Four-Legged Garbage Collectors Hit Sicilian Streets

Eco-friendly Sicilian village uses donkeys to help collect garbage

ABC News - Ann Wise writes

The hours aren't bad. They're strictly union: 7 a.m to 6 p.m., six days a week. And the job comes with benefits: a personal assistant, sunbaths in the park, photographs, generous maternity leave.
The job location is decidedly attractive, the peaceful and picturesque Sicilian town of Castelbuono, nestled in the hills just 10 miles from the Tyrrhenian Sea. The climate is Mediterranean.

Candidates for the position must be female, with a strong back and long ears.

...Long ears?

Yes, because the newest employees in Castelbuono are donkeys — Teresa, Valentina, Cosima and Damiana — to be specific. Since February, three of the donkeys (Damiana is presently on maternity leave) have been walking the narrow streets of the old town every morning, helping to collect garbage door-to-door.

"We are saving money," Mario Cicero, the mayor, proudly told ABC News. "The service is just as efficient, and the children love them!" The idea of using the donkeys came to Cicero, 45, late last year. "Yes, the idea was mine. It's patented!" he laughed.

Always seeking new ways to be more ecological and beautify his town, Castelbuono's environmentally conscious mayor has been at work for 10 years in various capacities to make this town of 10,000 residents a model of environmental respect. The town is listed among the top 11 in Italy for environmental quality by the Lega Ambiente, or Environmental League.

Recycling the garbage began in Castelbuono in 1996 and is so successful that the town now separates 42 percent of its waste. "We are one of the most virtuous towns in the country," Cicero exclaimed, with his Sicilian inflection. It was after he became mayor in 2002 that Cicero decided to remove all the ugly, malodorous garbage containers in the historic part of Castelbuono and replace them with door-to-door daily collection of differentiated waste.
The citizens of Castelbuono responded and started separating their garbage, putting it on their doorsteps every morning.

But that was not enough. "I thought about what went on in the historic center of town," recalled the mayor, "where the tourists come across these trucks spewing diesel fumes and stinking of garbage. They block the traffic, too. So I thought, why can't we use something traditional, like our donkeys?"
So now in the small streets of the old town the rhythmic sound of donkey hooves has replaced the rumble and smell of the trucks.

The day starts early for the donkeys as they get groomed and saddled in the little public park on the edge of town. Breakfast is stale bread, prepared for them by their caretaker, Vincenzo Mazzola, a local expert in all things equine. For the moment, the donkeys live in the park.
"I like to let them loose as much as possible," said Mazzola, so afternoons are often spent grazing on empty plots on the outskirts of town. The local agriculture school is preparing proper quarters for them.
"They are all Sicilian donkeys," explained the jovial Mazzola. "We only keep females, because they are generally more docile, and they produce milk and foals."
Donkey milk, it turns out, is a blessing for babies and young children who are allergic to cow's milk. "It's an excellent milk, very sweet, and good for nursing mothers and babies," said Mazzola.
The donkey venture was given a lot of thought. It is not just about charm. "It is educational for the kids, selling milk will provide money for the school, and it is a service to the community," explained the mayor.
At the park, each of the three donkeys is saddled with a leather and blanket affair, and big wooden boxes are tied on either side. The town first tried the more traditional baskets, but those were too deep to reach into. So it settled on boxes — the same kind that 50 years ago were used to transport sand, rocks and other building materials (the bottoms have a hinge and fall open).
At around 7:30 a.m., the three donkeys set out for their routes, each one accompanied by a garbage collector. The men who partner with the donkeys all volunteered and seem both amused and resigned to the task. "You are walking instead of driving," said Mario Citta, "but as long as I have a job …"

Dressed in his bright orange reflective jumpsuit, Citta leads a somewhat reluctant Valentina through the old narrow streets of Castelbuono, pulling her up the hills and stopping here and there to pick up the small bags of rubbish and throw them in the boxes, taking care to keep the weight even on both sides.
"Today we are collecting 'umido,'" Citta explained. "Umido" is what they call organic waste, which will eventually be composted in the planned compost plant. On other days, recycling and "undifferentiated" garbage is picked up. When the boxes were full, Citta stopped at a garbage container on the edge of town and emptied them out.

Women look out for the donkeys from their balconies, and lower their garbage on a string, which Citta dutifully unhooks and drops in the boxes. One woman called to her little boy to come out and see the donkey. "It's a good thing," the elderly Rosario Fiasconaro said, watching from the doorstep. "They come every morning and pick up the bags. It's better than the garbage cans."
But not all the residents of Castelbuono approve. "The townspeople were originally very skeptical," said local police officer Vincenzo Fiasconaro as he watched the donkeys being saddled. "But many people have changed their minds."
But not one resident, who sneered as a donkey passed by. He had a mule 50 years ago "out of necessity, but now there are cars! And the donkeys escape and could kick someone."
He predicted that if the city council changes (elections are May 14) the donkeys will go, "and I hope it changes," he said, as he handed out campaign stickers for the opposing candidate for mayor.
And a street sweeper grumbled that it is all just a publicity gimmick for the mayor, who is up for re-election. "The donkeys take twice as long to do the job," he said.
But Cicero insisted the donkeys are just as efficient and more economical as the "traditional" means of garbage collection. "Three donkeys and three men do the work of two small trucks with four men," he explained. A donkey costs around $1,600 to purchase, compared with $40,000 for a truck. And a truck lasts about five years. A donkey can work until it retires at age 24 or 25. The town is also saving $380 a month in diesel fuel.

