Pomegranates (melograni in Italian) are in season. Scholars believe that the fruit was brought to Sicily by both the Phoenicians and the Greeks, not only for food, but also for religious reasons. Pomegranate seeds represent fertility, prosperity, abundance, and generosity. And because of the Persephone myth–when the maiden daughter of the goddess Demeter eats the…
Category: Seasons
Bring Heat To Your 2020 With A Trip To Sicily
Bring heat to your 2020 with a trip to Sicily! I’m thrilled to announce our Experience Sicily 2020 small-group, multisensory tours. May, June, July, and September… all of the details are at https://experiencesicily.com/2020-tours-of-sicily/. The joy we’ll create together will warm your soul for years to come. Amuni’! Let’s experience Sicily together! (Photo Credit: Chiara Musumeci…
Averna: Sicily’s After Dinner Bitter
Averna is an amaro, or a bitter liqueur that many Italians drink after dinner as a digestif. Amari (plural of amaro) can have bitter, sour, or bittersweet taste as a result of the aromatic herbs, bark, fruit, roots, rinds, and more that are combined to create the cocktail. Averna, which was founded in 1868 by…
The Sea (Or Mountains) For Ferragosto
Buon Ferragosto! Ferragosto is the most important holiday of the year for Italians after Christmas and Easter. Synonymous with thoughts of the sea and the mountains (i.e. Vacation), the name Ferragosto is the more common name for the Catholic Feast of the Assumption which occurs annually on August 15.
Happy Tomato Season | Cart Driver’s Pesto Recipe
Happy tomato season! Did you know that you can make pesto with lots of different ingredients? Pesto means pressed. So don’t limit yourself to basil pesto! Another pesto that I love for this time of year, when fresh tomatoes are filling the bins of my farmer’s market, is pesto alla carrettiera, or the Cart Driver’s…
The Easter Bread Arches of San Biagio Platani
Live from Sicily! We’ve experienced so much during these past two days while in Agrigento Province. A highlight has been seeing the work of the two brotherhoods from San Biagio Platini for their annual Archi di Pane, or the Easter Bread Arches. An Easter Sunday procession that unites Jesus and Mary in the center of…
Join Us For Saint Joseph’s Day In New York City
Let’s bake bread together! Let’s celebrate spring’s arrival! Saint Joseph’s Day is approaching, and I hope you’ll celebrate with me Sundays, March 10 and 24 at Cacio e Vino in New York City. The big feast is on Sunday, March 24 at 2PM. We’ll have a prix-fixe traditional menu, a presentation about traditions in southern…
How To Catch Olives
Yes, those are nets. He’s preparing them for the olive harvest. The farmers lay these nets on the ground below the olive trees and, if done in the traditional way with their hands and might, they shake the trees and with their fingers prompt the olives to fall to the ground, catching them in the…
Citron: A Big, Ugly Fruit
Take a second look! These are not lemons, but citrons, cultivated by my cousins Evelina and Salvo in their front garden. In Sicily between Christmas and the end of April, the landscape is in bloom with fragrant, juicy citrus fruits such as these. Cultivated for its thick, white, fragrant rind, citron makes an out-of-this-world marmalade…
Embracing The Longest Night
As we observe the winter solstice, the darkest day of the year, I recall how beautiful the UNESCO site Valley of the Temples in Agrigento, Sicily is at night, when the the monuments, like this, the Temple of Concordia, are lit. Even in ancient times (Concordia was erected between 440 and 430 B.C.E.), it was…