and we ate

Blue

2010-06-22T06:23:00.000-04:00

Regaleali is about 1200 acres of mostly grapevines, some olive orchards and few wheat fields and hay fields and three fairly significant holding ponds where most, if not all of the water for the estate comes from. I have been noticing the ponds lately as I drive by one vineyard towards Vallelunga. On the way up to Casa Grande I can see two more as I look down the valley of vineyards. Because the light is changing here as it is getting warmer and the winds are not as strong the sky is getting bluer and bluer and the water in the ponds, towards the end of the day, seems blue too. A deep cerulean blue. The water in the ponds hold the blue as if it was their rightful color. I am happy they do because it adds, to this ever changing quilt of a landscape, a spot of color that ties the sky to the increasingly dry land.

The hay fields have been cut all around the country side and on neighboring estates. While some of the ground on the fields is still pale and dry looking, miraculously many of the fields are turning green with new growth of 'herba' for the animals to eat, making a fantastic green background for the huge round bails of hay that are randomly scattered in the fields. They look like an art installation that I only wish I could have created. Simple, proportioned, filled with depth and meaning and no irony.

The wheat fields have transformed from short stubbly chartreuse green sprigs to tall flowing and graceful bluish-green wheat to their now current and seemingly final stage of perfectly pitched wheat color. But despite their apparent dryness the fields still blow smoothly in the winds looking like rippleing water. Alive.

And then there are the now leafed out green grapevines. The green contrasting with the dark brown earth creating a repetitive pattern, another minimalist artist installation. However, to maintain this look, the ever growing runners from the vines need to be constantly tied up. It seems this and weeding will happen until the vendemia in October.

There is a vastness to this quilt that is hard for me to take in some times. Ironically though I crave the vastness. However, as I was trying, yet again, to capture it all in little pixals I heard my self saying out loud, "Stop already." I am not sure if I was telling myself to stop shooting because I can't capture the landscape or if I was talking to the landscape to stop being so impossible. And then, a few days later the weather changed and we got a sense of what the real heat is like here and how oppressive it can be. (July and August must be something) There is a wind, but it is hot. The sky is not blue but white and dusty. And the landscape momentarily stopped being beautiful, it actually seemed out of focus. But, just three days ago, this weather broke and it is fresh again. The sky cleared and the lines and patterns were all crisp once again. There was even a rain for a the past few nights. A welcome rain, a welcome freshness as we prepare to leave here tomorrow, nearly six months since we arrived.

These last two shots are from our bedroom window. the one on the left is from September 2009. And the other is from about two weeks ago, early June 2010.

POLL

2010-06-09T12:12:00.000-04:00

If your four year old, who knows nothing of punk rock, the late 80's, or Mohawk Indians for that matter, requests to have his hair cut into a mohawk ("no hair on the sides and just a line of hair on top, Daddy, so that it will be easier to bonk my head into you"), do you think we should oblige him? Or do you think we should ignore the request, given that he asked for it when he saw a bald man reading the paper in the bar here? This is my question. Also, just two days ago he came home with this drawing he did in school. It is him with a mohawk.

From our perspective. In the last year we have given into swords (blame Peter Pan and pirates) and even guns (blame Berkeley Parents list for these very thoughtful and rational posts on boys and guns.

Here is an outtake from one of those posts: "My advice is, don't worry about the guns. When I was a kid I had lots of toy guns and toy soldiers, I watched war TV shows and would play war games with my friends. And I outgrew it, as did all my peers, and as a young adult I was protesting against war. From what I can tell, there's just a phase when little boys are fascinated with good and evil (''bad guys'') and conflict. My advice to you is play with your kid. Sometimes he'll want you to be the bad guy so he can kill you. Let him. I don't mean you should allow yourself to be physically hurt, but when he shoots you, make dramatic sounds and die, or better yet plead for mercy and promise to be good if he spares you. He probably won't, then die anyway. The main thing is to let your kid win. Jim."

And, for the most part, we are not totally regretting those decisions to let this boy do these traditional boy things. We also let him paint his nails and put barettes in his hair too. We take him to churches on a regular basis, he is very gentle and sweet with other kids, he loves his Barbie plastic cell phone and he is exposed to nature. (He did not break that little blue egg, he was very concerned about the mother and baby bird.) Also, he likes to practice the dance he learned at school in public places. And he was actually quite timid when Carmello let him hold that scythe to cut some lentil plants down.

I hate guns, now. But I remember well playing guns, cowboys and Indians, Star Wars, cops and bad guys. All of it. I also remember well burning everything I could, Matchbox cars and GI Joe's come to mind. And I did much of this right near the oil tank in the basement, fortunately we are all here to tell about it. After all that, somehow, in my late teens I developed a distaste for violence. (I still like fire quite a bit. And maybe that is why I make these smoke drawings?

In fact, since we let Elio play with the gun he found in Michele's cardboard box (full of mostly broken toys of which the overarching themes are military/war and farm equipment/animals), he now plays with it only sporadically and the gun never comes into our house.

So, maybe, just maybe, if we give him the mohawk now he will avoid having a mullet (like I did in the late 80's) when he is a teenager.

We can only hope.

June 2.

2010-06-08T05:44:00.000-04:00

June 2 and I noticed the first blooms on the oleander.

It reminds me of every bloom time and planting time that I missed writing down in the last five months we have been here. I will have to look back to my photos and decipher from them the dates and months of what bloomed when.

I remember, just a few weeks ago, Pompeo and Carmello (the gardener for Case Grandi) and Francesco planting squash, zucchini and peperoni plants that they started from seeds in their makeshift greenhouses. They planted them in exceptionally straight lines, evenly spaced apart using these sticks to open little holes in the ground that were whittled to a point on the bottom but otherwise seem to be nature-made to fit in your hand. They then ran long strips of irrigation tape down the row and now, a few weeks later, the plants are three times bigger.

In the vegetable garden a few meters up a small hill towards Case Vecchie, Pompeo has done a great job of re-laying out the vegetable garden (orto) into a grid with a straight path down the center. This is helpful in many ways. It will be easier to keep track of the varieties but also it will allow guests to more easily walk through and see the garden. Before it was literally a jumble and you could easily step the wrong way while stepping over weeds and squash a squash. I remember back in March/April when Carmello and Pampeo were discussing the new layout. There was a lot of loud discussion with them walking away from each other moving their hands in a disgusted motion. But all is tranquillo now, as they like to say here, and the vegetables in this garden are quickly growing. The ricci, which I guess is a type of chickory, has suddenly, in the last 5 days, grown spires up to about 2 feet. There are 4 or 5 different types of carciofi and melanzana, more peperoni, sparacelli, and fagioli, prezzemolo (parsley), basilico and sedano (celery).

Carmello also planted a few long rows of white cannelini beans. The bean/seed he planted were this fantastic pink like large Advils falling gently from Carmello's rough worn hands into the shallow troughs. What day was that? May 4th?

And what day was it that Giovanni (the gardener for the flower garden and orchard and bees) pruned the fig trees to within inches of being stumps? (February 16th) Now they are all branched out and leafed out and holding firm green fruits that will begin to ripen in late June and keep producing through to October. Same with the roses and all the many other vines in the garden. All is back to an outward life like the sun.

4!

2010-05-26T16:23:00.000-04:00

We love telling Elio the story of the day he was born, and for now he loves hearing it. We will, I am sure, drag this tradition out as long as possible and then even longer. He will roll his eyes, whine and soon just straight out tell us to stop telling the story, and we may oblige. (But I am sure Kate and I will then just retell it to each other.)

What a day. Two and a half weeks earlier than expected. Every year, strangely, we recognize in him the one day old we had in 2006. Ready to go, on the move, and of course, brilliant.

Now, 4 years later, he is in Sicily, going to school, understanding (for the most part) a thick Sicilian dialect, playing with guns and swords and now castles. He is making up stories with us, new characters, super powers, good guys and bad guys, loves reading books, eating ice cream and lollipops. Oh, he grew 2 inches since February. A kid, a boy, our little boy.

And, what else.. yes we are so unabashedly proud of him.

April 25, Finally

2010-05-19T15:58:00.000-04:00

Sunday, April 25 was a day that, as it unspooled, I kept thinking, "Ooh, I can't wait to write about this!" Then a little later, "This is great, I can't forget about this." But then the day kept going, hour on top of hour, moment on top of memorable moment, and now I'm feeling intimidated. So I'll just begin.

April 25 is Italy's independence day, a big holiday. We were invited by some friends--parents of kids from Elio's school--to join them in the "campagna" for lunch. The campagna turned out to be about five minutes outside of Vallelunga, but in a beautiful spot perched above the town, with olive trees (of course) all around. There were 16 of us: Maria Concetta and Franco, and their two kids Cesare and Giuseppe, Giusi and Giovanni, and their son Antonio, Mary and Salvatore, and their daughters Rosella and Rita, plus Mary's mother and Maria Concetta's mother, whose house it was. Plus us, the ol' clueless Americans.

We got to the house around 11 am, for what we thought would be lunch, leisurely to be sure, but 12 hours later we stumbled home, giddy, overstimulated, every centimeter of our bodies stuffed with food, exhausted by trying to keep up with conversations in Italian/Sicilian for that long. The day, in its entirety, reminded us of a Fellini film--joy, food, color, relationships, punctuated by moments of chaos or silences or dancing, and, of course, confusion on our parts.

The day centered on food. First, the antipasti, which I helped the women set out: marinated eggplant, roasted olives, vinegary peppers, salami, creamy triangles of pecorino. Meanwhile, the men were out manning the fire. Then we started preparing the artichokes, much like Giovanna did for Pasquetta this year: smashing them open on a rock and then pouring olive oil inside, sprinkling them with salt and nestling them into the coals.

It was one of those Sicilian days--bright and sunny and very windy, so you were constantly beckoned outside by the sun but once there you were buffeted around and sort of left panting, both hot and cold and windblown and sunburned, squinting with your hair in your eyes. That's sort of how I feel about Sicily in fact, just all these elements charging your body at once. Anyways. It was a relief to all sit down together inside to share antipasti, especially with a fire going in the corner fireplace. Then we had lasagne, with tomato sauce and ricotta and bits of wild fennel. Then back outside, while Salvatore grilled the lamb ribs, and the kids screamed around and the moms and I practiced our dances.

Elio kept switching his allegiances with the kids, initially playing with Cesare and Antonio, whom he knows the best because he goes to school with them, but the three-year-old boy energy would get too intense, and then he'd spin off and start drawing with the big kids, Giuseppe and Rita, until finally, later in the day, he settled down with sweet Rosella, making up their own strange games.

Once the lamb was done cooking, it was taken inside in a big orange pot, but when it became clear that everyone was too busy dancing and playing soccer outside, out it came again, and we all continued to dance or play, but with a salty, fatty rib in hand. Perfect. Eventually we went inside to eat the artichokes and sausages that had also been grilled. (Sidenote: Guy and I want so badly to love these artichokes, but they never seem cooked long enough to us. It's a shame.) And now here's where I just have to start making a list. After lunch, we had fruit salad of kiwis and strawberries. Then a little while later, we all had giant slices of tiramisu. Then a bit later, Salvatore cut a few pineapples into rather elaborate boat shapes and we ate those. And then I thought, really, I am done. Truly done. But then we spied Giusi making dough in a bowl, and that was our hint that while we might be done, the day certainly was not.

While the dough rose, the men suddenly got up and said they were going into town for a caffe (though we'd already had some of that, too). This was about 5 pm. Guy was saying that he didn't want any more coffee, but I hissed at him that it wasn't about drinking coffee, it was about hanging out with the men. So off they went and disappeared for over an hour. During which time, the women and kids sat around and paged through old Italian women's magazines from the early 90s (Princess Diana! Claudia Schiffer! Fabio!) and ate bananas. Truly. Because we were feeling peckish? I don't know. When the men came back, Giusi checked on the dough and deemed it ready to fry. The oil was heated, the dough was patted into rounds, and soon we were all nibbling hot fried dough coated in sugar. Guy said these (I think they called them "frittedda"?) were exactly like the doughboys that his Grandma Rachel and Aunt Eloise used to make. They were delicious, and I ate three.

And then I thought, really, we are all done. You can't eat any more after you eat fried dough. That's the limit. But then it was almost nine o'clock and I was bundled into the car with Maria Concetta and Mary and Salvatore and we were driving to Mary's house to get their karaoke machine. While we were rumbling down the dark, rutted roads, the sky filled with stars, and I gave up trying to understand what everyone was saying and just looked out the window, I felt suddenly like I was back in high school again, hanging out with a bunch of people I both knew and didn't know, going somewhere I wasn't quite sure where, just going along for the ride, feeling the thrill and the uncertainty of it. And then we were back with the karaoke machine, and it was time to make dinner: focaccia from Mary and Salvatore's pizzeria stuffed with the leftover antipasti, cold artichokes, sausage. Pastina mixed with soft cheese for the kids. I heard Mary's mom mutter "povre mangiata" when I turned down a second artichoke.

From there, things spiraled downhill. The parents focused on karaoke, and the kids' bodies finally hit the exhaustion point even if their brains wouldn't admit it. We ended the night with Elio curled up on my lap, at the end of his rope. What a day, in so many ways.

Our Everyday Days

2010-05-03T15:03:00.000-04:00

I am continually tortured by writing a blog post, (if you read this blog you know this already). I guess I think each entry needs to have some meaning, some overarching theme and some finishing thought that sums it all up. Ridiculous, I know.

So instead here are some moments from the past few days. Some are familiar if you live in this little part of Sicily and some are familiar if you just live at all. These flowers are the most most most amazing color. They are the flowers of a sedum/sempivarian which is a kind of succulent. In addition to the colors we are seeing in the courtyard and along the side of the road, there are also pervasive, almost too saccharine and perfumey scents everywhere we go. They are from wildflowers, orange and lemon blossoms, wisteria. Everything blooming right now seems to have this similar intense smell. I picked some flowers from the road today and we had to put them outside, they were too much, too much like a fake smell you may get from an air freshener.

We really love some of the other everyday occurrences here, like a local soccer match or sheep blocking the road. And then this morning there was a real treat. A fox was trapped in the courtyard for a few minutes. Kate and I have both seen foxes out on our walks and runs early in the morning so Elio has been wanting to see one. He loved it.

Other than that our everyday moments are everyday and lovely, many from out the window of our car as we drive on back roads (they are all back roads here, I suppose) to get home, others are right on our sink.

Lately

2010-04-26T16:31:00.001-04:00

Lately, in the mornings and late afternoons, I have not been able to stop looking at the patterns made by tractors in the fields of wheat all over our little part of Sicily. Since I am feeling in a contemplative mood tonight and have been remiss in putting up a blog entry in the last week, I thought I would go with this sensibility and look back to what I have been seeing out in the world. Kate will have a good story of epic proportions in a few days that involves food and Sicily and, of course, Elio.

For now.

Oh, Palermo

2010-04-17T12:44:00.000-04:00

Other than the "bad guys," this last trip to Palermo was our best so far. The number one reason? We took the train.

Who doesn't love a train? Especially when it's rolling you through eye-rollingly gorgeous countryside, through parts we don't see when we're in the car, and then up along the coast with the sapphire sea out your window and orange trees and favas planted almost up to the tideline. Sicilians will not waste an inch of land. If they can stick a lemon tree in a square foot of turf they will. I feel like they would keel over if they saw American front yards with their acres of plain old grass.

We left the Stazione Centrale in Palermo and made for the Ballaro Market, an open-air food market that sprawls through a labyrinth of streets and piazzas. It was loud and crowded and noisy and colorful and strange and dirty and beautiful—much like Palermo. We saw impossibly red prawns, whole, majestic tuna, tiny little silver fish narrower than Elio's pinkies. Long, skinny green squash taller than him. Mountains of artichokes. Peas, favas, strawberries, spring trumpeting in our faces. Then there are the butchers with their great frills of tripe, enormous pigs' feet, tiny lamb carcasses sawed in half and hanging by their throats.

After a few minutes too many of hungry wandering we got some panelle and fried calamari to snack on. Greasy, chewy (about 15 minutes later, I couldn't figure out where Elio got the gum he was chewing, until I realized he was still working on a squid ring). It was better to feast with our eyes than our mouths. Away from the market, we fortified ourselves with coffee and cassatelle and wandered on, trying to figure out what to do when Guy's mom is here. We found a tiny gem of a church with some of the most gorgeous mosaics we've ever seen—opulent golds and blues.