But it is not only a question of saving money or improving the environment, as the mayor is very well aware. He has also found something to distinguish Castelbuono from other charming hill towns.
"I also think that if we want Castelbuono to become a tourist attraction, and we cannot compete with places like Palermo or Taormina, we have to have something that is both useful and unique, Cicero said. "In Palermo, you won't see donkeys collecting garbage, but at Castelbuono you will."

But like many public administration jobs in Italy, the fate of Castelbuono's donkeys depends on this Monday's elections. "If I am re-elected, they certainly stay," said Cicero. "I don't think a new administration would put the garbage cans back in the streets, and I doubt they would send the donkeys away. But I have no way of knowing."

Air Malta boosts flights number to Sicily

Air Malta has announced changes to its summer timetable that will see an increase in some of its flights from airports in the UK.

The carrier will boost flight numbers on its route between Gatwick Airport and Catania in Sicily to five per week from April 4th by operating an extra service on Fridays, TravelMole reports.

Another victim of Sicilian Ma...gnificence

Sicily has a serious plague.

This island claims a number of victims every summer: It is a cruel land with no mercy, even for the bravest visitor. It is the syndrome that afflicts the entire island. You know what I am talking about. The syndrome of Sicilian Ma...gnificence, that leaves every tourist stunned by the breathtaking scenery, delicious meals and a heavy dose of history.

July Besonen from the NY Daily News is the latest victim today.

Sicily made me fall in love with Italy all over again. Though I'd heard raves about the food, every meal - indeed, every morsel I ate - exceeded my expectations.
The island's fat, green and brown olives burst with juice. Sweet, plump oranges are sold with leaves and twigs still attached. I've had fish on the coastlines of four continents, but I've never tasted pesce spada (swordfish) or dentice (sea bream) as fresh as this, almost leaping from the sea onto my plate.
It's hard to think of more distinctive pasta, such as those I sampled at a restaurant called Lo Scudiero on Via Turati in Palermo. Two dishes that are emblematic of Sicily are pasta alla Norma with tomato, eggplant, ricotta and basil, and pasta con le sarde, a tangle of fresh sardines, raisins, pine nuts, olive oil, wild fennel and bread crumbs.
Then there's the wine. In recent years, Sicilian wine has been the island's greatest ambassador. The reds, such as earthy and ripe Nero d'Avola, and the whites, like Grillo, are bright, floral and citrus-y. Many of them cost less than $10.
Sicily is the largest island in the Mediterranean Sea and has more land planted with vines than any other Italian region. To give you an idea of how much wine it makes, consider that Sicily alone produces nearly as much as all of Australia.
One of the biggest wineries in the region, Feudo Arancio, is open to the public. To get to the winery's vast, hilly holdings in southwestern Sambuca di Sicilia, we drove past orange, lemon and olive groves and fields of artichokes. A backdrop of craggy mountains, palm trees and prickly pear cactuses made me think of the American Southwest.
Winemaker Calogero Statella, 29, was on hand to lead us through a complimentary tasting of his wonderful Nero d'Avola and Grillo wines, as well as Hecate, a honeyed dessert wine. He also makes fine international varieties like Syrah, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.
After visiting the vineyards and state-of-the-art winemaking facility, we drove a short distance to the Temples of Selinunte, a nearly 2,700-year-old archeological park perched on the sea. The colossal acropolis rivals the one in Athens.
In 409 B.C., Hannibal and his Carthaginian warriors sacked Selinunte. Earthquakes smashed up the rest. Excavations have been underway since the 1950s, but there's a long way to go before the eight Doric temples are rebuilt. The ruins are nevertheless stunningly beautiful.
Other than food, wine and archeological digs, Sicily is famous as the birthplace of the Mafia. It's said La Cosa Nostra isn't what it used to be, except perhaps in rural areas. But for a "Godfather" fix, visit Palermo's ornate Teatro Massimo opera house, where Sofia Coppola, as Michael Corleone's daughter, was slain on the steps in "The Godfather: Part III."
At first glance, Palermo seems lawless and treacherous. Drivers pay little attention to traffic lanes or stop signs. You have to hold on tight when you careen in a car from the airport through downtown, passing small trucks hauling artichokes and speeding brigades of Vespas. Curiously, I saw no accidents.
During a walking tour, we saw Baroque and Middle Eastern architectural influences. This melting pot of cultures was occupied by Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Normans, and later conquered by the French, Spanish and Italians.
We also shopped at outdoor markets brimming with long-stalked artichokes, heaps of vivid spices, grassy-green olive oil, almond liqueur, capers packed in salt, magnificent oranges and briny olives. For snacks, buy arancini (deep-fried risotto balls) and fresh Bronte pistachios wherever you see them.
In the middle of all these tastes, smells and sounds of hectic traffic, we came upon a giant crater roped off like a construction site.
"What happened here?" I asked our guide, thinking an earthquake had recently struck.
"It was bombed," she said.
"By who?"
"The Americans," she said.
"Sorry," I said, remembering that Italy was not our ally in World War II.
She shrugged, not holding it against us. Americans don't seem to be holding any grudges against Italy, either. My flight out of New York to Milan was packed with Americans, many of whom told me they were making connections to Palermo. Perhaps because Sicily seems more exotic and undiscovered than other parts of Italy, tourism is up.
Other than their driving habits, it's the most relaxed society I've come across. Clusters of friends and family sit and talk and laugh on street corners, in no rush to get back to work or chores.
Sicily is Old World Italy, a place bent on tradition. Take the chocolate, for instance. In Modica, a southeastern town whose Baroque stone dwellings cling perilously to a mountaintop, the chocolate-making method hasn't changed in centuries. Cocoa and sugar aren't melted so much as beaten into submission, leaving a bar that looks smooth but has a crunchy, granulated, powdery texture that melts on the tongue. No butter or milk is added.
Hotels are more up to date, though, often offering free Internet service in the lobby. In Palermo, I loved the shabby-chic Excelsior Palace (http://www.excelsiorpalermo.it/ ) for its Belle Époque elegance and swan-necked Murano chandeliers.
In the gorgeously Baroque southeastern town of Ragusa, we stayed at the enchanting Locanda Don Serafino in the historic Ibla district.
Rooms are like lavish, white-walled caves. The hotel's stylish restaurant is housed in old horse stables, serving specialties like lasagnette with cocoa and ricotta, or rabbit with bacon and Bronte pistachios.
I spent less than a week in Sicily and wished I had a month. After driving around the island, I flew out of the Catania airport and overheard fellow travelers rhapsodizing about the volcanic splendor of Mount Etna, the temples at Agrigento, and the towns of Messina, Noto, Syracuse and Cefalù.
At the Alitalia ticket counter, Italians were shouting and waving, jostling for position. I finally fought my way to the front and presented my passport, afraid flights were canceled.
"What's wrong?" I asked the ticket clerk, gesturing at the chaos.
"It's nothing," she said with a shrug, with a nonchalance typical of Sicily.

