You would have laughed with along with your new “Sicilian family” while having your hands in the dough today as you made fresh cavatelli pasta with tomato sauce and learned the art of cutting prickly pears with our local mamma Annalisa (who is an expert with Fichi d’India cactus!). You would have felt right at home in her retro-style kitchen decorated with lemons as you prepared your dessert of biacomangiare and ate from the bowl of fresh almonds she picked last week in the hills of Agrigento province.
After learning three recipes that you could replicate at home and eating together at her dining table, you would have met Salvatore, an archeologist who would have taken you step by step through the UNESCO site Valley of the Temples. The Temple of Juno with its views of the Temple of Concord would have taken your breath away, the 6th century BCE columns of the Temple of Hercules would have amazed you.
The sun shining off of the Mediterranean sea would have lit up your eyes and your soul… Alas, if we were able to be in Sicily…
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Learn From An Expert With Prickly Pears
About the author
Allison Scola is founder, owner, and curator of Experience Sicily and the Cannoli Crawl. Named one of the experts for the 2019 New York Times Travel Show, Scola writes and lectures on Sicily and leads immersive tours and designs custom itineraries that delight discerning travelers. She has been featured on Rudy Maxa’s World with the Carey’s, America’s #1 Travel Radio Show and as the cannoli expert in the documentary Cannoli, Traditions Around the Table. Scola has lectured about Sicily at University of Pennsylvania, The New School, LIU Post University, Queens College, Westchester Italian Cultural Center, at high schools in the New York City metropolitan area, and at events in New York City.