We made our way to Piazza Marina for lunch, sitting outside under tangerine orange awnings which cast an intense, lurid glow to everything. Elio packed away Guy's pasta alla norma, I ate pizza that was good (but not as good as our Vallelunga standby), and Guy ate some too-sweet caponata with thick slices of bread. While we waited for our food, Guy took a look at the street vendors across the way and found an incredible old map, one of our first real Sicilian purchases or souvenirs. I almost want to leave Sicily right now so we can make a home somewhere where this is framed on the wall. Sick, huh? After lunch, I found a pair of vintage sunglasses from another vendor that are magic. I love them. And Elio got a cheap plastic wannabe Barbie toy cellphone that he used to make calls all afternoon. We all won.

As we walked back to the train station, I watched Elio up on Guy's shoulders. His eyes got heavier and heavier until he finally zonked out. And then, as we waited for our train to take us home, I got the best picture of the day.

You can see more pictures from the trip here on Facebook, if you like...

Kid Fears

2010-04-16T07:03:00.000-04:00

We were walking down Via Roma last Saturday in Palermo when some shouting caught our attention. We turned around to see a couple arguing loudly on the crowded sidewalk. Guy, thinking quickly, kept us moving before Elio could see too much, but we foolishly started wondering out loud, as we tried to explain why two grownups might be yelling at each other, whether they were causing the commotion on purpose so that a cohort could slip through the crowd picking pockets—a not unheard-of occurrence in Palermo. Unfortunately, this image has stayed with Elio and ever since, at odd moments, he pipes up with: "I'm scared. I'm thinking about those bad guys" or "I don't want to go to Palermo any more. I don't want to see those bad guys again."

That event has coincided with Elio having a particularly hard week at school, a week where every morning the drop-off is teary and protracted, and we've all begun to dread them. It starts the evening before, as Elio sits at the dinner table and says something like, "I'm getting sad. I'm thinking about how much I'm going to miss you tomorrow and I'm sad. I don't want to go to school." Then it continues in bed as he lies there whimpering a bit, "I'm sad, I'm really sad, I'm really, really sad." (If it weren't all so, well, sad, it would be kind of funny because he's quite dramatic about it.) And then in the morning it starts almost as soon as he wakes up and is snuggling in bed with us: "I don't want to go to school. I'm not going!"

But trying to get an almost-four-year-old to articulate what it is exactly that is making him so sad is an impossible task. The closest we can get is that he a) misses us, b) Giovanni, an older boy at school, sometimes sticks his tongue out at him in a mean way, and c) he thinks his smock is uncomfortable. And of course, the language barrier with his teachers makes it almost impossible to find out if there's anything that they know about, but they seem to be incredibly understanding. Of course, it's all complicated by the fact that when we pick him up in the afternoon, he's happy as a clam and even says that he doesn't want to leave. And then we spend a lovely afternoon like today, grocery shopping and eating gelato in San Giovanni Gemini and listening to him chatter away about any and everything. It sounds like he's been spending part of the morning upstairs in the kitchen with Sara, the woman who cooks lunch and cleans. Elio adores her. And he must be watching her with a keen eye, because he was able to tell me step by step how she makes her meatballs.

It's so wrenching to see our happy little guy like this. When I was 9 and 10, I had some really sad times at school. To this day, I can't really figure out what was making me so sad (not depressed, but sad, deep-down sad), and it was a very confusing time. And then, one day, it lifted--not by any action on my part or from something someone said. The sadness just left. And I realize now how hard it must have been for my mom and dad to see that and not be able to do anything about it, because that's how I feel now. I can try to make him laugh, I can tell him over and over again how much we love him, I can stuff a million kisses in his pockets and "I love you" notes. But sometimes when you feel sad, you just feel sad.

Of course, since I wrote this last night, we had a totally easy, happy morning. Of course.

Curious World

2010-04-13T07:51:00.000-04:00

I continue to run, a practice that is familiar and grounding, giving me time for myself and time for my mind to focus on the present moment. Being here has been an opportunity to be in the present because (as with any new experience) we are acutely aware of the newness, the uniqueness of the opportunity and we keep our eyes open, our senses heightened to the magic of it all. Even though we are living here for an extended time developing a routine and things like the vast stunning landscape become more familiar, still everyday brings something new or funny or primal into focus.

These images are a few from the past three months that have stayed with me.

Porcupine: Two days after Easter some of Fabrizia's family and the three people from Saveur Magizine were still here so we had lunch with everyone in the big kitchen. There was talk of Fabrizia's uncle shooting a porcupine that his family did not cook for Easter so they sent it over here to Case Vecchie. So porcupine was served. Kate, somehow, ended up with the mouth, teeth and all. But she was intrepid and ate it. I had a taste off of Kate's plate and it was quite good, stewed with onions and herbs and mint. That was strange and new and but then, two days later, on my run out a sparsely traveled road, I come across these quills. They were sprayed across a small area of the road, which was stained a deep red, beautifully. There was one that was about two feet long. Since I was still a mile or so away from home I could only carry these few back with me.

Dog: A few months back I went to look for Salvatore in the barn behind the big kitchen. When I walked in I saw that Pompeo and Giovanna's dog was standing awkwardly and whimpering. She is a gentle, playful big puppy. When I went closer I saw that she had somehow wound her leash (which was a metal chain) around her hind leg and it was forcing her to lift that leg very high, her paw being almost pulled up to her back. My immediate reaction was to try to loosen it and relieve the tension, but I could not, the chain was too tight and knotted together. So while she was happy to have me there she was also scared and when I touched the leg and chain she snapped at me. But, stupid me, I tried again, then she bit me. I was fine, except for the bite and Pompeo had to cut the chain anyway.

Those are the two stories I will tell. The other photos are things that we come across often. Dead animals, animals wandering in the road with no humans in sight for miles, sleeping dogs in a busy city, and poured concrete structures never to be finished.

Art and Water

2010-04-09T11:28:00.000-04:00

How do people keep up with blogs and Facebook and Twitter and all that posting and commenting and commenting on comments, commenting on their own status, and posts on other people's posts and blogs? A few weeks back we decided to keep the blog more or less daily or every other day. Wow, that is harder to do than I thought and we do not even, really, have full-time jobs.

But we are interested in people seeing the words and images we put here so we are going to post a link on Facebook when we do a post here on the blog that we think may be of interest. Plus I am starting, with this post, to make albums on Facebook that are linked to from the blog when there are a lot of photos from a trip we did or an event we went to. I think this will keep the blog a little more concise in terms of pictures and more room for Kate's great writing. (Plus uploading many photos and viewing them is a bit easier on Facebook. But the photos do not look as good on Facebook. Oh, the problems we have.)

So...

A walk through the Sicilian fishing port of Mazara del Vallo in the southwest of Sicily. We walked through narrow labyrinth-like streets using these recently created public art mosaics as a loose guide. This is the oldest part of town first settled by Arabs and Tunisians from North Africa, and the mosiacs all referenced this history in some wonderful and playful way. Later, as it was nearing 4:30 and shops were opening back up on the corso, we came across a gelato place. Hard to pass up.

As the light was softening we left Mazara and drove a few kilometers north along the sea to Mozia. The road was right along the water and followed every natural curve of the water as it where it met the land. Mozia is where there are huge salt pans. Late last fall bad storms wiped out all the salt that collected there over the past year. So, while we didn't see this place with all the many huge mounds of salt that are normally there and covered by red tiles, it was still amazing to be there in the evening light.

See all the photos here on Facebook if you are so inclined.

Long Shadows

2010-04-08T08:02:00.000-04:00

On Good Friday, staying so close to Trapani, we had the best intentions to drive to the city to see their processions, which are supposed to be incredible (think life-sized statues showing the stations of the cross being carried throughout the town). But we were seduced by the easy life at Bosco, Mary Simeti's house. (I'm also realizing that I have an uneasy feeling about watching/participating in these Catholic rituals, something I'll perhaps write more about when I get to the San Giuseppe procession...some day.)

While Guy spent the morning shooting, Elio and I went into Alcamo and wandered around, searching in vain for sunhats and bread. We ended up sharing a late lunch with Mary's daughter, Natalia and her Finnish-born husband Rami, a tai chi instructor, and their son Emil. Natalia made a brilliant lunch for us: little rounds of a goat's milk cheese called Tomino warmed in a pan until oozy and then served over toasts with salad. I provided the broccoli rabe sauteed with spring onions and peas.

We ate lunch out back, in the brilliant sun, with cold bottles of Moretti and some of the Simetis' very good white wine, the Tyrrhenian Sea sparkling off in the distance. It was one of those afternoons where our life looks very good on paper, and it was.

It was almost 5 o'clock when we realized that we had to have something to show for our day, so we jumped in the car and drove to Segesta. We wandered our way up to the temple, surrounded by fields of wild fennel, the flowers bright yellow in the late-day sun. The ancient columns cast impossibly long shadows on the dusty ground.

We had heard that you could actually walk around and inside this temple, but they have recently put up a fence around the steps...a big disappointment, especially for Elio. So we walked in a slow circle, took photos, and made our way back to Bosco and dinner.

From Paris to the Moon

2010-04-05T14:32:00.000-04:00

I get it now. I get Paris. I get why people sing songs about it, make movies about it, rhapsodize about it. It really is that lovely, that inviting. After three months of regarding the raw, unstuccoed, brutto architecture of Sicily, it was such a visual relief to walk among beautiful buildings, one after another. My eyes couldn't get enough, trying to catch glimpses of the lives lived behind the balconies and the tall windows buttressed by elegant shutters.

One evening, as Guy was putting Elio to sleep, I went out and took a wander through the Marais, over to the Bastille, and back again, stopping at a little corner cafe where I sat half inside, half outside, sipping a glass of wine and re-reading Eat, Pray, Love. I got to the part where Elizabeth Gilbert is talking to a friend about how a single word can define a city. Rome’s, they decide, is "sex." New York's word is "achieve." Of course, on my way home, I tried to figure what Paris's would be. Leisure? Pleasure? Graceful? Glamour? Not sure, but Parisians do seem to have that unhurried appreciation of life and of time well spent down to a science.

As Guy has already said, we ate very well in Paris. But I must say that perhaps my favorite thing was just standing around in Scott’s galley kitchen, the curtains open so we could look out at the courtyard and into the other apartments across the way, and eating the creamiest, saltiest butter spread on chewy, crusty baguette.

The afternoon we got to Paris, I was having an impossible time using a phone to call Scott, we were tired and dirty from the plane, and finally his neighbor Guido took us in so we could wait. We spent a pleasant 15 minutes with him as he told us about his life as a Christian growing up in Palestine and then fleeing to Italy during WWII, then, as an adult, getting into the fashion business which has taken him all over the world. Fascinating stuff (again, that Paris glamour). When Scott showed up, we moved over to his place and fell like vultures upon his collection of cheeses, all neatly wrapped in white paper. It’s one thing we ate that we didn’t get a picture that I wish we had. It was quite a scene. We had a lovely meal of buckwheat crepes at Breizh Cafe and bloody rare steak frites at Bistrot Paul-Bert, but my mind keeps going back to that cheese and butter and bread. Elemental.

Alas, it took this trip to make us realize just how little we have been living on. Life, as we learned in Paris, is cheaper in Sicily. It hit me especially at a little greengrocer down the street from Scott’s, where we picked up some fruit for our plane trip back. Four clementines cost something like 3 euros; in Vallelunga, 3 euros would get you about 3 kilos of local fruit. We realized that the three of us are probably getting by on about 5 euros a day, when we cook all our meals at home. But we are also eating well, very well, in Sicily.

After we landed in Trapani, we headed south to Marsala for lunch, but as we drove into town and started to get snarled in traffic for a Holy Thursday procession and as Elio passed out, we decided to keep going south to Mazara del Vallo. It was one of those brilliant choices: A clear sunny day, fishing boats puttering in and out of the harbor, which we watched as we sat on some stone steps and ate crisp Tunisian briks, spicy couscous with wild fennel, and fish couscous.

Later, we drove back up through Mozia, where the salt pans are. It was quiet, end of the day, almost Japanese-looking with the ancient stone windmills and the Egadi Islands wrapped in fog out in the distance.

But then hunger kicked in, and we were still a ways from Mary Simeti’s, where we were spending the night and planning to cook dinner but had nothing to cook. Then, driving through a silent little town as the sun was getting ready to set, we saw an old man selling some vegetables in front of his house. We stopped. In a few minutes, I had fresh peas, some violet spring onions, a great bunch of leafy spinach, and a lemon. Dinner. For a little more than 3 euros. Then I went over to admire the man’s lilies which almost reached my head, and before I knew it, he reached down and pulled out three for me. A gift. It felt like a kiss on the cheek from Sicily. And I was happy to be back.

EIFFEL

2010-03-31T11:56:00.002-04:00

Romantic Paris may just be all that and this Tower certainly helps that argument along. But even for the cold-hearted this is quite a site. Engineering and steel meet and make a stunning sculpture. We also ended up, happily, at the Musee des Arts et Metiers. Some how we were able to spend (for free) about 40 minutes there in the part of the museum that was a church and now is a great exhibition space.

When traveling with child there are many things we are learning. And while Elio has had more than his fair share of breakdowns here in Paris, we probably have avoided many more by keeping him fed and not over doing it with standing in lines or trying to see too much. At the Eiffel Tower we planned to go all the way to the top but once there the lines and the number of people were all just too much. We opted instead to look at the tower rather than from it, from the vantage of a small playground. Perfect. Eating brie and apples on baguettes was also a wise choice.

Happy Paris !

2010-03-28T16:37:00.004-04:00

There are so many reasons we are happy to be here: spending some quality time with our friend Scott (who is also housing us in his amazing apartment in the 3rd Arrondissement), walking in a city, the food, the food, the architecture, the Seine spring (even with a little rain).

Living in rural Sicily has made us realize that we enjoy cities very much, but there is the constant debate in our heads about living in a city (like New York), or living in a smaller town. We can't decide and I think something will become clear or a choice will be made and we will live where we end up and be happy.

So for now we enjoy the city. And while here I am, not surprisingly, on a food mission. Scott suggested that if we get something and it is not absolutely fantastic, we should throw it out and try to find a better one. I laughed at this, but I actually did it yesterday with a crepe. I don't want to be wasteful, so mostly we are following recommendations. But this method makes sense because I can only eat so much and, in a way, it makes me have more will power to wait for the better crepe next time.

Today is Sunday and a lot is closed, but this patisserie, a favorite of Scott's for pain au chocolat, opened at 10 AM. We stopped by and Kate and Scott ordered a few things. As we walked out I realized they only got two pain au chocolat and Elio currently had one of them in his paws. So I protested and went right back in to get another, plus a little savory pain roulé that had tomatoes olives and anchovies.

After that we did a lot of walking and came across many fun things in windows and on the street. Here are a few.

Viva San Giuseppe!

2010-03-23T16:05:00.020-04:00

Last Friday was the feast of San Giuseppe. We were invited by Salvatore (someone who works here and has become a friend of ours) to the village where he grew up and all of his family still lives. Sclafani Bagni is about 45 minutes from Case Vecchie and sits up on the top of a rocky crag. This town is ancient and I think they have been doing a variation on this festival for more than 200 years. Most every one in the town of 300 to 400 people are involved. It seems the women must have been cooking and baking bread for a week or so before hand. Frying cardoons, artichokes, wild fennel, baccala (oh, that was so good!). Making fried sweets... and cannoli. There were crates and crates of this stuff. In a recently renovated stone building on the small piazza across from the chiesa madre they set up three long tables that seated about 150 people. In an adjacent building there is a kitchen where about six old ladies are boiling three huge pots of water to make kilos and kilos of riso, pasta and spaghetti. (They do this three separate times, once for each seating.)

So the funniest and not funniest part of this whole event is the logistics. There are 150 seats but there are about 400 people who come to this event and want to eat. The surrounding towns know this is a special event where the food is good. Therefore many people come from these towns and to add to that a few prodigal sons come back each year and there were the three Americani this year too. There were about four carabinieri hanging around all day and when it came time for the second seating, I realized why they were there. Crowd control. Now, keep in mind this is a small village where everyone is probably related and the few outsiders are probably related too. Also, they have been doing this for a long long time. But, this is how they do it.

You stand in a crush of people and hope you get in. There are no tickets assigning a person to eat at the first seating or the second seating etc... That would be far too logical.

We could have sat at the first seating but we thought we should wait, let the locals have the first chance. That turned out to be a big mistake because two hours later, hungry and dehydrated from the relentless sun on a clear beautiful day, (it was so clear and beautiful that we could see the sea from a wonderful high point above the town) we found ourselves trying to get in. Finally I say to Salvatore, essentially, "Don't you have some pull here?" He did, his mom is one of the main organizers and when he finally saw her stick her head out the door, he did what any good Italian boy would do (even if you're 38 years old). He said, "Mama". She looked at us and he said, "The photographer needs to get in." That was it. The waters parted. The carabinieri moved people to the side, reached their hands out for Elio to hold onto and led us in.

