Tag: agrigento
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Cooking in Sicily
After a long day working at the computer, I love entering my kitchen, opening the refrigerator, and pulling out what protein I have and what vegetables are in season, and picking out a pasta to match them. There’s something wonderfully meditative about chopping vegetables, sweeping my wooden spoon through the macaroni, and listening to the…
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The Headless Roman
This torso is part of an exhibition at Valley of the Temples in Agrigento. It displays findings from an archaeological excavation of the Roman forum that was conducted between 2012 and 2014. Now, imagine that you spent a lot of time and money creating this statue of the current governor or prefect. Then imagine that…
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Sicily and Brimstone
This may look like chickpea flour, but it’s not. It’s brimstone–otherwise known as sulfur, a natural resource which is found in mines throughout south central Sicily. In the 19th century, sulfur was in high demand because it was used to manufacture gunpowder and matches and to treat diseases–both human and plant. According to Sandra Benjamin…
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Cooking Sicily in New York City
During our Stirring Sicily tour last September, Annalisa Pompeo of GoSicily Sicilian Cooking Experience taught us how to make a savory zucchini tart in one of our hands-on lessons. Yesterday, I made it for Thanksgiving (pictured). This is the joy of taking a cooking lesson while traveling–You can share your cultural experience with friends and family for…
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Buried Treasure? We’ll find out.
This fall, the exciting news from Sicily for geeks like me is that archaeologists believe they have finally found the location of the amphitheater at Agrigento. For centuries, scholars have searched for its location, knowing that a city of the size and magnificence of Akragas, as the metropolis was called during ancient times, must have…
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Savoring Sicily, Day 4: The Wonder in Their Eyes
Visiting the temples for the gods never gets old! For our fourth day of Savoring Sicily, we spent the morning making our way through the Valley of the Temples in Agrigento. The best part for me is seeing the wonder in our clients’ eyes when they see this magnificent, 2-km long UNESCO site. Behind me,…
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Stirring Sicily, Day 6: Hands-on Bread making
We are about to sit in the orchard and eat the fruits of our third Stirring Sicily class today: hands-on bread making! This is truly a marvelous experience… Cooking fresh, savory breads in a wood-burning (olive branches and sage are our kindling!) oven. I wish you could smell it. We are in heaven at Fontes…
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Only the Nuns Know
Only the cloistered Cistercian nuns of Agrigento’s Monastero di Santo Spirito know the secret recipe for their special sweet couscous. I’ve now eaten it a couple of times (You can too, if you come with us for our Savoring Sicily tour in September!), and I can tell you that I tasted pistachios, chocolate, and of course, sugar ……
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He’s So Horny
Agrigento is host to a rare breed of goat called capra girgentana. Distinguished by their spiral, tall horns and long hair, this domesticated animal is valuable for its milk that possesses an equal amount of fat to protein. The name girgentana recalls the old Sicilian name of the city of Agrigento, Girgenti. During the mid-twentieth…