Wear Sicily!

Some time ago, we wrote about how Armani was going to present his brand new collection entirely inspired on Sicily, where the designer owns a stunning villa in the island of Pantelleria.

Today we tell you what actually has been presented in recent Milano Fashion Week for Armani's latest spring-summer 2008 collection.

The beach and the beautiful blue Mediterranean found in the colours of designer's latest offerings - Daniela Petroff writes from Milan

Showing Giorgio Armani on the first day of Milan fashion week is like serving a Sicilian dessert before the main course. After such a treat, is there room for more?

Head scarves, netted shawls, flared skirts and knickerbockers gathered at the knee like a beachcomber's rolled up pants are underlined by a palette of sandy beige, shrub green and sea blue. Together, they combine to evoke Mediterranean lore.

The plunging necklines of Armani's evening wear, however, tell a more contemporary tale. Although now a dying breed, many women in Sicily up until a few years ago were still shrouded in black.
The new Armani jacket dubbed "petite," which is closer to a bolero than a spencer, barely covers the demurely flared blouse underneath, and is worn with a softly pleated skirt or the flared knickers. There is not a man-tailored pantsuit -- the designer's trademark -- in sight.

High heels accompany the beach-inspired daywear, and flat sandals are paired with the ultralight, richly embroidered gowns.

To underline the Sicilian's sea theme of his collection, Armani adds fish-shaped brooches, and boxy handbags in the shape of a miniature treasure chest.

Seduced by Aztec & Sicilian chocolate

The chocolate in Modica is famous for its tradition : A tradition that was handed down from the Aztecs to the Spaniards and then to the Sicilians when Sicily was controlled by the Spanish from 13th to the 15th century.

This is a story about chocolate. It's also a tale of discovery that we want to share with you, as written on the International Herald's Tribune.

It begins with the ancient culture of the Aztecs in Mexico, and ends, at least for our purposes, in the charming Baroque town of Modica, just inland from Sicily's southern coast, an area of remarkable natural beauty where history still lives in the sights, sounds and tastes of the present.
In the early 1500s, the Spanish conquistadors of the New World came into contact with an extraordinary variety of hitherto unknown foods. One of these was xocolatl, obtained from ground cacao seeds. Ingested in solid form or as a beverage, it was much appreciated by the Aztecs for its invigorating properties and the sense of well-being it induced.
In his "Historia Verdadera de Nueva Espana," Bernal Diaz de Castillo, who followed the Grand Conquistador, Cortes to Mexico, described how the Emperor Montezuma used to drink bitter chocolate, sometimes spiced with vanilla.
Sicily became acquainted with various foodstuffs from those distant Spanish dominions as the island gradually adapted to Spanish rule.

For Modica and the surrounding county of the same name, this period coincided with an age of exceptional wealth and development, to the extent that it was considered an island within the island, a kingdom within the kingdom.

