Sicily

Sicily rings in Easter with baked pasta

Sicily rings in Easter with baked pasta

Posted on by Pat and David
One of the perks of renting an apartment while traveling is that it give us an excuse to go grocery shopping. (As if you could keep us out of the markets....) A particular shape of dried pasta kept catching our eyes in the fresh markets and even in the supermarkets. Called anelletti, it's a small ring-shaped pasta. We kept looking for it on restaurant menus, but to no avail. Eventually we learned that it's mainly used in baked pastas for special events, including Easter. Of course we bought a bag to bring home, and we're glad we did. The shape is a little hard to find in the U.S., as most ring-shaped pastas for sale here are the even smaller rings called anellini, mostly used...Read More
Sausage quest elicits timeworn beauty of Palazzolo Acreide

Sausage quest elicits timeworn beauty of Palazzolo Acreide

Posted on by Pat and David
Good things happen when you follow your stomach. In our reading about Sicily we came across an intriguing gastronomic nugget. The traditional sausage of the mountain town of Palazzolo Acreide was one of more than fifty specialty foods of Sicily celebrated by the Slow Food Foundation. Only a handful of butchers still made the sausage, and only a few places in the town served it on their menus. In the interest of gastronomic preservation, we decided to pay a visit and do our part in keeping the tradition alive. It was, after all, only a 45-minute drive from elegant Noto, where we were staying in a guest room in the Liberty-style Villa Nicolaci (nicolacisuites.it/en/). Moreover, we hoped against hope that the 7th century BCE sanctuary...Read More

Italy #5 — Parmigiano-Reggiano for dessert

Posted on by David
Leave it to the Italians to keep dessert simple. With its strong umami flavor (second only to Roquefort cheese in glutamate levels), Parmigiano-Reggiano makes everything around it taste better. Following the Italian example, we like to make a plate with a mix of nuts, dried fruit, and fresh fruit. This fall, for example, we paired chunks of a two-year-old buttery summer milk Parmigiano-Reggiano with lightly toasted walnuts, diced apple, and buttered slices of baguette. The extra special touch on each plate was a small cluster of raisins that I brought home from Donnafugata's vineyards on Pantelleria. The Zibbibo grape (Moscato di Alessandria) is one of the few things that grows on this windswept rock halfway between Sicily and Tunisia. (The other is capers.) The picked...Read More