Altar featuring Santa Lucia, Ortigia, Siracusa. Join us on Sunday, December 13 in New York City! Experience Sicily is partnering with Eolo Seasonal Sicilian Kitchen for a special afternoon feast celebrating Santa Lucia. We’ll enjoy traditional dishes (cuccia and arancine), live music (by Villa Palagonia), and a lecture-discussion about the feast (led by Allison…
Tag: ortygia
The Symbols of Santa Lucia
A dagger, eyes on a plate, flames or a torch, and a palm are the symbols of Santa Lucia. A dagger to symbolize how the Roman soldiers finally killed the virgin martyr. Eyes on a plate to remind us that the beautiful maiden’s eyes were either gouged out by the Roman soldiers or she did…
Lovely Bones
Please join me, Allison Scola of Experience Sicily, along with Villa Palagonia music duo and Gelsomino Imports at Eolo Seasonal Sicilian Kitchen in New York City on Sunday, December 13 from 3 p.m. to 6 p.m. for a very special Festa di Santa Lucia event. There will be unlimited exquisite food and wine, live Sicilian-inspired…
Silver Girl
In the days leading up to the Feast of Santa Lucia, December 13, many Sicilians refrain from eating pasta and only eat un-ground wheat grain, or “farro,” that is prepared as a dish called cuccìa. Devotees observe this ritual to remember the severe famine that struck Siracusa and Palermo in 1646. During that time of…
Rigraziamento
Fall artichokes, photographed at the Mercato Antico in Ortigia, September 2015. Buon appetito! Happy Thanksgiving dear readers!
Save the Date for Santa Lucia: December 13 in NYC
As our daylight time gets shorter here in the northern hemisphere, we think about the importance of light, and in Sicily, that equates to the patron saint of light, eyes, sight, and wheat, Santa Lucia or Saint Lucy. December 13 is her feast day, and before the Gregorian calendar was installed, under the Roman calendar,…
Take Out
Pizza delivery: Sicily-style.
Corinthian Leaves
These columns from the Baroque facade of the Duomo on Ortigia are in the Corinthian architectural style for a reason. The city of Siracusa, with Ortigia Island as its jewel, was founded in 734 BC as a colony of Corinth, Greece. Over the subsequent centuries, Siracusa became the most important city of Magna Grecia. Corinthian…
The Myth Behind Ortigia’s Fonte Aretusa
This sea-side fountain on the island of Ortigia–La Fonte Aretusa–is shrouded in myth. Firstly, it’s important to know that it is fed by an underground, fresh water spring. Here’s why: Greek folklore is that Aretusa (Arethusa in English) was a nymph who had sworn her allegiance and chastity to the goddess of the hunt, Artemis….