Then in January 1693 a terrible earthquake devastated much of the town and killed 2,400 people. Despite the destruction, the positive spirit of Modica endured. While churches, monasteries and palaces had to be built anew, thus giving rise to the glorious chapter of Baroque architecture and urban planning that makes this part of Sicily such a visual treat, certain traditions survived unscathed. One of them was preparing bitter chocolate and using it in savory cuisine.
Leonardo Sciascia, the great 20th-century Sicilian writer, declared that "Modican chocolate is unparalleled in savor, such that tasting it is like reaching the archetype, the absolute, and that chocolate produced elsewhere, even the most celebrated, is an adulteration, a corruption of the original."

Since 1880 the high temple of archetypal chocolate in Modica has been the Antica Dolceria Bonajuto. A constant attraction for myriad devotees, local and otherwise, this wooden-paneled repository of toothsome treasures is tucked into a little side street just off Corso Umberto I, the main drag snaking through the rift between the two hillsides on which the town clings like crafted coral. Behind the counter is the inner sanctum where six young confectionery cooks practice an ancient art under the supervision of high priest Franco Ruta.
"This is a family enterprise by indirect descent," says Ruta, who divides his time between his profession as a medical analyst and his passion for chocolate. "Though people in Modica have been making chocolate and marzipan sweetmeats since time immemorial, it was my father-in-law's father-in-law who actually started up the shop.
"In fact the founder won the Grand Gold Medal Award for his products in the International Exhibition held in Rome in 1911. And we have been basically making things the same way ever since — nowadays of course with the help of electrical contrivances. My wife retired from teaching English at high school to work with us, and our son Pierpaolo is now also involved. In fact he set up our Web site."
Though the Antica Dolceria Bonajuto no longer ferments and grinds its own cacao seeds, it purchases the otherwise unprocessed chocolate mass direct from the Ivory Coast.
This contains all the original cocoa butter that makes the end product so rich and creamy, and that is largely lacking in industrially manufactured chocolate.
The crude chocolate is heated to around 40 to 50 degrees, when the cocoa butter melts and the basic ingredient can be worked together with cinnamon (or vanilla) and sugar until it is ready to be placed in the rectangular aluminium forms that give the sturdy little bars of chocolate their shape. Before the chocolate solidifies, these forms are lined up on a large wooden tray that is beaten relentlessly against the thick pale gray marble kitchen table top.
This extraordinary ritual makes a tremendous din, but actually serves to expel air bubbles and leave what will become the top side of the chocolate bars shiny and smooth. It remains only to wrap them in red or pink paper emblazoned with fin-de-siècle graphics.
The Ruta family and their enthusiastic team of young assistants also make the traditional mpanatigghi, (mm-pan-na-tee-gee) little empanadas stuffed with minced meat and chocolate, liccumie, a variant stuffed with eggplant and chocolate, and a variety of temptations made with locally grown almonds ground into a paste with sugar and then spiced with grated lemon rind and vanilla.

Chocolate is also part of a wider cuisine in Modica, as a visit to the Fattoria delle Torri will gloriously reveal. At Vicolo Napolitano 14, on a little side street off Corso Umberto, in what used to be the vaults of a patrician palazzo, this beautifully appointed restaurant is the gastronomic realm of Peppe Barone and his partners Massimo and Zelia.
Peppe is a quietly inventive cook, revisiting local recipes and traditions but derisive of the sort of culinary silliness that abounds when the accent is all on novelty.
Peppe sticks to seasonal produce, which is not hard in Sicily, but at most times of the year his menu features u lebbru 'nciucculattatu, rabbit cooked in chocolate. Of distant but evident Aztec provenance, this rich but delicate dish embodies a perfect balance of tastes and textures. To accompany it (and the other many delights of the day) the Fattoria delle Torri boasts what is possibly the finest wine cellar in Sicily.

Fattoria delle Torri

Vico Napolitano, 14

Modica (RG)

Phone : +39 0932 751286

Siciliamo2See

Siciliamo2See is a collection of media files about Sicily, to enhance your Sicilian browsing experience on Siciliamo.blog and Siciliamo.web.
While words can make up almost everything, images cannot lie : There's nothing better than checking out your future Sicilian destination by browsing on our media session on your brand new YouTube channel Siciliamo2See.
You can also contribute to the growing of our Siciliamo2See media collection by sending your videos to : info.siciliamo@gmail.com

City SightSeeing Palermo

It's easy, it's convenient, it's fun.

It's also the best way to give you a quick overview of the city, before defining an itinerary for the rest of your stay, deciding which area of the city you want to visit again on your own and which sites you would like to see in more details.

With the Hop on Hop off tour of Palermo, you will enjoy an exciting visit to the city.

You can purchase tickets on board for 20 euros per person, departing from the terminal nearby the Teatro Politeama, but you can also join the tour at every stop.

Line A bus will drive in front of the Teatro Massimo, one of the most famous opera houses in Europe, continuing towards Piazza Quattro Canti and the nearby Vucciria Market.
The tour continues towards the Botanical Gardens, passing near Palazzo Steri.

After a quick glimpse of the Central Station, you will find yourselves in the vicinity of the Royal Palace, following the Flea Market and the Cathedral, before stopping at the port and then returning to the terminal.

