interruption in postings. I will not send out a deluge of reports… they will come at daily intervals for a short time…. before reverting to once or twice a week. I traveled all over the island from a home base of Castellemmare, an ancient, coastal town, west of Palermo, where I settled in to spend the month of February. Visiting castles and ruins did not compare to the ordinary moments of delight at the butcher or cheese shop.



2pm Jan 31
“Is there anything in here that will cut or burn me?” the security agent at JFK asked as she pulled on her plastic gloves and opened my carry on. I was completely puzzled by being taken aside for a search of my bag. Seconds later she was brandishing my favored kitchen knife. Oh no! In my last minute bag switching, when I realized I had to carry on my laptop, I had inadvertently left my sharp kitchen knife (which I had carefully protected with a cardboard wrapper) in my computer bag. You see… I knew that the kitchen in the little rented studio apt would not be equipped with a decent knife. How could I cook for a whole month without a good knife? I had even momentarily considered bringing along a good heavy cast iron pan. Upon hearing this, the expression on my friend’s face read: ‘crazy woman.'
No words spoken.
I left the pan behind.

The agent was sympathetic to my story but rules are rules. My knife was tossed into the trash leaving me wondering what would be the next crimp in my month long Sicilian adventure.


2am Feb 2
I’m generally an early riser and not prone to late night activity. My inner clock is all turned around. I tried hard to stay awake but after being up for thirty hours I found it unbearable to wait it out until dark. I made the obvious mistake of lying on the sofa for ‘just a few minutes.’ Now it’s 2am and I’m wide-awake and famished.

Earlier today, after settling in and finding a street map, I ventured out on the mission to get some Euros and some staples for the kitchen. I struck out on the Euros … this may be a problem. But had success on other fronts.

Castellemmare del Golfo is an ancient place, settled by the Moors in 780. The streets are narrow and fall steeply to the sea. I have mountains at my back and the sea vista before me. Being exhausted but knowing hunger would set in; I stayed on mission even though the sea was calling. I climbed towards the center of town.

Small butcher shops and fish markets on every block along the main streets, via Garibaldi and via Marconi. Storefronts selling fresh fruits and veggies are on every other block or so. Most of these places seem to be the province of friendly, strong older women. There are also men on street corners selling wild foraged vegetables…fennel, artichokes, and greens of all kinds.

I walked up hill along via Garibaldi looking for a bank and grocery staples. I ended up wandering into a small market with a delightful woman at the helm. She offered me tastes of local cheeses. We managed to communicate with lots of facial and hand expressions. A local cheese more picante? Salami from Naples. I could have made a meal from the samples offered. The best offering of all was the local fresh ricotta. It was a definite “everything is going to be OK” moment.



Twenty Euros bought me a huge helping of ricotta, a supply of thinly sliced quality salami, a big hunk of local, salty cheese, a bottle of local fruity olive oil, fresh eggs, amaretto cookies, beautiful oranges with the leaves intact, onions, tomatoes, semolina bread, pear juice. And some tubetti for soup.

My late night snack consisted of hunks of semolina bread dipped in olive oil, spread with fresh ricotta with some salami on the side.

So simple. So satisfying. So Sicilian.

I can’t believe I’m really here.