Seated and feeling a bit refreshed, there was a small plate of antipasto in front of us. Simple and rustic. A few raw hunks of fennel, a slice of bread, a few orange slices and about six cured olives. It worked. We immediately forgot the chaos outside and the sun-stroke and settled in for our meal. We even had a few small cups of wine. (The wine was donated from Regaleali.) It was in old plastic liter water bottles. There must have been ten or more on each long table. The next course was rice served with soupy lentils. After that came ditalini pasta (like small rigatoni) served with soupy beans, basically a classic pasta fagioli. Finally, spaghetti is served with wild fennel tomato sauce. For this course they brought to the tables plates of perfectly toasted breadcrumbs to put on the spaghetti. I wouldn't normally do it, but hey, when in Sclafani Bagni... Wow. There was sugar in the breadcrumbs, it was fantastic. I had seconds of the spaghetti.

Then to hurry things along, (because the procession was about to start) they give you a plate of all the fried goodies (including one large cannoli). We grabbed our bags, walked out into the waning daylight and awaited the procession. Next post....

A picture of Kate and me and Salvatore shot by Elio!

A little More Sicilian...

2010-03-23T05:38:00.002-04:00

Saturday, Guy bit the bullet and went over to the wine shop attached to our house and got a liter of the "gas pump" rosato. (They put it in this used liter water bottle.) I don't know why but we've been such teetotalers these last couple months, but last Friday we went to the San Giuseppe feast day in Sclafani (more on this soon) and enjoyed multiple plastic cups of this very same Regaleali rosato in the middle of the day and the scales fell from our eyes. Tonight's dinner--a risotto that Guy made of bitter greens and tiny shrimp--tasted so good with a tumbler of this wine at hand, and it even made Elio's exhausted end-of-the-day histrionics less teeth-gnashing (for us, at least).

Me Cooking

2010-03-20T15:16:00.012-04:00

Lately I feel like I am turning into a traditional Siciliano man. Kate has been doing most of the cooking for the past few weeks or so. It got full blown when I was sick for two weeks, but I am rebounding and venturing into the garden and into town more to shop. It is great what acquiring ingredients can do to stimulate cooking. The other day I was at a green grocer truck and was sort of coerced into buying a lot of chicory. Honestly it was not the freshest looking stuff, but it seemed alive, so I bought half a kilo. Then, on the main corso, Via Nazionale, we came across the fish monger's truck that comes to town every Thursday afternoon. He has a tight little operation in the tiny insulated back of the truck. Mostly the fish is from the coasts around Sicily. We opted for some shrimp. Half a kilo.

We knew the chicory would be bitter so I boiled it right away and we decided to use it in a risotto with the shrimp. You seem to lose a lot of the bitterness in the boiling. Here is a picture of it just after boiling with some of the bright greenish/yellow bitter water. Before making the risotto I sauteed the chicory with some onions and garlic to bring a little sweetness to it. This worked out well. I made the risotto using a vegetable stock that I also made today from a few simple things. Celery, leeks, parsley stems, thyme and a bay leaf (all from the garden) and onions, carrots and garlic. I am so proud of my Siciliano male self. The other day I also noticed, while walking around the courtyard, all this mint growing in the cracks near the wall of the big kitchen. I grabbed a bit and have used it to make mint and lemon tea. Tonight I also put some in our salad for dinner.

I love cooking and I realized, too, that one reason Kate did not seem to mind cooking dinner the last few weeks is that it is a bit of time to yourself. Time to think, to be creative and focused and to do it all alone. Sometimes Elio wanders in but he seems to get, mostly, that leaving the cook alone is important if he wants to eat.

I hope, when we return, we can grow a few of these simple things to have fresh at hand. Some mint, oregano and thyme, a 12-foot tall bay tree and a few orange and lemon trees. No problem.

Through His Eyes

2010-03-20T14:43:00.015-04:00

When we first got here in January, before Elio started school, we had many afternoons that we spent exploring, driving around, looking around. Guy usually brought his camera along in case he saw anything interesting. Sometimes (a lot of the time, really) Elio gets very upset when Guy has to photograph things. He tries to get in the way, he freaks out, sometimes he tries to hit the camera. But on those early days drives, we started bringing our small digital camera and letting Elio use it from the backseat. He made some amazing pictures. Then we started bringing it along on walks so he could shoot stuff, and he's gotten very into it. It's sweet to see how proud he is of himself, and how excited he is to show his photos off to Guy. I hear him whispering to himself after he's just taken a picture of some grasses, "Oh yeah, Daddy's going to like that one!" Lately, he's started taking pictures and movies of the drawings he's made, so it's getting all multimedia over here. Here are some shots of Sicily, from Elio's vantage.

Party Like It's 2000

2010-03-18T15:00:00.004-04:00

Guy has decided, for various reasons, that we need to pretend that we are actually 10 years younger than we are. It sounds crazy at first, but what's crazy about living life with the energy and enthusiasm that you had 10 years ago? That is the attitude with which I am now trying to approach our time here, our opportunity here, our life here. It also lets me make wry observations like, "My, what a distinguished-looking 30-year-old you are," when my husband comes home from getting his first Sicilian haircut.

One way that I have reverted to my 26-year-old self is that I've started reading cookbooks again. I've gone back to my time in my little studio on Don Diego, falling asleep with a Chez Panisse cookbook on my chest, tucking scraps of paper to mark recipes I want to try. Not surprisingly, there is a dearth of (English) reading material here. I've read all the books I brought with us, and I've pretty much made my way through the small library here. Fortunately, there are plenty of cookbooks—lots of Paula Wolfert, Claudia Roden, the Zuni Cafe Cookbook, Jamie Oliver, David Tanis (which we have read over and over again, our biggest inspiration). During my years at Gourmet, I completely lost interest in cookbooks. I was so sucked into the worlds of the big yellow and green cookbooks that I had no desire to look at cookbooks in my downtime any more. It is wonderful to find pleasure in these pages again.

I think another reason that I am drawn to cookbooks again is that Santa Fe and Sicily (though it's so much stronger here) could be considered a food monoculture (is that a phrase?). New Mexican food prevails in Santa Fe just like pasta prevails here, and outside of Palermo it is almost impossible to find ingredients to make things like dal, pad Thai, our beloved Korean tofu. So reading about these kinds of dishes is like taking a little trip, exciting to plan for, tucking in that scrap of paper as a reminder for when you can afford the fare some day.

For now, we get excited about taking trips to places like San Giovanni Gemini, a lively and interesting hilltop town about 30 minutes southwest of us. We've gone before because you can find some basic necessities at two small malls there, which are located right next to each other and have virtually identical kinds of shops: They each have a supermarket, an electronics store, clothing shops full of black and purple sweaters, a cafe, and a tall plastic horse into which you can drop a 1 euro coin and ride while it rumbles up and down. (This horse is so boring. Elio loves it.) We went a few weeks ago because Guy had to get a new hard drive, I had to buy some things like soap and shampoo, and we were both hoping that a little pizza place we'd discovered in the town proper would have the same spinach and zucchini–rich frittata that we'd loved the last time. They did, plus we also found an incredible pasticceria on a piazza up the street. Guy and I ate delicious little cassatelle stuffed with sweetened ricotta, while Elio nibbled a miniature torta filled with sticky marmelatta. They had a case full of the most amazing-looking chocolates, molded in the shapes of old keys, locks, wrenches, gears, as well as cannoli shells that were as big as Elio's torso, and which every child who came into the shop thought were hilarious.

Drafts and Drainage

2010-03-17T10:32:00.014-04:00

This morning I shot this photo just after waking up. We are now staying in the nice cozy and warm apartment that is across the courtyard from our main apartment. Fabrizia and her parents stay here when they are here at Case Vecchie. The apartment we normally stay in is nice too. Beautiful light, spacious. But the electric space heaters are not powerful enough to heat the space. (I know, you are thinking, what the hell are they complaining about, they are in Sicily.) That is what I thought too, for a January and February. But then I got super sick for 10 days and realized it is cold and damp and windy here. The tile floors are always cold and the ceilings are high (which I love) but the little heat that does get thrown from those small space heaters goes straight up or out the drafty windows. So, we asked if we could stay here for a few weeks while they are away.

We will be able to stay in this apartment until the end of March when, we hope, the weather will warm up and be less damp and the winds slow down a bit. So, for now, we are warm and cozy and not needing to wear our down vests around the house all day. And we get to enjoy these little blue bedside globe lamps.

Next observation: For a country that relies (for touristy reasons) on the romance of living simply and being relaxed it can actually be quite frustrating to live here as a foreigner. It takes awhile but soon enough it becomes clear to that most things Italian and especially Siciliano are convoluted if not a bit impractical. (ie. tile floors in cold apartments, stores closing from 1 - 4 PM, the way people do not form lines but just push each other until they get to the front) I know, we should maybe relax more, and we are. I also know that when we return to the states I will realize that despite all the quarks of living in Sicily it really is a more relaxed way of living...)

However, there are also many things I do love about living here. The green grocer trucks in the little villages that drive around town yelling through a megaphone (barely understandable to even Sicilian ears) what they have for the day, the daily trip to the bakery for bread (and sometimes cookies) and these drainage racks over the sink. Both apartments have them. The dishes drain and the water drips right back down in the sink. This is genius. The next kitchen I hope to design will incorporate one of these. Our good friend Jon Carver did this in his house in New Mexico. He also made the drainage rack act as cupboard for the dishes. Brilliant.

On Peas and Chocolate

2010-03-16T18:53:00.015-04:00

No more messing around. (we say that now...) but I hope we can post once a day or at least every two days. I am not sure how I feel about the blog thing, the facebook thing the internet thing. It is all a lot of ego, self-promotion, and voyeurism ( I do like the voyeurism part, so I suppose other people do too). But, alas, I/we will push forward and see what it means to us.

Yesterday was a somewhat productive day. I hulled, and we later ate for dinner, about a kilo of fresh peas. While I was doing this I took lots of photos of the process. I have been, it is fair to say, less than happy with the pictures I am taking the last few weeks. But I like this one. It may be a lull. It may be that I am trying to force myself to shoot through the lull. It may be the damn tripod. But I will keep at it.

I notice I like the pictures better that happen naturally, less set up. So we are going to do more of that. But, for now it is good to just keep shooting.

I had a late breakfast yesterday of left-over dahl that I added a poached egg too. Was way better than it sounds. Dinner of frittata with asparagus, potatoes and greens. Side of fresh peas.

We ate sliced apple and some chocolate for dessert while playing cards and listening to a Savage Love podcast. To be honest, all three of these activities are almost daily addictions for us, especially the chocolate. This is what happens when holed up in a rural setting for a long time.

The Ambassador

2010-02-27T15:23:00.005-05:00

Entry #23: Case Vecchie, February 27, 2010: Guy

Something we always found odd about other parents was that they seemed to meet a lot of their friends through their kids. Oh no, we would not be having that. (We wrongly thought.) We liked our friends, we chose our friends, we would not have this little tyrant, who seemed to be deciding more and more for us, choose our friends. But, of course, this happened and we are happy about it. We learned we could meet parents who we connected with beyond the fact that our kids were born a few days apart.

Fast forward to Sicily. When we were here last year we wrote a few posts about missing our friends and how we did not have a social network here. But we are beginning to have a little one now. Thanks to Elio. I am not sure how deep it will run, but it has been nice to go out to a few three-year-old birthday parties and be around other adults who are going through the same struggles of having a demanding raving lunatic preschooler.

So, this nutty little boy is our Ambassador to Vallelunga Pratameno. Kate was even invited to a "dance class" last Wednesday with other moms from Elio's school. Mambo #5.

The parents we are meeting seem to be of a particular sub-culture in this little village. They are not "peasants" as many people in rural Sicily are often described, but they have made the choice to live in this small village and be with their big extended families. They are hip, are always dressed fashionably (which makes Kate and I always look at each other across the room and realize we are, again, wearing the wrong clothes), they have internet connections and Facebook accounts—all the trappings of modernity. But mostly, for now, what connects us are the short people in the room.

So... It is interesting and we are enjoying meeting all these parents and learning more about where we are living.

As for the birthday parties (where I have been the only man there except for the dad of the birthday kid and a grandfather or two), they have their own set of rules which Kate hilariously broke down here into a few points.

1. The mom must walk around the room regularly with a huge platter of pizza or sandwiches or arancine and offer them until everyone is super stuffed and then seem really concerned when you start to turn down any more.

2. At least one kid has to throw up at some point.

3. The kids have to open their gifts as soon as their friends arrive and hand them to them.

4. You must have lots of potato chips.

5. The volume of the party must reach a positively ear-splitting level (this is partially because everything here is tiled, so the noise just bounces).

6. No need for goodie bags or games or activities. Just let the kids run around for three hours in a big room bonking each other with balloons.

And, while we still cannot speak Italian so well, I think our understanding is growing with these interactions. It is funny, because we are seriously looking forward to the next birthday party invitations to come home with Elio in his back pack.

To top off a week of meeting new people, we decided to take a short half-hour trip to Mussomeli where there is a castle built on top of a rock outcropping. This turned out to be incredibly spectacular and interesting. It was built in 1370 by the Chiaramonte family until someone in that family was beheaded and then it was owned by many other families until 1550. After that it went to Don Cesare Lanza and stayed in his family until a few decades ago. We got a tour, in Italian, but were able to get most of what he was saying. Plus having Elio there made it fun for the guide. The Ambassador strikes again.

The Castle was partially renovated around the early 1900's. There is a dungeon, a ballroom, stables, a few kitchen areas and a bathroom. They had created cisterns for fresh water. And there is a wonderful little chapel that still has some faint frescos near the altar. The Royalty would watch from outside through these little square windows. Apparently they did not want to be down in the chapel with the servants for fear of being stabbed. It really gave us a feel of what it was like when people lived there. It must have been cold and damp, because it is very high up, or hot and windy and dry. Basically uncomfortable. I did wonder why the soldiers and servants would not just up and kill these nobles. They had to live in an environment and quarters that were only slightly better than the dungeon... Elio, of course loved talking about the soldiers who lived there and seeing some knight's armor.

After this we rushed up into town, because it was Sunday and quickly approaching 1 PM when everything closes, to find a bit to eat. We came across a bar/restaurant/pasticceria. The food was OK, an antipasto, some pasta. But the cookies and coffee were perfect. The cookies are made with almond paste which gives them a light and chewy texture with a nice savory nuttiness that is not too sweet. The coffee, made with Moak roasted beans from Ragusa, was really one of the best little espressos I have had. I like it to have a strong flavor, but not bitter and a bit of a creamy finish. Who doesn't. Alas, we ate the cookies too fast to photograph. If you see a picture of them here it is because I am considering going back to get more to "photograph" tomorrow.

Always remember, shoot first, then eat.

School Days

2010-02-21T13:31:00.009-05:00

Entry #22: Kate

The owls are back. When we were here in the fall, Guy and I often fell asleep to the sound of owls hooting in the trees outside our bedroom. A strange and rather high-pitched "twoot." When we arrived over a month ago, I waited to hear the owls again, but nothing. We still hear the birds chattering in the trees around 6:30 in the morning, but nothing from the owls. Then, last night, when I woke up bleary-eyed after falling asleep with Elio, I heard an owl. "Twoot. Twoot." It's nice to have them back.

It's interesting for me to take a step back and see how things are different from our last stay. For one thing, Guy and I are working together with a renewed intent on photographing dishes and processes here (this may be an entry in itself). For another, the countryside around us is completely different--lush and tumbling over with green and dotted with yellow and purple wildflowers rather than all golden straw and silvery olives. Also, there haven't been any guests at the school yet, so it's been quiet, more subdued, except when Fabrizia is here, and then we have a whirlwind three days of cooking and shooting and writing and thinking. When she was here last week, we made dozens and dozens of jars of mandarin and lemon marmalades, and traded in our usual austere lunches of salad and leftovers for bowls of ghinefi di riso (miniature fried risotto balls floating in hen broth) and platters of ciambelle stuffed with lemon custard for dessert.

But I think that easily the biggest difference for all of us is that Elio is going to school here. We enrolled him in the small scuola materna in Vallelunga, a private parochial preschool. His main teachers are two little nuns who are maybe 15 inches taller than he is: Suor Laura and Suor Concettina. I can't tell how old they are, they could be anywhere between 55 and 80 years old. They wear full habits and veils, though sometimes they add a black cardigan on top. Elio loves them.