Line B has a different itinerary including the Castle of La Zisa, the colorful open-air market Mercato del Capo, the Massimo Theatre and other interesting stops.

Commentary on both lines is multi-lingual (including English) and you will each be given individual earphones.

Timetable

January to March
Line A - 10:00am to 1:00pm, every 60 minutes
Line B - 2:00pm to 5:00pm, every 60 minutes
April to October
Line A - 9:30am to 6:30pm, every 30 minutes
Line B - 1:00pm to 6:00pm, every 60 minutes
November to December
Line A - 10:00am to 1:00pm, every 30 minutes
Line B - 2:00pm to 5:00pm, every 60 minutes

Top 50 things every FOODIE should do

The Guardian Unlimited asked some of their favourite bon viveurs what they considered most essential to do before they died.

Between treading grapes in a Portuguese laga, sipping a bellini cocktail at Harry's bar in Venice and poach a snail in France, Sicily and its ice creams are number 17 out of 50 of the best foodies wish-list!

"So much to eat, so little time. But there are some things we simply must make time for, if not immediately, certainly before we leave this earth. But what is really worth doing, and what can be happily left on the side of the plate? To answer this quandry we asked our guests Nigella Lawson, Gordon Ramsay, Tom Aikens, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, Terence Conran, restaurant critics Terry Durack, Fay Maschler and Jay Rayner, and many, many more to give us their list of things they feel passionately that everyone should do..."

17) Lick an ice cream in Sicily : So overrun are we by the choc-chip-fudge-crunch-style American ice creams that it is easy to forget what the real stuff tastes like. The ices at Corrado Costanzo in Noto, Sicily, are arguably the best you can find anywhere in the world. Mandarin, made with Sicilian oranges, is probably the most in-demand flavour at this ice-cream and pastry shop but try also mulberry and the jasmin sorbet that's made with flowers picked in the evening when they are at their most fragrant. Chunky Monkey eat your heart out. · Corrado Costanzo, Via Spaventa 7, Noto, Sicily (00 39 931 835 243)

read the full article

Naomi in Sicily

This hot Sicilian August has brought the usual wave of holiday-goers, sun burns, sarong parties and a heavy dose of paparazzi, due to the regular summer visit of black venus (La Venere Nera as they called her here) Naomi Campbell.

Naomi is been spotted together with her close friends designers Dolce & Gabbana, who own a villa in the island of Stromboli, partying on a super yacht and waving a funny Brazilian style feathered wig. She is well-known for her extravagant personality and Sicilian islanders still gossip about Naomi's roof-top dancing antics here last summer.

The real prima donna of the islands, however, is still the volcano of Stromboli, whose last full-blown tantrum back in 2002 scooped away a chunk of the (uninhabited) north-western shoreline and sent a tsunami as far as the mainland 100km away...

Shot in Sicily!

Vanity Fair 'fashion & style' director Michael Roberts' new book, "Shot in Sicily," is set to release next month. The book is to be 186 pages, "traces the stylist and photographer’s shifting vision of a sensual and ambiguous country." It will feature over 175 of Roberts' photographs of Sicily. The book even features an epilogue by Manolo Blahnik and text by Amanda Harlech.

With an occasional nod to Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden's late nineteenth-century images of the Sicilian town of Taormina, and the films of Visconti and Bolognini, Roberts' sense of Sicily moves beyond conventional and touristic aesthetic categories. His camera captures the beauty of youth, crumbling temples, traditional Easter parades and the theatre of daily life, and genuinely recreates the allure of Sicily.

To celebrate the book's launch, Giorgio Armani is hosting an exhibition and cocktail party on June 26, during Milan Men's Fashion Week, right after Armani's Spring 2008 Fashion Show. The book will go on sale on June 27 at Armani stores. It looks like it will be a wonderful "coffee table book." A must-buy for every Sicily lover.

This glamorous book is already available on Amazon

Armani embraces Sicily in summer 2008 collection

The International Herald Tribune recently published on its chic Style column an exclusive interview with Giorgio Armani, another enamoured victim of our Mediterranean island.

MILAN, Italy: The return to elegance by Italian designers previewing their summer 2008 collections on the Milan catwalk this week is right down Giorgio Armani's alley.
The designer, whom men turn to for that perfect suit, calls the current trend a "restored discipline of form" and looks to Sicily for inspiration.
"Sicily is part of a world I've always loved," Armani, who has a summer home on the island of Pantelleria, told reporters.
Armani highlights, in his collection presented Tuesday, Mediterranean mystery, from the salty sexiness of a fisherman to the genteel sophistication of Sicilian nobility. Symbols such as volcanoes, temples and mosaics were projected on a screen at the end of the runway.
Armani is also hosting an exhibit at his headquarters of photos from a coffee table book "Shot in Sicily" by Vanity Fair fashion director Michael Roberts, published in conjunction with the designer.

