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.
Category: Seasons
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…
Sicilian Christmas Cookies
Pastries made with filling of chopped dried figs, pumpkin jam, honey, raisins, almonds, orange rind, cinnamon, and Marsala wine are closely associated with Christmas in Sicily. There is a larger, round, cake-like pastry called buccellato, which is also made in an elaborate cookie-sized version known as buccellati. Meanwhile, cuccidati, pictured here, are their sister. They…
Sicily And The Myth of Demeter and Kore
The leaf-less trees along my morning walks in the New York City area are a painful reminder that winter’s arrival is imminent. And so, I think of earth’s seasonal cycles, which for centuries were explained by the myth of Demeter and Kore: Hades, the God of the Underworld, abducted the maiden Kore while she was…
Cannoli By Season
Join me! Cannoli Crawls in New York City October 13 and 27. More at https://experiencesicily.com/events/new-york-cannoli-crawl/ Meanwhile, since I’m currently in Sicily, my cannoli research continues! That means tasting a cannoli at a location I’ve been before, but during September, versus May. This one at La Ruota in Piazza Armerina remains top five! “The season makes…