I have to admit, this is never the sort of schooling situation I imagined for him. The religious aspect is, of course, odd for us. Then there are all the little bits of candies and sweets that seem to be doled out at different times of day. Some afternoons, we come to pick up Elio and the kids are watching cartoons on TV. There aren't that many books in the classroom. Though they have one room that is devoted to a large tunnel and climbing toy, there is no outdoor play space (though the kids did take a "field trip to the nuns church, and we got to sing songs," according to Elio). Guy and I would have never looked twice at a place like this back in Brooklyn. But what does the school have? It has lots of pencils and crayons and paper and lots of toys that the kids can play whatever with. And it has these two nuns that give out kisses and hugs more often than they do candy.

And, I think, it's giving Elio an extraordinary opportunity to learn a new language, to learn that he can find his way in a room full of people who do not speak English. The language barrier is definitely an obstacle for Guy and me (for instance, we have no idea if there is any sort of curriculum), but it seems to bother Elio less and less. He is excited to think that he soon will be able to speak two languages. I see him saying "Ciao" unbidden to people now. I can tell by the way he nods and smiles that he understands what some people are saying to him. Most mornings he still is very timido at first, but it seems if I remember to give him lots of extra kisses for his smock pockets, he's OK. One night, just before he fell asleep, he said, "Mommy, I didn't need any of my extra kisses today. (pause) I could just think about them being there and I wasn't sad anymore." And a week or two ago, he came up with a role-playing game in which I was a shy and nervous kid going to school where I didn't understand the language, and Elio and Guy were the teachers (the nuns) who made me feel better. We were amazed that he came up with this scenario himself. Some school days have been harder than others, but they seem to be getting easier. Self-confidence has never been an issue for Elio, but I must say that I am so proud to see how very brave he has been these last few weeks.

I can't talk about Elio's school without mentioning that this past week was Carnivale (like Mardi Gras). Last Thursday, his class was having a festa, and all the kids were to dress up and parents were supposed to bring "tipici dolci siciliani." We brought chocolate chip cookies. What lame, clueless Americans we are. We dressed Elio as a pirate, which meant a turtleneck and jeans, his skull and crossbone socks (pulled up over his jeans--this was particularly dorky looking), a borrowed pirate hat, and one of my scarves tied around his belly into which he tucked his tiny cardboard sword. It was a pathetic costume, especially when we saw the other kids decked out in these full-on, storebought outfits: Snow White, butterflies with enormous wings, fuzzy, chubby Winnie the Poohs, Musketeers with layers of lace and capes and velvet, miniature batmen with molded muscles. We checked out prices on these things later and saw that some cost as much as 40 to 60 euros! Plus, there was a real communication fail that day because when I picked up Elio at 2:30 he was the only kid still there and it seemed like he had been alone there with the nuns for hours. As he told me in the car, all the kids went home to have pranzo with their families, so he got to eat with the nuns upstairs in the kitchen all by himself. He was thrilled (and the nuns didn't seem to mind at all).

The following Sunday night was another party. Only in Italy would a preschool parent's night start at 7 pm on a Sunday evening. We were the first to leave and it was after 10 when we did... Think moms doing the macarena, think nuns trying on cowboy hats, think conga lines, and of course, think food: sandwiches, arancine, lots of cakes and cookies and fried sweets. It was a wild night.

LIKE A DREAM

2010-02-08T15:13:00.007-05:00

Entry #21: Case Vecchie, February 8, 2010: Guy

Some days we wake up and the three of us will tell the others about our respective dreams. Of course I cannot remember any specifically right now. Elio's seem to be about animals or school, mine seem to be broad sweeping moments that sometimes involve people who I have not seen for a long time, and Kate's seem to be about a situation that has happened in the last few days but has gone (many times badly) awry. Being here sometimes seems like a dream and I want to get out of that state of thinking or maybe, at least, accept it. Routine helps ground us. Waking up, running, making photos, eating lunch, picking Elio up from school. This all brings some normalcy but we are doing it all in Sicily. Rural Sicily, where two old cars stacked is, like in a dream, normal.

To try to add to the normalcy I made Kate a lovely little birthday cake on Saturday while she and Elio napped. See the picture. It was a little gem of cake. I decorated it with the candied orange peel that was just made over the last 3 days. But... it was the most terrible cake ever. Too much baking soda (we have not found baking powder here so I had to improvise) and it was hard and dense. Alas, it was the thought that counted. (She just showed me a picture she took of the cake, upside down in the garbage. Perfect.)

However, the sweets part of her birthday was saved on Sunday when Giovanna brought over a tray full of homemade, heavenly, cloud-like, dreamy ciambellas that were still warm. (I think this is why I'm writing about dreams.) Think about the lightest, best sugar donut you ever had and then know that these were better. There was only this little piece of one left for a photo. She brought over 4, maybe it was 5, of them. That was about 14 hours ago, 8 of which we slept. So you do the math calculating how fast they disappeared. To add to that we stopped by Giovanna's about a half hour later on Sunday night to say hi to Enza and her family who stopped by for a visit (Giovanna lives across the courtyard from us). She invited us in.

This was a big step in our relationship. It was the first time we were invited in to sit and visit. She has a lovely, comfortable and warm home. The kitchen is set up with a long table in the middle and a corner banco towards the front of the kitchen and a couch in the other corner. Very cozy and welcoming. We sat there half-talking, half-listening. We talked about Elio and what he will wear for the impending Carnevale festival this Thursday, we laughed at me and how terrible was my try at making a cake (torta), we indulged in more fresh donuts. We had lovely sugary espresso, we were offered liqueurs (which we ineptly turned down trying to explain that we are sick and it would make our head colds worse, but we think they understood that we are allergic to alcohol. Oh boy, we have to get better at speaking Italian...).

So, a lovely evening and a good end to the weekend.

Today, Monday evening, I am about to begin a weekly ritual. I just came back from the vegetable garden where I picked some escarole and fennel, wild swiss chard, arugula and salad greens with Salvatore's help. Now I set up in our little double sink and wash the greens systematically. It takes about 45 minutes, but we have salad ready to go and greens to cook when we want them for the next few days. (OK. It took over an hour to wash and bag the greens.)

Doing this ritual made me remember my grandmother and Aunt Eloise who would save and wash plastic bags and reuse them again and again, hanging them on the clothesline to dry. (We don't wash our plastic bags, but it is not a bad idea.) We do reuse some bags though for this very purpose of storing greens and it made me realize that this is probably what my family was doing with some of those bags. In fact the whole ritual of pulling greens from the garden and washing them too is like channeling my grandmother and Eloise.

Last thought. Just this afternoon, for lunch, I finished the salad greens from last week. It was mostly ricci (a kind of frisee). I sliced up two different kinds of oranges I picked this morning from the trees in the orchard, added them and olive oil and salt. Ate it in our kitchen. Happy.

Like a dream.

Oh, Give Me Land...

2010-02-05T15:35:00.005-05:00

Entry #20: Case Vecchie, February 3, 2010

I ate so many oranges today it's kind of ridiculous. I lost count after the seventh or eighth.

Guy and I spent the morning in the big kitchen with Giovanna, so Guy could photograph her making candied citrus peel. Well, we got so far as cutting the peels from about a bushel of oranges into strips--they're now sitting, weighted down under a lid and a precariously balanced plastic bucket, in a tub of salt water. Tomorrow, Giovanna will pour off the salt water and replace it with fresh and let the peels sit until Saturday, when we'll cook them with sugar.

But, of course, there were dozens of naked oranges tumbling around. So we started to eat them. They were incredible, their pulp ranging in color from orange to deep blush to almost purple, seedless, sweet but not cloying, an underlying tartness. What kinds of oranges are these, we asked Giovanna. "No lo so," she said, with her characteristic shrug and wave of her hand. "Arance di giardina." Just the usual oranges, from the garden. Just the most delicious oranges we've ever tasted.

This afternoon, after Elio came home from school, we drove up to Case Grande to see if Toto, the shepherd was there. He was just leaving for the day, but the late-afternoon sun was so inviting we couldn't resist climbing up to see the sheep. Narrow ruts in the ground show where the sheep follow each other up and down over the hills. That particular area is dotted with old olive trees, their gnarled wood pock-mocked and dividing into two, three or more trunks, their roots humped up. The ground speckled with sheep pellets and fallen olives. We found the sheep near the top of the hill. They were patient with us for a few minutes, but then we must have spooked them because they all took off at a fast trot, single file, down another hill. Their bells filled the air with a kind of music.

After, we drove into town so I could get some sausages for dinner. When I walked into the macelleria, two men were standing around watching the butcher sawing out the ribs from an enormous side of beef that was hanging from the ceiling of his tiny shop. When he saw me waiting, he let go of the rib he was working on, and it thwapped back into the flesh with a ringing sound. Another kind of music.

When talking about being here, it's hard not to play up the romance of it all. The romance of Sicily. I emailed to my friend Jamie the other day: "The light here today was incredible. And everything is so green right now. The almond trees are starting to burst into little white blossoms and are simply humming with bees. I had a staring contest with a red fox this morning. And tonight for dinner we ate artichokes that had been picked just an hour before, a salad of red leaf lettuce and frisee pulled from the garden with Sicilian mandarins. And Elio ate fresh ricotta by the spoonful. This is our life? Strange."

It's like a compulsion, you can't help but make everything here sound kind of dreamy, playing up all the beautiful, sun-dappled vistas. But I also feel myself straining against that, because there are times that being here just feels really hard.

I feel like a heretic saying this. This is an adventure! We should be loving every minute of it! A million other people would love to be in our shoes! True. But, for right now, it's Guy, me and Elio in a little house, in a vast land, where we don't know many people, have friends as such or speak the language well. I do a lot of laundry, running out to pluck it off the line before it rains. We do our work. We cook, variations on beans, pasta, grains, vegetables. We eat lots of oranges. I drink my coffee in the morning. We read book after book to Elio and play his strange imaginative games. It's elemental, for sure. I think I'm realizing that I miss some of the complexity of our old city life. Or maybe just the distractions of it?

Wild and Green

2010-01-31T16:22:00.009-05:00

Entry #19: Case Vecchie, January 27, 2010: Guy

We have been back now for two and a half weeks. My friend Laura Husar has a quote on her website that says, "we don't remember days, we remember moments." When, in the beginning days of a new experience, I sometimes, impatiently get anxious, fretful, wonder what the hell I am doing. I wonder when something is going to happen, when am I going to accomplish something... And then, suddenly two weeks go by, two months, two years.

Looking back at these two-plus weeks since our return to Sicily a lot has actually happened. The most significant thing is that Elio has started school, (scuola materna to be specific). We couldn't be prouder of him. He is being brave, facing a new school, new language, nuns who pinch his cheeks (he calls it pushing and pulling)! The first few days were smoother than the last two, but we hope this will reverse again. He is very interested in lunch, as he should be. There are two distinct courses, a pasta and then a meat course, (except for fridays when there is pasta and then fish). Love it! The main conversation before school is "what do you think we will have for lunch, Daddy?" When I picked him up the other day he told me about lunch but said he couldn't tell what kind of meat it was, giving me this quizical look. So, big change for him and us.

We have been using the extra time on organizing for upcoming projects for the website, newsletter and book and also getting some work done.

I was anxious to start making some pictures with people in them, so I asked to go out picking wild greens (verdura selvatico) with a few knowledgeable men who work here on the estate. I am sure many women do this too, but around here and in the villages, we have seen only men out foraging along the side of the road. They literally fill the backs of their little Fiat Panda hatchbacks with greens that most people would walk on or pick and throw away as weeds. I can't deny that this is the stuff I love to do. Being out, getting my shoes wet and muddy, taking part in a tradition that is as old as the hills. These guys know where to go, which is important because of all the chemicals that some of the farms spray for the grapes and wheat fields.

Salvatore (who looms large as the main character, in my mind, of this whole experience here) took me along the road where we got salachi (Siciliano for Swiss Chard) and small wild fennel which will be better to pick in a month or so. This fennel smells and tastes like super-concentrated fennel seeds, like fennel syrup. Sambuca? There is virtually no relation in terms of taste to the fennel we have had in the States.

Then I went out with Carmelo. He is the gardener for Case Grande up the hill from Case Vecchie. He brought me to his land where he has so many different wild greens growing. Most of these literally look like weeds growing within tall grasses. Then we went to his hen house and he gave me about a dozen eggs. Bianco. He was really proud of his white eggs! (That is quite a blow to all of us who love to buy our more expensive brown eggs!) And then he, logically, suggested we eat the greens and eggs together. Which we did for lunch today. They were delicious. Kate boiled them first to take off some of the bitter edge, then sauteed them with these little scallion-ike onions that are growing in the garden down the steps from our apartment. Carmello also gave me a few artichokes from his own garden. I have never seen artichokes growing before.

I was down in the orchard this morning trying to get some pics of Giovanni pruning the trees (the gardener who takes care of the orchard and the rose garden). He started teaching me about all the different citrus they have growing. A sweet lemon they call Lumia and these larger semi-sweet lemons that I have been snacking on. You can eat some of the thick pith as well as the pulpy part.

For Dinner tonight we ate the wild chard with pasta and sheep's milk ricotta. Eating these last few weeks has been another highlight of being back. It is January, yet we are eating salad greens and fennel and small celery from the garden almost daily.

These are just the last few days. A lot happened prior to this too, shopping at a suburban-type mall outside Palermo, eating ciambellas in Mondello, lots of driving around and exploring neighboring villages and tourist sites such as Villa Romana del Casale near Piazza Armerina.

I know it is not all perfect and it will be difficult and challenging at many points to come, but I am happy to have picked wild greens and eaten them.

Entry #18: Milano, November 1: Kate

2009-11-05T09:20:00.003-05:00

Right now, we're sitting in a hotel room less than a kilometer away from Milano Linate Airport. The walls are covered in gold-flocked wallpaper. It's pretty fab for an airport hotel. We got in this morning from Palermo and have spent most of the day vegging here, with one outing: a walk around this industrial neighborhood, sort of looking for a large park that is supposedly nearby, but really just trying to get some air. It being Sunday (and a holiday--All Souls Day), everything is shut tight. We got excited when we passed a church and there were lots of people parked across the street, heading towards this large grassy area. My American brain automatically thought, "Ooh, harvest festival!" Then I thought that perhaps they were heading to the cemetery to make offerings to their dead relatives, even more exciting. So we walk in and soon see some young guys inspecting a large semiautomatic rifle. Then we realized that everyone was going to a gun show. We turned around. But, hey, we were able to give directions to other people looking for the event.

So we left Sicily this morning.

The Palermo airport is situated right on the sea, and as we took off, the sun was lighting up the mountains and sparkling over the water. It was a nice send-off. Even nicer was the fact that we spent the last two days at Mary and Tonino Simeti's home, staying in their new guesthouse, sharing dinner with them, even carving pumpkins with them last night as a nod to Halloween. (When we pulled up on Friday afternoon, we overshot the driveway and drove up to one of their sheds that was lined with shelves and shelves of pumpkins. So many honey-hued pumpkins. It reminded me of one of the Gourmet Thanksgiving menus from last year, but to the nth power.)

Our last two days felt a bit like the best of the rest of Sicily. We left late Friday morning, after cleaning up our little house, packing the car, saying goodbye to Giovanna and Pompeo and Salvatore and Giuseppe. Made the twisty drive up the 121 to Palermo and then west on the A29. We realized that we would arrive at the Simetis' smack in the middle of lunch, so we motored on to Scopello, pulled randomly out of the guidebook, which turned out to be the happiest of accidents. Scopello was an old tuna fishery that closed in the 80s. It was one of the most breathtakingly picturesque spots I've ever been, and we had it mostly to ourselves and about seven cats. The water was crystalline, the light ever changing. Elio splashed in the water, gradually stripping down to just a t-shirt, shouting, "I'm having lots of fun!" It was a very special afternoon, one that will replay in my mind's eye for the rest of my life.

The next day we went to Érice, a medieval town set high, high above Trapani. We took the cable car to get there. Wandered around, shocked at how cold it was up there compared to down below. Peeked into castles. Ogled the sea. We didn't stay long, but of course sampled the famous pastries of Maria Grammatico (whom Mary Simeti wrote about in "Bitter Almonds"). My favorites weren't the ultra-moist almond paste pastries, but instead the thin amaretti that were displayed simply in a tall glass jar on top of the display case. I wish I would have gotten a kilo of them.

And of course, we were staying at Mary's, an American who has made Sicily her home for almost the last 50 years and who has written so much and so well about it. The woman who, with my friend and former colleague Diane, is the whole reason we are here. I have more to think about our visit before I write, but we are so grateful to her generosity...