The show opened with 15 clean-cut fellows in perfectly tailored suits, and had a feeling of calm throughout: from the incredibly soft fabrics and leather to the muted palette drawn from sun-faded colors.
Jackets with a classic cut and a thin lapel are often paired with Armani's new shirt-vest, sleeveless but with a generous cowl collar. Most trousers have a casual cut. There were few shorts.
Many of the models sported tussled hair styles, like hair blown by the wind during a fishing expedition.
The only sharp note of the collection was the pointy-toed soft loafer in showy python leather. The same snakeskin was also used for traditional sneakers.
Until Armani's dip into that part of the Mediterranean, Dolce & Gabbana seemed to have the exclusive on Sicilian style, particularly with Domenico Dolce drawing inspiration from his years growing up as a child near Palermo.
This time round the designing duo set aside Sicilian lore to concentrate on prosaic heavy metal — as in nuts and bolts, bought in a hardware store and stitched on to bleached denim by the hundreds.

Aside from these gimmicky jeans sure to be a hit with fans of "do it yourself," D&G, the duo's second line presented Tuesday, offered T-shirts embroidered with cozy teddy-bears, sweat shirts covered in tulle, cotton tuxedo jackets and sandals wrought in metal.
Far from hard feelings, Domenico welcomed Armani's fascination with his homeland. "Sicily belongs to everybody," Domenico said after the show.
If Armani stayed away from the tough guys, Frida Giannini for Gucci resurrected the Hollywood versions: John Paul Belmondo, Alain Delon and Italian favorite Marcello Mastroianni. Her Monday evening show spoke of a 1950's bad boy lover from his checkered suit to his sporty cap and super pointy-toed shoes.
As is usual with Giannini (who also does Gucci's womenswear) the core of the collection was a class act — couture-cut suits, with a close fitting jacket and slim trouser, and a series of luxurious tuxedo jackets with glittering embroidery. For those looking for something farther out, there were snakeskin bomber jackets and footwear dipped in silver.
Fendi, and its second-generation designer Sylvia Venturini Fendi, courted a latter-day dandy on Tuesday. This gent likes his wardrobe to fit with pajama-like softness in styles ranging from cotton Bermudas to a see-through nylon pullover or an embroidered leather jacket — all in pastel shades.

Wherever he goes the Fendi boy takes his new bag with him. Simply called "shopping bag" fashioned in leather, cotton or straw intertwined to create a myriad of Fendi logos, the bag is sure to be coveted by the ladies as well.
Later Tuesday, Calvin Klein, designed by Italian Italo Zucchelli, presented a collection based on sportswear, a department virtually ignored in this round of preview showings which have been bent on a return to dressing up.

The jumpsuit — sure to be a popular item next summer judging by the many versions presented this week — played heavily in this show geared to American style. While the work pants were raised to fashion heights in black leather or fancy pearl gray — the symbol of sophistication — the tuxedo was brought down to earth in plain old khaki cotton.
The male sandal, dubbed by some the 'mandal' is the favorite footwear for next summer. Thonged or strapped, in leather or metal, it showed up almost everywhere during the five-day preview showings which ended Wednesday.
As if summing it all up, Byblos on Wednesday morning offered up a sandal so complicated it should come with instructions. Made up of shin guards, leather straps, thongs and open toed knee socks it combines to look like footwear for a latter-day centurion.

Their House Is Your Trattoria

At-home trattorias are increasingly popular in Sicily. From the winding narrow street of the inner-Palermo suburb formerly know as Kalsa spreading throughout the historical centre, where you can wine and dine right in the middle of the street or in somebody's backyard. What counts is home-cooking.

Danielle Pergament from New York Times, guided by her Sicilian friend, discovers a brand new concept of dining.

IT was lunchtime in Palermo, and in the old quarter, a small trattoria was filling up with burly construction workers and fishermen in sodden boots — all crowded around rickety tables watching a soccer match on a staticky television set. The place was noisy with clanking glasses and men talking over one another. Platters of sautéed vegetables and grilled calamari lined the countertop, and the perfume of sizzling garlic drifted through the room. I scanned the other tables and ordered what everyone else was having: spaghetti, drizzled with olive oil and laden with fresh clams, mussels and tomatoes.

But when the pasta arrived, drenched in a briny, spicy tomato broth, there was no fork and no waiter in sight. There was just the owner, known simply as Pina, shuffling in threadbare slippers, a lighted cigarette precariously perched on the edge of her mouth. “You need a fork?” Pina barked. Her gravelly voice was so intimidating that I was ready to eat with my hands. “Get it yourself. Top drawer, next to the stove.”

If eating in Palermo's rustic trattorias seems like visiting someone's home, that's because it often is. Pina, a gruff Sicilian mother, keeps a bedroom behind the kitchen and five days a week opens her canteen-sized dining room for lunch, serving some of the most authentic food in this port city.

At Zia Pina (Via Argenteria, 67), four blocks from the Tyrrhenian Sea, you won't find a sign welcoming diners, written menus, a reservation book or even a telephone. Instead, there are half a dozen tables, biblical paintings and dented pots and pans gurgling and steaming on a beat-up stove.

But you can't simply walk in. If Pina doesn't like the look of you, she'll tell you the trattoria is closed — and she'll do it as she's serving platters of stuffed mushrooms and grilled swordfish to a table of hungry fishermen. Luckily, I arrived with my Sicilian friend Emanuele, a photojournalist who has been eating at places like Zia Pina since he was a child.