Sidetrack: Oh, the day before we left the three of us went into Vallelunga looking for the mysterious Antonella, who is supposedly THE woman to go in town to for massages and manicures. We wanted to get thank you presents for Giovanna and Enza. We had a phone number for her but realized that with our mangled Italian, it would be almost impossible to convey what we wanted. So we headed into town (forgetting the phone number), planning to go to the tabacchi to ask there. But as we parked, I remembered that the woman at one of the panificios was Romanian and spoke pretty good English, so we headed over there. Of course, she wasn't there, but we talked with another woman who eventually called Dora, who quickly came down. They made a few calls, the guys in the back of the bakery came out, and it became clear that we had to talk with Giovanni, a man who owns the alimentari just as you get into town. So Dora walked us over there, and on the way she told us that she and her husband (whose family owns the bakery, I believe) met over the Internet and got married last October, and that she is an icon painter. Fascinating. So we go to Giovanni's, Dora explains that we're looking for Antonella, he motions us to the back of the store, and we weave our way through the piles of pasta and bottles of water to the back door, which opens out to an alley. We step outside and he motions up to a building. Ah, Antonella. Fortunately, she was home and after several minutes of trying to explain the idea of gift certificates, we all understood each other. It felt like something out of a movie, a treasure hunt of sorts. We felt so ridiculously triumphant afterwards.

Blog Entry # 17, Our Life Here, Case Vecchie, Sicily, October 2009: Guy

2009-10-29T15:33:00.014-04:00

Call it what it is, but our last night here at Case Vecchie (at least for this year) is upon us and I am feeling nostalgic. So excuse any sappy prose below. (Simon and Garfunkel's "My Little Town" streaming endlessly through my head is not helping the feelings of nostalgia.) I should be packing, cleaning, resting but instead I feel compelled to write about a few things, sounds, faces, people, land, gardens, experiences. Details.

A few weeks back I mentioned to Kate about the way things are not overly refrigerated here and how we have easily adapted to that. Eggs from the chicken coop left out on window sills, cheese, vegetables, some leftovers from dinner (inevitably eaten the next morning for breakfast). Things we just would not do back home. And, knock on wood, we have not gotten sick.

A few weeks back Kate had the good sense, (she has a lot of that), to go around and photograph details from little apartment. (I love these pictures, is there anything she is not good at?) A normal life lived in a small place, but it is nice to see them now as we approach leaving here.

We already wrote about the wine shop that is attached to Case Vecchie (which means Old House), where locals and some restaurants come and fill up jugs full of good table wine. But it is the sounds now, and the people that I remember. From our apartment you can here the sound of empty plastic jugs bumping together, that hollow low base sound. It will always remind me of this place now. Then the "buon giorno" from Maritzio or Giuseppe (the brothers who work at the wine shop), the customers go in through the beads hanging in the door way, they rattle and click together. Five minutes later they come out with their weeks or months worth of wine.

The beautiful light in these big stone buildings. There is this room that is mostly just full of old tools and baskets, displayed like a museum of the history of this vineyard.

There is a picture below of Salvatore walking in the courtyard. (Elio took it. He also took the picture of me and Kate up on our stoop. We leave Brooklyn to get a stoop, finally!) Salvatore has been a huge presence here for us, he is charming, curious and open. Playful with Elio. He and all the people who work here are one of the main reasons Kate and I are seriously considering coming back here to live and work next year. Pampao and Giovana (last name Pacino, no joke) are the people who keep this place running. Working hard, dealing with two teenage kids, back and forth to town at least 4 times a day. Enza who works here when it is busy with the cooking school, Rosa as well. I wish I had pictures of all of them!

The view out of our bedroom window. (I have shot it about every week and a half, watching the landscape change.) The landscape has not so slowly bugun to look like Spring is about to start. Flowers and grass growing between the olive trees and rows of vines. Grass growing in the fields. Sicily is turning green in November. The roses in the garden are starting to bloom.

And then, again, the experience of being able to photograph the life here. For most people here harvesting, making food and planting a garden is their daily life and I do not want to romanticize it. But I do find a beauty in it. The last picture is me trying out the vibrating tool they use to knock the olives off the tree. I loved trying it, but what was even better was the guy I gave my camera to started shooting like me, squatting down, looking for the best angle. I may try to get a job next year harvesting olives.

Our time spent in the gardens, picking vegetables or eating pomegranates or walnuts from the trees. Seemingly idyllic, maybe idyllic, but, at the same time we really appreciated it. We did not over think it, or try to fill it with more meaning than what it was.

There is no doubt that this has been a unique time. What else can I say about that... there is no way to really sum up the time here. We feel fortunate.

Entry #16, Case Vecchie, October 28, Boy oh Boy

2009-10-28T12:13:00.004-04:00

I had to put this up right away. Elio seems to be in a growth spurt the last 2 -3 days and this picture seems to capture him a bit older. There is a big boy look about him. I know this is truly a parent interest only, but it is hard to see the physical changes as Elio grows older. I think I have seen it today. Sad and exciting. I was shooting this delicious Scaccia Ragusana when Elio came out of the kitchen and wanted to be in the photo. I asked him to make a serious face and this is what I got. He is very interested and sometimes upset by all the shooting I am doing here, so this is a way he can be involved. I am happy about that.

Entry #15: Modica, Noto, Ragusa, Sicily, October 26 - 27: Kate

2009-10-27T16:49:00.004-04:00

When my friend Diane came back from a trip to Sicily a few years ago, she told me that the roads here were insane, that it took hours to get anywhere, that her husband didn't want to step foot in a car again for a long, long time. I smiled at her stories but secretly thought, Come now, Diane, surely you exaggerate a leeettle bit? No. It turns out that, if anything, she was being charitable. The roads here are ridiculous. There are three or four autostrades here, one along the north coast, from Messina to Palermo, and another that cuts through the interior from Catania to Palermo. They're OK, though there are parts where they can suddenly become a two-lane road, which isn't your usual idea of an autostrade. But if you're going to down to, say, the southeastern corner of the island, then you're stuck using crazy little unmarked roads that veer this way and that, zigzagging their way up and down mountains and cutting through tiny little towns where you can reach out and almost touch the walls of the buildings. It sounds picturesque, and much of it is, breathtakingly so, but a lot of it is white-knuckle driving, with clenched teeth on the side. Coming back from Ragusa, we had to turn around twice because of mudslides on the road. After our trip to Agrigento a few weeks ago, we vowed never again to drive on unknown roads after dark, but we were caught once more, giving Giovanna gray hairs, simply because getting anywhere takes about twice as long as you expect it to.

Anyways. We drove off from Mondello and headed south, south, south. We stopped in Pergusa for lunch (Lake Pergusa is where Persephone was pulled down to the underworld by Hades; the lake is now surrounded by a racetrack), at a surprisingly fine little restaurant, and then on to Modica. As we entered the area of Ragusa, we suddenly realized that the landscape--rolling and steep hills, dotted with cows (a rare sight in Sicily)--all around us was criss-crossed by low stone walls. Walls would go straight up a mountain, but also branch out every 10 yards or so, creating these otherworldly grids and patterns. It was an amazing sight. Apparently, many of these walls were built centuries ago, when the main landowners divided up their land among their many workers. Plus, the land here is just so stony, that you have to do something with all the rock. It was like seeing a personal compulsion, writ huge.

After a bit of driving around and direction asking, we finally found our hotel, L'Orangerie, in Modica. Lovely little place, hidden back on an alley up some steps. The alley was lined with filled water bottles, which had us scratching our heads, but we later learned that they help keep the stray cats and dogs from peeing around there. Our reason for going to Modica was simple: chocolate. A few days before, a BBC crew had been down with the chef Gary Rhodes to do a segment on Fabrizia, and some of the crew had just come from Modica to do something on their chocolate. We sampled it and were blown away: It was Mexican chocolate, but the best Mexican chocolate we'd ever tasted, and it came from Sicily. It warped our minds. Here is a good piece about it (http://faculty.ithaca.edu/direnzo/modica/). The oldest place in town that makes the chocolate is Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, and believe me, we sampled all their wares (they also make the best cannoli we've tasted outside of Case Vecchie), from cardamom to nutmeg to lemon rind to white pepper. Their candied orange peel and sesame brittle were spectacular. This was a wonderful shop. Elio got a bit strung out on chocolate, as we all did. Now we're suffering withdrawal. At breakfast at the hotel (in their wonderful old big kitchen), they had bowls of chopped chocolate, and it was impossible to resist nibbling on a square or three while sipping a cappuccino.

Though chocolate was the main thing, we also hiked up and down steps, peeked into beautiful Baroque churches (Elio was intrigued by many of the paintings and sculptures in San Giorgio in Modica--lots of spears and horses and action). We spent an evening in Noto and were wowed by the little bit we saw (I was wowed by the gelato we got at Caffe Sicilia: a wonderful flavor made of lemon, local almonds and saffron). We spent an afternoon in Ragusa Ibla, getting there just as everything was shutting down for lunch, but we had a nice wander through the little streets.

It was an interesting little trip and made me realize that there's still so much that we haven't seen here. (We tried to see the mosaic floors at the Villa Romana di Casale, something that has been on my must-do list, on the way home, but they had closed early.) Our own little corner of the world here (Case Vecchie, Regaleali, Vallelunga), we are getting familiar with--I wouldn't presume to say we are getting to know it--but there is so much else out there, the parts that other tourists come to see when they come to Sicily. I like the idea of getting to know this one little place more than the thought of tramping around here and there, but I am still curious about these other places.

And we leave in a week. When will these other places be seen? Not sure. Maybe very soon, maybe not. But I think we are really looking forward to getting back to the States (I typed "home," but then deleted it--this idea of home is so up in the air right now). Looking forward to more variety in our diets, looking forward to grandparents, looking forward to museums, looking forward to reading new books to Elio and wearing something different than the same four outfits we've been wearing for the last two months. Tonight, I made a dinner that reminded us of how we usually cook, how we used to cook: a farro salad over thin slices of steamed butternut squash, a huge plate of roasted cauliflower. It felt good.

This afternoon, Elio and I played soccer in the courtyard with Salvatore, Paula and Michaele (Giovanna's son). Then we had a longish conversation that I thought was about Sundays and how everything is closed down, but that I realized later was actually about the start of daylight savings time (which started today here). Meanwhile, Guy spent a long time skyping with Tamara and Laula. Our two worlds, happening at once. An interesting juxtaposition.

Blog Entry #14: Palermo, Sicily, October 24-26: Guy

2009-10-25T12:16:00.005-04:00

There seems to be a trend for both Kate and me. We intend to write about a trip or experience to keep things recorded, but we also write about the present moment of what is happening or of what we are feeling.

The rain is ever present. I like the rain, more than I would have ever imagined. A year in England, having weather come through quickly, rain, sun, clouds, more rain made me realize this. New Mexico, too, less rain of course but the weather moved through quickly and often.

My runs continue to be explorations. Snails, worms, really really big worms, slugs, frogs, lizards, random fruit fallen from trees. But mostly it is quiet. Just wind or the sound of water in ditches from rain runoff. And, the sound of me, feet and mud squishing together.

When it clears you can see the land, the colors, impossibly saturated, deep tones. My camera seems an imperfect tool. Maybe it is me. I can't capture the scene, the vastness, the colors, the patterns. Maybe I don't want too. I can't figure out what is the answer.

We went away this past weekend and somehow I was happy to be on the move again. It feels a bit much, sometimes, to be here amongst all this beauty and this deep complex culture. A culture of agriculture, of workers and landowners, of families, of etiquette's I feel incapable of comprehending right now.

We went to Palermo, a city not without all this strange complex Sicilian mores, but it is a city. Cities are places Kate and I feel comfortable in for all their own messiness and, yes, familiar contemporary culture too. We stayed north of the city on the sea at Anna Tasca Lanza's house in Mondello. We stayed in a tiny guest house that is adjacent to the main house. They have a couple who live in another guest house full time. Mario and Angela and their two kids. They take care of everything in Palermo the same way Giovanna and Pompao take care of everything here at Case Vecchie.

Arriving late, we ate dinner out and the next morning Mario escorted us to the bus and we ventured into Palermo for the day.

Rain, sun, clouds.

We walked a lot of the city, through labyrinth streets that were originally set up by the Arab community before the French, Spanish, Greeks and Italians had their way with the city and created grids here and there. Elio did a great job, walking most of the time when it was not raining. We saw small cars, lots of scooters, garbage piled high. We saw bombed buildings from WWII. Church after church, the best streets made with solid, gorgeous square-cut stone. We came across some fun markets, had some bad street food and then ventured into what is the best market area, but it was closed for the rest of the day, (it was Sunday) save a small restaurant. We were hungry, so we sat down. This should be the part of the story where we have a transcendent meal. Alas, no. This is the part of the story where we have an OK meal and move on.

This is the part of the story where we realize our story may not be about just food. Or the search for food.

Our story may be about living fully and simply. This is what, I think, we are doing. I just spent an hour looking at a friend's website. She is doing art that is taking her to the Arctic and Antarctica. We don't have to end up in Antarctica or Sicily to focus on the place, the people, the landscape. I think it is simply the impetus to go out of the front door and open your heart and move forward that makes up a life.

Kate and I and Elio did this in Brooklyn, I hope we continue to do this wherever we are.

I hope this does not sound preachy. It is more for me, for me to remind myself that this is what is important. The lessons learned and reinforced here are about experiencing the day with Elio. Seeing the land and not trying to record it. Cooking simply. Connecting food to land, egg to chicken. Taking a moment or many moments to sit and talk. Saying hello. Acknowledging people. Being present. These are all hard to do.

How do we translate this experience to everyday life in a busy place where money tends to guide you around and towards ends that may not be important to you. Not sure.

I made a cup of coffee for Salvatore today. He came into our little house, sat and drank and had a cookie. (Cookies we made with walnuts from the walnut tree in the garden.) This is one things I know Kate and I are missing, sitting with friends and sharing food. We would hope to do more of it if we come back here to live for a few more months, but I know we miss it with our community back home. That is the place (at the table), I think, that Kate and I have continually been able to approach these lessons.

Let yourself be silently drawn by the stronger pull of what you really love. It will not lead you astray. Let the beauty you seek be what you do. --Rumi

Entry #13: Vallelunga, Sicily: Kate

2009-10-23T15:09:00.003-04:00

I have a whole other entry I need to write, about our trip to Modica and Ragusa, but the three of us just came back from Vallelunga, where we went to our pizza place. It's pouring rain, great streams of mud-making rain, which has grown somewhat synonymous with our time in Sicily. The drive to Vallelunga is just long enough to listen to all of Simon and Garfunkel's "My Little Town" and then start it up again before you find a parking spot, so we drove in the rain, singing loudly, miming the cowbell. Elio piping up from the backseat: "Who is 'my father's son'? Why is she hanging up laundry in the 'dirty breeze'?"

"Because they live near a factory."

"What's a factory?"

"A big building where people build things, like cars."

"Or sinks?"

Yes, or sinks.

We finally succumbed and let Elio order wurstel (hot dogs) on his pizza, along with prosciutto. Guy and I got ours with artichokes, egg, and onion and shared a Dreher, the cheap beer of choice around here. I think the family at the pizza shop is wondering why our Italian hasn't gotten any better yet.

On our way home, we sang again. It was a nice end to a nice day. One I'd like to remember for its unremarkable-ness, just its all over shimmer of happiness. Even in the rain.

Entry #12: The central Sicilian countryside, mid-September to mid-October: Kate

2009-10-19T13:01:00.004-04:00

The Elio Files...
(Attention, Video below)

"Harken stranger, shun the danger! If you plan to stay the same, you must go back from whence you came!" —William Steig, "Shrek"

About 20 times a day, Elio shouts out the above quote, out of the blue, at top volume. His mind is aswirl right now with books we have read together, stories we have told him, bits of movies and cartoons he has seen...all these different tales go in his ears and then get processed and gobbledy-gooked in his brain and come back out in strange and brilliant ways. He is growing and blossoming since our time here in all kinds of ways. It's also tough, being together all the time, I think, for all of us. We get a little sick of each other, we could use a little relief. But when Guy and I are able to keep our hearts and brains clear, we're astounded by Elio and his fertile, ceaseless, wacky imagination (and thankfully, his imagination can sometimes be what makes our hearts and brains clear, by cleaning them out with a good laugh).

When we flew out of New Jersey, I had packed about 15 books, colored pencils, two little Playmobil pirates, some stickers, his stuffed monkey, playdough, that's about it. Not much for two months away. Since we've been here, we've acquired a soccer ball, two more books, both in Italian, some cast-off cars, farm animals and a plastic helicopter from Giovanna (the copter was missing propellers, but we fashioned some new ones out of cardboard and a paper clip), and lots of homemade toys, mostly made from more cardboard. First, there are the swords that Guy made for him (since we've gotten here, we've totally given up on raising a pacifist...he's just one of those kids that seems to love playing with--and talking about, god, the nonstop talking--swords, spears, bows and arrows, cannons, etc. ) We've decided that totally forbidding him from playing with these kinds of things is stupid, but if he does get too rough with them, they go away for a day or so. Then there's the pirate ship that Guy also made him, a feat of cardboard and packing tape engineering. We've gone through a lot of packing tape. Then there's the hook, like Capt. Hook's, but which can also be a fishing hook if you feel like playing Fisherman instead. Or it can help people escape from a fire if you're playing Fireman. Or it can be used as a life ring if you're playing Lifeguard. The other day, I made him a pair of binoculars out of two used toilet paper tubes. We went birdwatching with them. I also made a pretty fine shield, out of a Tasca d'Almerita wine box, so it has a beautifully regal red lion on it. I'm quite proud of that one.

In the last week or so, we've seen a slight shift in attention from pirates to knights. So we've been digging up stories to tell him like "The Sword in the Stone" and "Robin Hood." At night, when one of us goes over to the main house to get online, we try to look up some stories to remind us of the details so we can retell them, things like "The Emperor's New Clothes," "King Midas," "The Princess and the Pea," "Jack and the Beanstalk." If he had his way, we would tell stories all day long. (We're also realizing why these stories are classics--they're so fun to tell! BTW, if anyone else has story suggestions, let us know.)

Before we left, we did stock up on DVDs for Elio to veg out with, not realizing that most DVDs can't be played in different countries. Super frustrating. The only ones he has been able to watch are these Kipper videos that the Roaches made for us, and lo, we have watched A LOT of Kipper. They're these very gentle stories about a dog named Kipper and his animal friends. They all talk with British accents, but the one, Tiger, is especially funny because he gets frustrated very easily, which I think Elio can relate to. When he's upset, Tiger plods along with his shoulders slumped, and Elio has taken to doing this to make us laugh. And it's pretty hilarious to see him do it. But the best part is that he's doing it with a totally straight face, and this is a first--that idea of making someone laugh by doing something very seriously. Or sometimes we look up and realize that Elio has been staring at us with a silly look on his face, just waiting for us to look at him. The kid has a sense of humor. Thank goodness.

What else. We do have the soccer ball, but we just as often walk down to the monkeyfruit trees and kick the sticky balls around or play bocce with them. Or play made-up games with buckeyes. It's very Martha Stewart Kids gone native. About 2 weeks ago, we found a freshly squashed frog on the road, and that led to many philosophical conversations about blood and guts and death, with new layers of questions every day when we would go to check on the state of the body. He arrived at the insight that the frog's mommy and daddy must have been very sad when he never came home, but was equally curious about why flies like to gather on dead animals. The other day, we were in Vallelunga, we passed one of the butcher shops, where we've already seen some interesting things, but this time, there was a whole cow's head, hanging by its nostrils, its huge tongue hanging way down, its eyes wide and glassy, with some tufts of fur still around its nose. I found it brutal to look at, but Elio was very interested and really wanted to study it and talk about it, so we did. He seems to understand that people, including us, eat these things, and the only time he seemed on the verge of getting upset about something was when we had roast chicken the other night, and he thought it might have been one of the hens that live outside our bedroom and was reassured to learn that it wasn't.

The only downside to all this creative play and questioning is that it most often involves US (i.e. Guy and me). Elio is still not good at playing by himself for very long, which is frustrating when we have work to do. One thing that he will play for a few minutes here and there is "The Sausage Game." He hangs a salami from a door knob and twists the string very tight and then lets go so that the salami spins around very fast. It kind of reminds me of Laura Ingalls Wilder writing about her corn cob doll. But slightly more pathetic. Eh, we'll take what we can get.

There have been some outings too. One thing we've done in both Vallelunga and Valledolmo is ride bumper cars. The first weekend we were here happened to be the festival for Vallelunga's saint, so they had a bunch of stuff going on, including a "parco giochi," which seems to mean both playground and amusement park, in this case, the latter. Elio was beyond excited. There were about seven sort of ticky-tacky rides, that are carried from town to town on trucks, all with lots of bright lights and loud techno music. He loved them all, but then we went on the bumper cars. Again, we were there at 9 p.m., the very first people there, so we were the only ones driving. I've never seen Elio laugh so hard, as whipped around with Justin Timberlake pounding on the sound system. When we went to Valledolmo the other day, we saw bumper cars set up (I realized it was actually the same set-up, because there was the same surly lady and the same circa-1996 Brad Pitt poster hanging up behind her). Of course, we went on, and then went back last night, which was exciting because the place was full of gangly pubescent boys with spiked hair and flashy glasses. Joy for Elio.

Blog Entry #11. Formaggio e Vino, Sicily. End of September/Early October: Guy

2009-10-16T04:23:00.005-04:00

It has happened, a month has gone by and in about two weeks we leave. We have experienced so many things. The grape harvest is just about to wrap up. I made it out about four times. For as many men that work during the harvest I found that I came across the same ones again and again. Some of the guys would try to get in every photo, holding poses as they dumped their bucket of grapes into the hopper. Others were shy. All of them nice and seeming to enjoy a camraderie that comes with long hours and hard work. Something very sweet, I thought, was that brothers would work opposite each other down a row, and fathers and sons too. All day, everyday. It reinforced the idea of family that is strong among Italians and I would say strong among people in rural places. They made the work look easy because they seemed to be in mostly cheerful moods. But there is a lot of bending over that I am sure is hard on your back and neck. Next week the olive harvest begins which will involve loking up while holding a pole over your head for hours and also bending down to pick up the olives. But this is what the work is here. Also, there seems to be an irony in seeing young men wearing fashionable, sporty zip-up jackets doing manual labor. But this is clearly my outsider perspective. There is no accounting for men's fashion and hairstyles in these villages.

Onto the sheep/dairy farm, Caseificio Privitera Enzo in Vicaretto - Castellana Sicula. Fabrizia is having Phillipo, the sheep farmer/cheese maker, test some cheeses she wants to offer as a product. (Pecorinos with coriander seeds, peppercorns or hot pepper flakes.) We visited him one afternoon and I went back a few mornings later to watch him make the cheese with sheep's milk that was just milked the night before and that morning. I knew nothing about making cheese, so the whole process was new to me. Phillipo makes Primosala, Ricotta and Pecorino. Here is a basic breakdown of how it works. Take the milk and heat it up to 36°C. Put in another pot and add rennet. Rennet makes the milk come together to a semi-solid state. Let this sit for about half hour or so. Drain the leftover liquid back into the cooking pot and reheat to 78°C. Meanwhile, take the solids and put them into plastic forms to become Primosala or Pecorino.

Back to the cooking pot. This is where you make the Ricotta (re-cooked). When it comes together at around 78°C scoop off the solids into mesh baskets and bring them to the shops in the nearby villages. This is the best Ricotta. Smooth, flavorful, naturally sweet. They gave me a plate to try right out of the pot. It was really really good, but at the same time, when it is hot like that it is still quite sheepy tasting in a way that made me a bit woozy on an empty stomach and seeing the sheep out in the yard...

Next you salt the cheese in the plastic forms and then cover them with the remaining liquid from the cooking pot. (There is no waste in the process.) The forms sit in the hot liquid and set up for a few hours. You then take them out of the plastic forms and put them in these beautiful woven basket forms. These baskets look as if they have been used for centuries and they have a warm earthy smell to them. They seemed very Asian in a way. The cheese then sits in these to cure. Depending on how long you cure it you either get Primosala (one day) or Pecorino (weeks to months). Before there is any curing or salting you have what is called Tuma. This is lovely in its own right. Soft and firm, mild flavor that has a mouthfeel I could never describe.

Phillipo and I had a few conversations of sorts. I am starting to understand more and more Italian, but responding back is hard. He was so gracious and really wanted me to understand the process. Towards the end he even said I was too skinny and invited me to stay for pranzo. I didn't, but once I can communicate more I hope to take people up on offers like that.

Again, we are feeling fortunate to be here. This makes me want to seek out American artisans making cheese and other products that are so direct and immediate. There is a sheep farm right in Long Valley, NJ, near my mom's house. They are making great cheese there, too.

When we are back in the States I am sure we will pay more attention to people making things by hand.

Entry #10: Case Vecchie, Sicily. End of September: Kate

2009-10-15T13:12:00.002-04:00

Since we arrived here, I have been listening almost nonstop to "The Essential Simon & Garfunkel." I found it among the small pile of CDs next to the stereo in our little apartment here, and there's no great mystery to the draw of it. We're in this faraway land, in a faraway head space, and to hear the music of home is comforting. One particular song that I've never paid much attention to before, but now hits me especially is "Bleecker Street." It makes me think of our time in that tiny apartment, watching the snow fall out the back windows, blanketing the buildings, while washing dishes in the sink or chopping onions on the radiator. I think, quite simply, that I'm a little homesick, but I've been a bit surprised that it's New York that I'm homesick for. I didn't expect that, for some reason. And it's complicated by that fact that New York isn't home any more, and we're not quite sure where home is right now or will be.

And of course, all this is aggravated by the news about Gourmet. It's been a week since they closed it, and I feel like the news is never far from my mind. Around 6 every morning, the men who pick the grapes gather under our window and then leave for whatever field they will work that day, and I always wake up as I hear their little Fiats arrive and their greetings to each other. I can't get back to sleep and invariably I start thinking about Gourmet, imagining the empty offices, wondering what everyone will do, trying to imagine what it felt like to get that news. Morbid, huh? The night before they made the announcement, I had just finished my first round of headnotes that I was doing for them, and I can't help but feel like there's all this great food going to waste, so many good recipes that people may never know about. Sad. And also feeling guilty because the day when everyone there were cleaning out their offices, I was drinking champagne and sharing an incredible meal with Fabrizia and Gianni and the two Maltese chefs and getting to take a sunset walk and watching the evening light settle around the Sicilian hills.

Anyways. My brain is swirling with thoughts of here and there. Here, which is admittedly idyllic, simpler, quiet, elemental. There, different. Not better or worse, just different. Our life in Brooklyn couldn't be more different than our life here, with its treks to the playground and library and museum, running to the corner for more organic milk, meeting friends in the park, choosing between sushi and tacos for dinner, hearing the squeal of the bus and the blaring bass from cars on Washington Avenue, heading out to New Jersey for weekends and our nature fix. Yesterday afternoon, we drove out with Fabrizia to a shepherd/cheesemaker's place (Guy will write more about this, I think), and on our way there, we crossed over a little stone bridge, and Elio said, "Mommy, this is like going over the bridge to get to New Jersey, the one with the subways on it." Not quite, kiddo. Everything here is our nature fix. This afternoon, we spent time in the orchard, with Elio climbing a ladder to pick persimmons, while Guy sat under a tree eating pomegranates (which he had just picked) and shelling walnuts (which he opened with a rock). I snacked on figs from another nearby tree. It's kind of ridiculously Edenic.

Of course, we don't spend all our time at Case Vecchie. (Which, by the way, is the name of Fabrizia's family house, where we are staying. It's more of a compound, where you walk in through a big blue gate (all the trim here is painted a bright royal blue) to a large stone square courtyard, with all the buildings built/connected around it. To the immediate left, up a few steps, is our place; if you walk past our steps, you enter the "big kitchen," where the cooking classes take place. Behind it are giant stone barns where they store tractors, farm tools, etc. Past the kitchen is a small apartment for Salvatore and his wife, Paula, for them to use when they're not in Valledolmo. Next to their place is Giovanna and Pompeo's place, where they live with their two teenaged children. Giovanna and Pompeo are the ones who keep this place physically going (maybe more on this later). Then next to them is a giant whitewashed store room where they store grapes at times, but which also has old tools and saddles displayed in there. Lovely. Then another storeroom where they keep old furniture, their tomato sauce, cleaned bottles and jars, other random odds and ends. This is also where Giovanna goes to shell almonds when she isn't running around taking care of everything else. Then finally, you get to Fabrizia's family's apartment. Below it is a wine shop where you can buy bottles of wine or, more commonly, where restaurant owners come to buy table wine, red, white or rosé. They come with their own 10 or 20-liter plastic jugs and they fill them up via gas pumps. It's fantastic.)

No, we don't spend all our time here. When we want a little excitement, we head into Vallelunga, which is an easy five-minute drive away, or the rather more picturesque Valledolmo, which is a slightly harrowing 15 or 20-minute drive, depending on the state of the roads. (The first few days we were here, we thought we would never be able to find these places on these twisty, unmarked roads. Now, no problem.) These towns, both of which probably have a couple thousand people each, are so interesting, mainly because they are real. They are not touristy in any way. When we pull up, we are immediately recognized as outsiders (though I think we're now getting to be known as "those weird Americans who keep hanging around"). In Vallelunga, we go to a few of the alimentaris, to pick up coffee, cereal, boxes of pasteurized milk for coffee, Nutella; to the frutta truck for plums and bananas; to Franca's for bread; to one of the bars on the corner for OK gelato and a macchiato. In Valledolmo, we go to the "big" supermarket for cans of chickpeas and bags of prunes and raisins. There's a terrific pizza place across from the bar in Vallelunga that I love. We're always the first ones there when they open at 8 (silly Americans, wanting to eat dinner so early), which is when the wood-burning forno is ready and up to temperature. We tried another pizza place in Valledolmo last night...it was actually a proper restaurant that also serves pizza, and it being Saturday night, it was jumping. We, of course, were the first customers, followed by a table of about ten 10-year-old kids, boys and girls, who were crazy loud and hilarious (especially when they all jammed together into the tiny bathroom and the waitress had to go in and yell at them to get out). Most of the kids ordered the Pizza Americana, which is pizza topped with french fries. Please. As the evening went on, the place filled up with people our age, dressed up, and older. Everyone seemed to know at least one person at each table. There were also groups of teenagers, the girls all wearing sparkly belts, one boy wearing a black dress shirt with a fluorescent pink necktie with a friend who was wearing a bright pink sweater.

This entry has turned into a big mumble jumble. But I think that's a bit of what my brain is like right now.

Blog Entry #9. First days at our new home, Case Vechicce, Sicily. September 15 - 22

2009-10-10T09:16:00.005-04:00

Blog Entry #9. First days at our new home, Case Vechicce, Sicily

THOUGHTS AND OBSERVATIONS:
I run everyday. My runs here are around the vineyard. By the time I get out in the morning the workers have been picking grapes for about an hour or so. Many times I can hear them in the slopes of the fields snipping and talking to each other through the vines as they work down a row. Tractors full of grapes inevitably pass me on their way to the winery to drop the grapes and go back for more. I wave to the drivers and now they wave back, they are used to seeing me. I am sure they think I am silly. Recreational exercise here is not really a priority. Especially during harvesting season, or any season maybe.

It is true here, as in any rural agricultural place, the life is simple. Wake up, work, stop at the bar/cafe on the way home, pick food from your garden, eat, sleep. But it is very hard. It seems most of these guys work everyday whether it is for the vineyard or on their own land.

Deep red/purple grape juice leaked from the tractor stains the road and the scentl that lingers, sweet and a bit musty too, is part of my daily life at the moment. One stretch of road has me running between fields of vines and acres of olive trees. They are hanging low with olives that are slowly turning from bright green to reddish black. There is smoke in the air too, morning and evening. The tradition of burning the fields is still practiced here. This all reminds me of New Mexico. It may be cliche to talk of the seasons, following the seasons. But I think we did this more in New Mexico than in New York. There is certainly change of season in New York, but my memory of it was not of sweet scents and natural rhythms. I can't pretend to have lived off the land in New Mexico or that I think we could anywhere. But I do like seeing the land, being part of it in a more physical way.

It is funny though, we are actually very busy here with our projects and taking care of Elio. I have been taking pictures of food and harvesting. I have been pulling vegetables, roots and all, out of the garden and shooting them in a make-shift studio. I have been shooting stuff in the kitchen as well. (Processes and finished dishes.) I have also been making a detailed map of the Giardino (the garden). Interesting side note: In Italy there are two different names for gardens. A flower garden is called a Giardino and a vegetable garden is called an Orto. I am shooting food in the Orto as well. One of the staff here, Salvatore, helps take care of the Orto. One day he was asked to pick some Fichi di India. Fichi di India (Prickly Pear) grow all over this region.