The food of Palermo, like its rocky shoreline and weathered faces, is a bit rough. Vegetables are crudely chopped; fish is served with head and tail; everything comes under a veil of coarse sea salt. Pina's cooking was no exception. She was partial to pasta tossed with fresh shrimp, calamari or sea bass, as well as hearty salads of potatoes, capers and onions. If you're still hungry, you're welcome to seconds, but don't expect Pina to bring them. You can help yourself from the caldron on the stove.

At-home trattorias are not the insular tradition they used to be in Sicily. What began decades ago as lunch counters for blue-collar workers, usually started by their wives at home, are spreading to garages and empty houses — and they are becoming increasingly popular with young Sicilians and businessmen, who come for the laid-back atmosphere, low prices and arguably the best food in Sicily.

The amateur chefs are cautiously opening their doors to the public, and their menus are expanding, too, though not by much. They are still open only for lunch (about 12:30 to 2 p.m.), prices are remarkably cheap (pasta is usually under 3 euros, about $4 at $1.38 to the euro), and the recipes were handed down from the chef's grandmother. A click more relaxed than standard trattorias, these places have the air of an old-fashioned speakeasy — the proprietor might sleep in the back room, and the entrance is purposely hard to find, with unmarked doors, few signs and no advertising.

And because the places are not entirely legal, the would-be restaurateurs don't have to worry about things like workplace insurance, smoking laws, liquor licenses or even taxes. “Most of these places pay protection money to the Mafia,” Emanuele said. “They just want to serve good food to their regulars and keep their heads down.”
Well, that and watch soccer. A few days later, Emanuele and I walked into La Rosa Nero, or the Pink Black — a small, free-standing concrete hut in the middle of the quiet, dusty Piazzetta della Api. On a Saturday afternoon last January, the scene inside was another story. Two small rooms, painted pink and black, were crammed with flimsy plastic tables and crowded with groups of men hunched over bowls of steaming pasta, plates of fried calamari and small cups of red wine. Their eyes were fixed on the television — Palermo versus Lazio, and Palermo was losing. Shouts and jeers filled the small trattoria. There wasn't an empty seat in the house.

Rosa Nero is run by a young man named Benedetto. He wouldn't reveal his last name because his trattoria is not licensed and he preferred not to call attention to himself. Benedetto explained that this used to be his mother's house. Friends would come over to watch soccer, and his mother would whip up bowls of spaghetti with sardines. Before he knew it, the dining room had grown into a neighborhood soccer club and, as more friends came, a trattoria was born.

Emanuele and I sat down next to a group of teenagers and ordered the house special: angiova, or pasta with sardines. It arrived like an untossed salad — whole sardines (heads on), chunks of tomato and a splatter of pine nuts and sweet raisins, all piled atop a small mountain of pasta. I grabbed the fork and spoon, and mixed it up until it turned into a hearty sauce — sweet, salty and a little nutty.

Full and happy, we got up to leave and I started to leave a tip. “This isn't done,” said Emanuele. “These places don't pay taxes; all the money goes in their pockets.” Do they ever get in trouble with the law? “See those two men in the corner?” he pointed. “They're police, and they like the food as much as the rest of us.”

On my last afternoon in Palermo, Emanuele and I walked down to the waterfront, to an area known as Piazza Kalsa. Our destination was Padre Aldo (again, no address, no phone). The trattoria could easily be mistaken for someone's home — a tidy house on a residential block with a little garden on one side and a paved driveway on the other. “I was born next door,” said Aldo Balestreri, a lively 77-year-old with a stubbly white beard. “My specialty is grilled fish.” He paused for dramatic effect. “And Camilla Parker Bowles ate here once.”
Mr. Balestreri added that this used to be a taverna — a hall where men drank grappa until sunrise. Then, one summer about 40 years ago, he rolled a barbecue grill onto the driveway and started cooking meat. Next thing he knew, he had a trattoria.

Despite the chilly weather, most patrons were sitting at plastic tables on the driveway, now a patio. We sat down and listened to the menu. Moments later, an antipasto of olives, sardines, tomatoes and capers, drizzled in olive oil and coarse grains of salt, arrived on a worn block of wood. For pasta, we had spaghetti with baby shrimp, mussels, rough-cut garlic and spicy red pepper flakes. We washed it down with chilled red wine and watched the lunch crowd ramble in — young suntanned couples, gray-haired men with callused hands, and teenage boys with greasy hair and baggy jeans.

Then Padre Aldo re-emerged, holding two swordfish steaks. He slapped them on the grill and started calling out the day's menu over the hiss of the barbecue. A few moments later, he brought us two plates of spada alla palermitana, or swordfish Palermo-style — lightly breaded with a few drops of olive oil and a fat lemon wedge.
The three courses and a bottle of wine came out to 20 euros. As we walked away, Aldo called out from the searing iron grill: “You never asked why they call me Padre Aldo. It's because they think I'm Jesus — my food is that good.”

Celebrity Island

An unexpected Hollywood hangout on the way to the blissfully peaceful islands off Sicily.