So my projects are taking time. Not sure what Fabrizia (our host) will do with all this material just yet. Kate is busy editing recipes, especially when guests are here. She observes the cooking and takes notes to make sure the recipes work and are written in a logical way.

Even though we are busy it is easy to observe the beauty and simplicity in simple things: water draining down the courtyard after the nets for the upcoming olive harvest were washed. Sage leafs (picked from the garden) cleaned and sitting on a paper towel to dry. The perfection and minimalism of the rows of vines. Methodically cracking almonds open that are from trees on the estate (they smell and taste like almond flavor was added to them). Playing with Elio in the shady part of the garden. I know I appreciate moments like these in my daily life no matter where I am, but here, right now, things seem to be magnified.

ABOUT FOOD. For the last three days two chefs from Malta were here. Super nice guys. Hani and Ryan. They are traveling around Italy to learn about old ways of cooking, simple methods. Yesterday alone they made 8 dishes just for lunch! and, of course, there is wine with most meals. (Although with Fabrizia's father not here this week we have been able to avoid some wine consumption. When he is here there is a white and a red open. All the time.)

Lunch today with Hani and Ryan was spectacular. Fabrizia found fresh sardines in town and they had a kind of Iron Chef cook-a-thon. The best dish, which I did not have time to photograph, was the crudo sardines on bruschetta. (They used lemon/olive oil/salt and oregano). So simple. The rolled sardines have bread crumbs in them and are baked with bay leaf and lemon (pictured). In winter they use lemon and orange slices. This will be on the Christmas Eve menu this year. The fried sardines (pictured) are soaked in vinegar and dipped in semolina and then fried in olive oil. Oh, we started with pasta which had a sauce of sardines and wild fennel. Give me a break. I may run again tonight.

Entry #8: Catania, and the arrival to Case Vecchie, September 22: Kate

2009-10-05T10:28:00.004-04:00

Before I write about Catania and the colorful, boisterous, eye-opening fish market, first I want to write down a remembrance from today so I don't forget. After lunch today (a simple minestra, some steamed broccoli, a frittata of zucchini and onion), Elio and I went down to the garden. On the steps, we found a pomegranate that had fallen from one of the boughs that Fabrizia had cut to decorate the table. We picked it up and went to the "Summer House," as we have taken to calling this one lovely, shady spot in the garden (from "Little Bear's Visit") which is under a walnut and a chestnut tree and has a little stone bench, another metal bench and some rustic tables made of big stones. Elio and I split open the pomegranate and each took half to our respective benches and had a very nice conversation about Peter Pan and pomegranates and Halloween and other things, while we picked at the seeds. It was very civilized. Then he came over to my bench and eventually stretched out with his head in my lap, which was very cozy, until he started talking in his crazy pirate voice about cutting off my wrists. And that's pretty much how all our conversations end up these days.

Oh well. Catania. But maybe first, one thought on Taormina. Before we left Brooklyn, I had a long talk with our friend Nancy's Aunt Ellen about her visit to Taormina back in 1956. She was enchanted by it and ended up staying for several weeks. She said she could never go back because her memories of it are so special, and she wouldn't want to see it changed. I don't know if I will have the heart to tell her just how much it has changed. I wonder if she would recognize it. What I will think of it is standing underneath a flimsy awning as the rain poured down, wondering how much more rain we could see on our trip (lots more, it turns out).

OK, driving into Catania was nuts, intense. Scooters driven by 12-year-old kids, daring you to kill them. Tiny Fiats, horns honking. Finally we pulled off into some kind of a side street and parked and Guy figured out how to get a parking slip for our window (what an accomplishment!), and we made our way to the fish market just before noon. I've never seen 90% of these fish before: sardines, tuna, swordfish, octopus, prawns--these I know. Everything else was a mystery. Guy immediately got lost in the crowd, taking lots of pictures. Elio was, of course, amazed by the swordfish, whose heads are sawed off and displayed with their swords pointing proudly (tragically?) up. There were also fruit and vegetable sellers, cheesemongers, dried meats for sale, and I took the opportunity to buy pasta, olives, cheese, and fruit, happy to know that we would soon have a little kitchen of our own to make some of our own food once again. We ate lunch at a little place right off the market...I don't remember the name of it now, but I think we were very gauche there when we asked them not to send out some of the food we had ordered because we knew it would just be too much. Not surprisingly, we left Catania with the rain pouring down, first running to get to the car, with Elio on my shoulders, then winding our way out of the narrow streets, looking for the green autostrada signs, then as we continued west, trying to catch a glimpse of Etna, inching our way toward Regaleali and Case Vecchie (with one brief, but heart-stopping stop in Enna, in which we found ourselves in the steepest, tightest dead end ever; the gelato felt deserved after that adventure).

And then we came to Case Vecchie. And there's much to say about that, but Guy and I have just come from a little walk up the way to see the full moon. Tonight we celebrated Gianni's birthday (Fabrizia's boyfriend). Their laughter, and their friends', floats over the courtyard into our little home. We are full of wine and cannoli (so much to say about that, but I feel speechless because I've never tasted anything so delicious), and it is time to go to bed and try to sleep before the mosquitos get us. We are settling in.

Entry #7, Agriturismo #2 and We Make it to Sicily, September 19-20: Guy

2009-10-02T15:10:00.004-04:00

If you are following this blog be sure to read Kate's entry below before reading this one. It is hard to follow Kate's great writing and descriptions. I guess that is why I take pictures. So, as Kate said, she picked the first Agriturismo and it was my job to pick our next place to stay. We wanted to get within driving distance of Regio-Calabria where we would get on a ferry and about 20 minutes later land in Sicily. This basically meant we needed to stay near the coast in the province of Calabria, Italy. The choices were slim. Most people said go to Amalfi, but that did not seem right to us. We, perhaps naively, want to have more of a rustic family experience. So I looked for Agriturismo #2. I found Torre Dei Cavalieri di Malta, in Gizzeria Lido, Calabria. The photo of the place looked rustic, maybe a bit too much, but our choices were limited. I chose it and we headed out. It is situated in the hills above a small summer tourist town, Giizzeria-Lido. (This is basically near the toe of the boot.) Not the Amalfi coast, but it is lovely even though it is a bit run down. (and very off-season).

Driving there was an experience all its own, it was getting dark, well, it was dark by the time we found it. The connections to the film Pyscho are eerie. The approach up a steep driveway, no one there to great you, no lights on... then a man comes out of the shadows smelling of beer. (This turns out to be one of the caretakers of the property, Stefano.) He kindly goes inside to get the owner who is a well dressed elderly man, Giuseppe Trapuzzano. (We later find out that he is 92!). He shows us to our room which is up two flights of stairs and through a series of doors. The wind is blowing through all the palm trees and courtyards on the property. Dogs, many dogs, are barking, cats are running under foot. It was truly a strange scene. It is a grand room with very nice antique furniture and mattresses from the 1960's. I am not exaggerating. We, of course,are starving. So Stefeno offers (insists) on escorting us to the nearest pizza joint where there is a lovely woman working who speaks English. Catherine from Manchester. We go inside and order some pizza as Stefeno sits outside smoking and drinking more beer. We finish and head back.

I lock every door possible, (actual visions of Stefano coming up to our room and doing all those things scary movies make you think about are running through my head). I try to find an alternative exit, there is none. I sleep for about 4 1/2 hours vowing to get up early and leave immediately. I get up early and I am ready to go before Elio and Kate are even awake. If you know me, this is rare.

But, of course, Giuseppe is awake and, of course, he is the most lovely and gracious man. He shows us around the property which is beautiful inside and out. Ther are acres of olive groves where tourists would come and camp while on vacation. He has about 20 bungalows, and even more rooms like ours. He has an amazing collection of miniture statues and sculptures (I did not take enough pictures inside). And the tile floors seem to be all hand painted brightly colored tiles. He has chickens, goats, orange trees. Amazing. Plus there is a thousand year old Torre (tower) on the property. Clearly a lookout tower so you could see any enemies approaching your coastline... The story is this was a grand place with a restaurant and music and dancing. But it seems it was at its peak about 20 or 30 years ago. I am sure we would have had an interesting experience no matter where we stayed that night, but I am happy we had this one.

Finally we head out, get on the ferry and make it to Sicily. We stay in another run down beach town, Letojanni, which is just below Taormina. Taormina is the much recommend town up on a cliff looking over the sea. We went up to the town that night to get dinner. Taormina is a mess, sadly. It has basically turned itself into a high-end shopping mall. It was raining most of the time we were up in town that night. (When the rain broke I was able to get this picture overlooking the Ionian sea.) Returning that night to our little room in the run down beach town of Letojanni, I was happy, again, to be where we were.

In the morning we set off for the fish market in Catania.

Entry #6, Leaving Orvieto for Altavilla Silentina, Italy, September 18-19: Kate

2009-10-02T13:34:00.009-04:00

Just to give you a sense of how we're doing these blog entries: We have been writing in the evenings, while the other is putting Elio to bed. Guy edits the photos and then we write in his mail program. The next day, he takes the computer down to the drive-up wine shop below us (more on that later), hooks up to Giuseppe's internet connection and uploads the photos and text. It feels very archaic. Not having constant (or any, really) internet has been interesting and, ultimately, good. It's so easy to veg out with the computer. Instead, we're writing, talking, reading, marveling over the hilarity slash brilliance of Elio, doing too much sudoku, and going to bed early.

OK, then, final thoughts on Orvieto. On our second night there, Guy put Elio down while I sought out an internet cafe to try to find us a place to stay the next night. Paying 3 euros for every 30 minutes of connection anted up the pressure on finding something quickly, and I actually can't remember the process that took me to the Agriturismo Mammarella outside of the teensy town of Altavilla Silentina, about 5 hours south of Orvieto. I was struck by the fact that they had a playground and it seemed that Elio desperately needed something that was just for him, instead of being dragged around all over by us, doing grown-up things. Before we left in the morning, though, we stopped at the panificio down the street from the apartment, because Nancy had told us they had great baked goods and pizza. We got bomboloni and cornettes for breakfast, but their pizzas looked amazing--paper-thin crusts covered with beautifully thin slices of zucchini, or rosy halves of cherry tomatoes, or tomato sauce with a few slices of anchovy here and there, shavings of onion. We got about five pieces to eat later for lunch, then went to sit in the Piazza del'Repubblica to eat. I went to get us a couple of macchiatos (getting coffee to go in Italy is a near impossibility, and it feels idiotic--such a nice tradition to stand at the bar and down your espresso, talk a bit, then move on). Anyways, by the time I got back to Guy and Elio, they had plowed through a couple of the pieces of pizza. I ate my onion slice and was transported. This was the best pizza we had ever tasted. We went back and got another five slices. (Guy's bomboloni, filled with fresh pastry cream was equally outrageous.)

Then we headed south, skirting Rome. As soon as we got below Rome, it seemed like the landscape changed. It got drier, scrubbier, the buildings shabbier, the clarity of the light sharper. Mostly, it started reminding us of New Mexico. We liked the looks of things. Once we got off the autostrada, our directions were meaningless. We bumped over dirt roads, seemingly spiraling deeper into a countryside that was, as Guy put it, "more agro than turismo." Olive trees, fields, some grapes, a strong smell of manure everywhere. Finally, somehow, we found our way to the agriturismo, which was just lovely, with huge gardens dripping with eggplant, tomatoes, squash, ripe figs, plus goats, horses, donkeys, peacocks, hens, turkeys, and one large white dog. Unfortunately, we also learned that they had another booking simultaneous to ours, and they didn't have room for us. But handsome Antonello, the owner, was able to put us up in his friend's little hotel less than a kilometer away, and we had our meals at the main place, lurked around using their wireless connection, and gave their tiny playground a workout.

Dinner that night was ridiculous. We called uncle at 11 p.m., well before dessert (a delicious-looking tiramisu) because we were afraid of exploding. A quick synopsis: First, out came a plate of what I can only call sopapillas, topped with a vivid confetti of fresh tomatoes and parsley. I've never had anything like that combination of warm, puffy, fried dough with ultra-ripe, flavorful tomatoes. Then, a platter of fried nibbles: sage leaves, strips of pumpkin, peppers, and onion, plus crostini topped with wisps of guanciale. Next, a simple farro salad surrounded by thin slices of crisp, lightly pickled pumpkin and peppers. We loved this and were fighting Elio off for it. After that came thin slices of their own homemade prosciutto, plus wedges of pecorino dotted with peperoncini and pieces of cacciocavalla. Next, grilled ricotta next to small tomatoes stuffed with rice. Nice. After that came what we thought was the pasta course: thick homemade noodles with a bit of broth studded with carrots, greens, and potatoes. But then came a platter of homemade cavatelli plus cheese ravioli, all in tomato sauce. Next came thin steaks cooked in their wood-burning oven, plus little roast potatoes. We saw that other tables also got sausage, but we were definitely flagging at this point and could barely make a dent. Guy and I ate all of this with a jug of good red table wine, simple. Plus, we had lots of visits to the playground outside with some kids from the table next to us. What a meal.

In the morning, we waddled back to discover homemade crostatas (made in the remains of the fire from the night before), plus an incredible walnut torte thing that I will somehow get a recipe for. Before we left, we spent lots of time admiring Antonello's new baby, Vito, and Guy took pictures in the kitchen of the cooks preparing lunch: more cavatelli, plus some kind of potato souffle with lemon zest that almost had us stick around for another day. But, finally, we set off for Paestum, which was a half hour way. In true Ambrosino-Winslow fashion, we had to stop on the way to get some lunch (when we would leave Brooklyn for a trip, we would always joke that most of our food would be eaten before we reached the Holland Tunnel, except it was really more truth than joke). We stopped at a grocery store and the man behind the counter made us a killer sandwich of salami and mozzarella di bufalo, a specialty of the area. You can see Elio and me enjoying it. Across the way was a frutta e verdura seller, complete with chile ristras. The New Mexico similarities continue.

Finally, we made it to Paestum (only one gelato and macchiato later). We did not do the place justice. We were there in the heat of the day, at a time when Elio desperately wanted to take a nap, so we walked briskly from one temple to another, but wow. We had it almost to ourselves, and having never really seen any kinds of Roman or Greek ruins, I was stunned. So hard to believe that the mosaic floors have lasted for so many centuries, so easy to imagine people strolling through the long main streets from one end of town to the other. I hope to explore more of this history in Sicily.

Then, finally, back on the road, Elio instantly asleep (though we stopped to get a water-filled plastic bag of more mozzarella first), heading deeper south, into Calabria. Drove through rain, on twisty roads that were as much tunnel as road. Mysterious countryside. We stopped, briefly, at an AutoGrill rest stop and shot this family picture, the wind whipping all around us. Then we pushed on to our final night in mainland Italy, and our strangest yet.

Entry #5 1/2, Orvieto, Italy September 17

2009-09-30T04:30:00.004-04:00

These are images from a little offset print shop I found in Orvieto called Zamperini. Francesco Frustalupi is the owner. He has two exquisite Heildelberg presses. In our broken conversation it was easy to understand that his business is on the way out. It is surprising he has lasted this long. Most printing is done digitally. But it seems he still has some clients wanting hand placed type. I particularly like the picture of the things pinned to the wall above his desk. This collection of things is what makes this place unique, like any collection of things over all our desks, gathered over years and layered.

The smell of the print shop brought me instantly back to the press room at the New Mexican daily paper where I worked long ago. It is a sweet and mechanical smell. Mr. Frustalupi was kind to let me shoot for half an hour in his small shop, but then he surprised me and gave me a gift of some lovely lithographs he printed of an old drawing of a scene of Orvieto. It was a wonderful experience, one I have been fortunate to have many times as a photographer. Openness and Graciousness.

Entry #5:Orvieto, Italy September 17

2009-09-30T04:22:00.006-04:00

Entry #5, Orvieto, Italy: Guy
I have been looking back at the pictures I am making and the pictures I am trying to make. Looking at some of my photos, they are telling a story, but not necessarily my story. So I make other images and these I like even though they are more abstract or personal. This will be a constant struggle, I am sure, between making images that I think I should make and images that I want to make. And sometimes I have a hard time making either. What I do know is that gathering images is important to me for the same reason it is important to most people, to record or document glimpse of a moment with light.

Berlin was the place where I first started to think about reality and romance. Orvieto, like any other tourist town, brings those thoughts back again. Reality happens inside the walls of these tourist cities and outside. Living in Santa Fe for so long gives Kate and I some insight into this dichotomy. In Orvieto you have the lovely streets and sunsets and warm glow of light with an old native guy taking a walk at the end of the day (This is his home, his daily routine.); a sweet street where we stayed our last night in Orvieto with Elio's head taking up half the frame; three views of Gelato; amazing caves under Orvieto dating back to the Etruscans; deep afternoon shadows; and a soccer league playing a game on a miniature soccer pitch to the side of the Duomo. Daily life in any town. The three of us, loving another day, making it through another day, appreciating another day.

Our daily life in any town.

Entry #4 Italy September 14-16

2009-09-28T09:26:00.003-04:00

Entry #4: Kate
So we made it to Italy, flying into the Bergamo airport outside of Milan. Got our car and drove out into rather forbidding skies, up up up to the Alta Citta, a walled city in the hills, where it immediately started pouring. So we drove up and drove right back down again, but on our way we saw a little hole in the wall pizza shop. Totally mediocre pizza but a perfect welcome to Italy experience: tiny shop, Italian pop on the radio, construction workers coming in for pizza and beer to take back to the site, drizzle outside.

In a theme that extended to the rest of our drive through Italy, we had arbitrarily chosen Lucca as our first destination, based entirely on a random email from my Mom, who suggested it. We had found a place to stay right outside the wall (Lucca in Villa), which we found easily enough. We didn't see much of Lucca, but that night we did walk in and eat at a place called Da Francesco, which was full of Americans who must have all read the same Mark Bittman article we did. Fine food, though: meaty tortelli lucchese and farro soup. When we walked out, the sky was flashing with lightning and thunder started rolling, dramatic. We ducked into a little gelato shop (another theme, for sure--in Italy, how is it that gelato can become a daily experience, without second thoughts to consequences of any kind?) and put together a combination of pear and susina (a kind of plum). Then as we started our walk home it began to pour, just pour. We made it to a little tunnel and watched as buckets blew down from the sky. Guy and I looked on in rather shocked silence and then Elio just burst out in hysterical laughter, a reminder that we are on an adventure and who the hell cares if we get a little wet?

It was something that I needed to remind myself of. The first few days were stressful for me. Like I said, we really hadn't planned the trip and were going day by day, and the uncertainty of it was tough on Elio and on us. It was hard for me to let go and enjoy much of it, at first. Guy was much better at being in the moment. I'm working on it.

We ended up wandering around Lucca a bit more in the morning, which was good. Again, a way to slow down. Then we took off for Orvieto (another random choice--I think I remember Guy's mom saying she had been and enjoyed it), an easy drive. Elio (who had developed a cold) slept the whole way down and woke up only as we started climbing up to the town. Then, magic happened. We stopped at the funicular, where there was a tourist office, and a very nice woman there found us a room with a woman named Leonora, who came to pick us up and take her to this magical little place at the far western end of the city. She spoke no English, but her neighbor is an American woman named Nancy who has been married to an Italian man for the past 11 years, so we had an instant translator and tour guide. She introduced Elio to lekka lekkas (chupa chups, aka lollipops), helped us find a great little restaurant (Mezza Luna) where we had fabulous pasta carbonara and an Umbrian hand-rolled pasta called umbriachelle, which came with sausage and mushrooms, and took us on a walk along the far western edge of the wall that we might not have discovered on our own. The views were spectacular, so stereotypically Italian. No wonder people fall in love with the place. Under Orvieto's spell, we decided to spend another night, but unfortunately, Leonora had already rented her place out, so Nancy found us another place, even lovelier...old beamed ceilings, terrazzo floors, spiffy bath. I'll leave the rest of Orvieto to Guy...

Berlin Entry #3 September 12-14 : Guy

2009-09-28T09:17:00.007-04:00

Entry #3:Guy
Berlin. One on again off again rainy Saturday we went to the flea market. I was feeling ill, it turned out to be a stomach flu, but I was really wanting to see more of Berlin and try more food. this is where I had the best falafel, I love food vendors). Just to the side of the flea is a long wall that is designated for graffiti. We wandered up around there and, not surprisingly, there where swings. We also came across a couple who just parked an old motorcycle with a side car. Elio was curious to say the least. They let him sit on it. It turns out that I am the kind of traveler who is willing to talk to everyone and try to communicate with them despite language barriers. Traveling with Elio makes that easier to do.

Towards the end of our stay in Berlin Laula went away for a day and a night leaving us to fend for ourselves. (Even though most people speak some English in Germany Kate and I were still a bit nervous because German is just not an intuitive language for us. It is hard to recognize even the simplest of words.) But it went really well to be on our own. We discovered a different part of Prenzlauerberg and more amazing playgrounds. We even took a trip out of the neighborhood, via taxi, to Kreuzberg.

Kreuzberg is where the Jewish museum is. We wanted to see the building and the garden designed by Daniel Liebskind. I was really put off by it. I like experimental architecture and architecture based on ideas, however this did not work for me. We both left feeling heavy (not that we should feel happy) but there was no sense of transcendence, no sense of moving forward. I will admit that we did not look at all the exhibits, but we did not want to stay and linger and look. The spaces for the exhibitions are awkward and uncomfortable to be in. Because the architecture is so angular it creates a lot of dark narrow spaces. Liebskind created a few "voids" in the building. These are areas that go from the bottom floor to the ceiling, allowing light to come all the way through. But even these were not places you wanted to linger and consider the installations. The garden, which is such a great concept, just felt stifling. I think it is interesting to have the viewer have a physical response to the architecture (a response that may be similar to the discomfort of some of the subject matter) but from there it would seem to make sense to also create an additional space that allows for transcendence. Ultimately I think it was it ill-conceived, so much so that I felt I needed to bore you with my thoughts...

From there we wanted to try more food. Kreuzberg is meant to be the East Village of Berlin. More diversity (i.e. more Turkish people) and home to the Curry Wurst. This famed Berlin food is basically what it sounds like. It is a Wurst sprinkled and cooked with a dry curry rub, then they cover it in ketchup! Oh boy, what an awful thing that was. Maybe if we were drunk and it was 3 in the morning....

I don't want to sign off on this note, we had an amazing time in Berlin. So much so that we are considering spending more time there at some point. The art and energy the parks and openness of the people will always be a draw for me.

Next up: We get to Italy and rent a car...

Berlin Entry #2 September 10&11: Kate

2009-09-25T11:03:00.005-04:00

Entry #2: Kate
I am writing this in our Sicilian kitchen, after a dinner at the cooking school. We are listening to Simon and Garfunkel. A plate of stewed lamb with mint (picked outside our steps) is congealing on the table. Elio is asleep in the bedroom. The moon is rising outside, and it is very quiet (compared to last night's tremendous wind storm). Such is our life right now. A little strange, but lovely in its own way.

Thinking back to Berlin, my thoughts are predominated by the playgrounds. They were everywhere, and it felt like we visited them all. They were both a pacifier to Elio and a tempest. As Guy alluded, we are trying to find out balance of how to travel in a way that satisfies all of us, makes each of us feel that we are getting what we want and need out of this experience. How to get Elio to create a more independent space for himself, while also realizing that this trip is stressful for him, that all he wants is to be close to us, all the time. Which is tough, for sure. Becoming a 24-hour-a-day mom, as opposed to a working mom, is harder than I thought it would be...but that's a whole other thing.

Berlin, the playgrounds--such a contrast to the ones at home. Wooden, very organic, preposterously high slides. They really allowed for very creative, imaginative play. Lots of pirates, lots of Peter Pan, lots of capturing and kidnapping--the obsession continues. Most of them built over sand, so there were also sand and bucket features. What there wasn't was Brooklyn-style helicopter parents. Parents sat on benches, smoking, talking. I liked that.

What I probably won't remember as much about Berlin was the food. We had a few sweet meals, but not so much at restaurants: Breakfasts at Laula's; a wonderful dinner party at her place for which Aurelio cooked (dorade carpaccio with lemon and scallions; a ceviche of salmon, avocado, and mango; thinly sliced porcini with balsamic; scallops served in their shells); the party at Aurelio's commune where he made a gigantic paella full of chicken, mussels, squid, broad beans, shrimp, which took so long because he ran out of gas halfway through and had to get more. (That was also the night we got to hear the commune choir sing a capella versions of goofy American songs...odd and fantastical and hilarious the way only a capella choirs can be.) Perhaps my favorite thing we ate all week was this Turkish street food that we got at the farmers market, after breakfast at Anna Blume. There was a long line, and I knew immediately that I had to try these gozleme...they were like Turkish quesadillas. A woman rolled out the dough, filled it (we got feta and leeks with grated zucchini), then folded it over and rather violently stabbed it together with a knife and then cooked it on a rounded skillet until toasty outside. Then it was served with a terrific tzatziki. Elio and I inhaled it (Guy's stomach was still off at that point--too bad for him). Also memorable: organic wursts with sauerkraut at the flea market, as well as strudel (one apple, the other with quark and plums). Nice.

What else? The Holocaust monument. Powerful, yes, especially the deeper you walk in. But on a more superficial level, also just a great place to take pictures. The light, the geometry, the patterns. Also a little scary because it could have been an easy place to lose Elio. Happily, we didn't.

Berlin Entry #1, September 8&9: Guy

2009-09-25T10:44:00.011-04:00

Entry #1: Guy

Berlin, the first two days. I am not surprised I like Berlin, but I am surprised by Berlin. Unexpectedly green with parks and playgrounds, access to the Spree river, bikes bikes and more bikes. No doubt it is a big sprawling city with many areas that are cut off or underserved. Since I am writing this entry, my first, after being in Berlin and now in Italy, I warn you now that I may write a bit about contrasts between being privledged and not, having access and not, between romance and reality. It is a fine line I am sure i am walking even attempting to think about this stuff, considering that we are very fortunate to be able to make the decision to take this time and travel. We are aware of our privileges, to be sure, but does that make it any better or worse?. So Berlin, like everywhere has both. We stayed in Prenzlauerberg at a friends apartment. (Laula and Tamara). It is a great neighborhood. Families and young couples. Parks and playgrounds literally every 4 or 5 blocks. Berlin is a gracious city with stunning buildings with grand open courtyards. It is the courtyards that made this city special for me. It is that extra layering of welcoming outdoor living space. So, for the first two days, we are holding it together, still releasing stress from the weeks leading up to leaving for this trip. Elio is dealing. Traveling with Elio, with an active little boy, is proving more of a challenge. But we will adjust.

Here is a quick recap of the photos in this entry. All of us in Newark about to board the flight to Copenhagen. From the plane, leaving Copenhagen, windmills in the sea. Laula. Our dear friend Beat who took time to stop in Berlin on his way to Southern Germany to deliver his sculptures and join us for breakfast at Laula's apartment. Kate and Elio. pics from a kayak ride we took on the Spree with Laula. We were half awake but had a great time. this sculpture (which apparently most Berliners hate) is massive. I liked it.

Simple

2009-04-06T13:43:00.004-04:00

There is so much life continuously offers. And I let myself get pulled this way and that. I constantly try to simplify. and then it all comes rushing back. A few months ago i decided to say YES to everything. photography, art, any other work that came my way and really, fro these past months I was happy, busy and somewhat sane. and recently i have pulled back, it has been a subtle change, i am not sure what caused it, maybe going to my studio, seeing all the unfinished projects, getting overwhelmed and secretly saying to myself, NO. no, do not do that one, do that one, trying to simplify. It is a contradiction really, for me. I love the word simple. i love simple food. simple straightforward people, simple design, practical solutions. all this I am drawn to, yet i seem to live, be alive when things do not seem simple and may be it is the words that are wrong. what are the words for what i do. maybe it is the structure that needs to be simple to allow for more chaos with in. i do many things and many things i do well and i enjoy that. how does this relate to food? directly. making food is where i am at once in chaos and at peace with he chaos. i approach it intuitively. and when i approach other aspects of my life like that i feel the same way, in chaos and at peace and happy. it is like being with my little boy. present and crazy and in the moment. i have never been happier than when i am just being with him, playing, not thinking of what is coming up, when we have to be somewhere. It is what is important, ultimately. and that too is the answer being present, if i am present, not thinking (constantly) about what needs to be done or what I want to do in the future, then i can been more chaotic and calm at the same time.

so, today I made leftovers for lunch. in our small kitchen we have created big meals. This kitchen is, in a real way, a good metaphor too. a simple structure allowing for a great many things to happen within it.

quinuo and lentils, both simply steamed and cooked that day before and then made into a salad with olive oil and pepper and a bit of fresh thyme. hummus blended up in abut 5 minutes, start to finish from yesterday. fresh cleaned leaves of romaine gently torn up. and a fried egg on top of all that. heat up the pan with a bit of olive oil and pepper and salt. (let it get hotter than you think) and then crack the egg in. (watch out it will spatter) and cook it a few minutes, turn over if you like. for about 30 secs. put it on top of the leftovers and eat it while egg is still warm. what is it about the egg on top. warm? and don't be like me. drink something. i have to remember to drink water!

LENTILS

2008-03-12T00:06:00.000-04:00

Endless

2007-09-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

Time to revive this blog. Afterall, one of the best reasons to be in New York is the food. These are images from trecks to other neighborhoods in search of...

This small bakery in Sunset Park has a somewhat undiscovered restaurant in the back. We went for the tacos but this bowl of red chile looks good.

This is in Chinatown, the more touristy one in Manahattan. (There is one in Sunset Park we have yet to get to.) The streets are full of smells and images we just do not see everyday, not even in New York. Live frogs piled on top of each other in 5-gallon buckets. This picture is from the end of the day. It tells of a typical weekend in the area, the Chinese shoppers coming for their obscure vegetables and some familiar ones as well, walking through the streets with red bags, stopping at all the stands, fish markets and strange shops with herbs and spices and plastic objects. We went to Doyers Vietnam, had papaya salad with dried beef and then onto sesame ice-cream around the corner. A typical trip for us. And then a nice pattern of green beans.

rain in seattle, soup in our stomachs

2007-01-04T21:37:00.000-05:00

We spent our first rainy morning in Seattle at the public library with Julie and Corey Rose, watching the grey skies through vast diamond-paned windows. Then we got hungry, and the five of us dispatched to the Szechuan Noodle Bowl for lunch. Bare bones: tiny, a few shlubby guys finishing up lunch, white formica tables and amazing photo montages of toy horses that were very wonderfully weird. As is often the case when dumplings are involved, we got greedy and ordered lots--pork as well as spicy vegetable ones, plus one other kind I think. And a bowl of beef noodle soup that arrived the color of mahogany and was like the essence of liquid beef, with a handful of fiery chiles thrown in to temper it all. We couldn't stop eating--"OK, just one more dumpling" until there were none left. Even Corey ate a dumpling or two, and I got a thrill thinking about the first time Elio would get to eat such great food. As we paid our bill, the sun came out, and we sang "Itsy Bitsy Spider" all the way home.

Sripraphai

2006-09-12T22:12:00.000-04:00

Anna and Chad and Dominic were in town for the weekend. So were Andrew and his friend Matt. I think this makes it four times now that Kate and I have been to this Thai restaurant in Queens. (Elio was with us, of course.) Decision made, we got on the 7 train and took our trip to Woodside and 61st st.

Even if the food here was not so good making the trip would still be worth it. The 7 train on a Saturday, or probably any day, is an experience in who lives in New York. My favorite part is when the mariachi bands come on. I like the music but I also like the connection to New Mexico. It is a strange thing to be thrown into thoughts of New Mexico and Santa Fe while riding on the elevated tracks travelling deep into Queens to eat the best Thai food ever. Period.

Menu. Not sure, but is was Spicy. Salty. Sweet. We left full and then went to Central Park.

a lunch

2006-09-06T17:10:00.000-04:00

just a lovely day in June or July of 2005. A weekday. Mom brought in the aunts, Eloise, Kathy and Karen. Earlier in the morning I took Guinivere on a tour of the neighborhood doing my best to point out all the important things to a 13 year old, like the good places to buy soppresatta (Di Paolo's on Grand and Mulberry) and smoked fish (Russ and Daughters on Houston). Then we made cookies. Then the aunts arrived for lunch. Adam joined us for a bit.

It's a wonderful image, Eloise looks great and as always she just has the best spirit. I get upset thinking of her dealing with this cancer. But this is the stuff of life, and she and my family have always showed me that sitting and eating good food together is also the wonderful, truly wonderful act we can do every day. We had fun.

Herring in wine, smoked white fish, cured meats, bread, olives, cookies.

simple. perfect.

finishing up at the morgan arms

2006-09-05T23:58:00.000-04:00

London, East End, Bow. Our first gastropub experience and what a lovely one it was. Regathering with friends and once-upon-a-time two-doors-down neighbors Amy and Michael. We ate well (I remember the warm banana sandwich with clotted cream best) and talked well and laughed well. A warm way to spend a cool, gray day. (February 2004)