From the Guardian Isabel Choat writes :

I've slept in Brad Pitt's bed. Nothing for Angelina to worry about, because he wasn't in it at the time. Even so, I was pretty taken aback when I found out.
You see we weren't staying in five-star luxury in Taormina, Sicily's celebrity mecca, but in a simple agriturismo in the sleepy north-west. It was lovely, with stunning views across the bay, and fantastic food, but it wasn't glitzy or glamorous by any stretch.

Brad Pitt had stayed at the Agriturismo Tenute Plaia while filming Ocean's Twelve at the Tonnara di Scopello, a disused tuna fishery set in a ridiculously picturesque cove a mile or two up the road. The rest of the cast, including Catherine Zeta-Jones and George Clooney, had dinner at the hotel, but only Brad had spent the night. Perhaps the lack of spa, butlers, helicopter pad and marble-clad interiors had put the other stars off. But we thought it was near perfect.
On our first night we had sat on the terrace working our way through dish after dish of anti-pasti - rissotto balls, octopus salad, slivers of rare beef and tiny squares of bread with melted mozzarella. Next came pasta with olive oil, pine nuts and mackerel, then grilled fish with lemon and garlic. Later Ignacio, our waiter, offered to drive us in to Scopello, a hillside village with a fountain and 13th-century walled square where we sat under a vast eucalyptus drinking grappa.
We were on the edge of the Zingaro Nature Reserve, which covers seven kilometres of spectacular coastline, so could walk off our dinner the next day. The path follows the coast, giving tantalising views of sandy coves and bays, the sea so clear you can make out individual rocks on the sea bed. Hot and sweaty after a three-hour walk, we tired of just looking at the beach and veered off the path to dip our feet in the deliciously cool water.

Scopello was just the starting point of our holiday, a brief taste of Sicily, before we moved on to Marettimo, the most remote and mountainous of the Egadi, a trio of islands an hour's boat ride from Trapani. Though the Egadi are just as beautiful as the north-west, they lack the necessary polish to attract Hollywood's elite. Favignana, the largest of the Egadi, has one chichi hotel (Albergo Egadi), but on Levanzo and Marettimo the choice is between fishermen's houses, pensiones or basic apartments.

Fausto, the owner of the Marettimo Residence, met us off the boat, loaded our gear on to a golf buggy and pointed us in the right direction. "We're the last building in the village. See you there." Among the cluster of flat-roofed houses, more Greek in style than Italian, we spotted La Scaletta - a bar-cum-ice cream parlour - a deli, a couple of restaurants and a bakery selling slices of focaccia pizza. The other passengers had disappeared into the narrow, shady lanes and aside from the old men who sat in a row outside the harbourside Museo del Mare - a tiny room with black and white photos of men sitting in exactly the same spot 50 years ago - we saw no one. We seemed to have the place to ourselves and began to wonder whether five days was four days too long.

But worrying about what to do is sort of missing the point. You don't come to Marettimo to race round the sights (there aren't any) or try a dozen different watersports, as there are none of those either, unless you count exploring the island's many caves by fishing boat or kayak. You come to enjoy breathtaking views of the craggy coastline, pine-covered peaks and to swim in crystal-clear sea. As we learned pretty quickly, the real joy of Marettimo is shifting down several gears and slipping into its gentle, soporific pace.
After breakfast among the olive and lavender trees at the Residence, we'd amble down to the harbour to see what the fishermen had brought in. Their cute blue and white boats looked like they'd been planted there to blend artfully with their blue and white houses, but they were working boats. One look at the catch in the morning told you what you'd be eating that night. Snapper, John Dory or calamari came grilled or fried and served with salad or, north African style, with cous cous, pine nuts, raisins and saffron. The fish that weren't sold straight from the boat were packed on to carts and wheeled round the village to cries of "pesce fresco".

In the afternoons we'd pack our beach bags and saunter down to the rocks near the Residence to soak up the sun and cool off in the sea. We nearly always had the beach to ourselves.
Come evening the empty village would start to fill up: women emerged from their homes to catch up on the day's gossip, kids raced round the shiny cobbled streets on bikes, and teenagers loitered outside La Scaletta eating brioche stuffed with ice-cream. After dinner we'd hit the bar in the romantic little square for an espresso or glass of Marsala. And then head back to the Residence under a starry sky, knowing that with no sights to see or activities to try, we'd be doing it all again tomorrow.

On other nights Fausto insisted on us joining him for dinner at the Residence. Our first al fresco meal was a giant pan of fish stew -a delicious feast of scarfolo, a spiny, red fish, cooked in onions, wine and tomatoes. Our host spoke no English but he'd roped in a friend to translate. As he guffawed at his own stories, his friend fussed around us grumbling that Fausto spoke too fast.
A few days into the holiday we decided we really ought to venture beyond the village. We had, after all, booked our trip through a walking specialist who had supplied us with a stack of idiot-proof maps. You can hike for hours across Marettimo but there's no need to feel guilty if you take a shorter route, as the views are just as spectacular. While other, older, guests at the Residence set off early for a full day's tramping, we took the easy - OK, lazy - option and followed the trail to El Castello, a ruined castle perched dramatically on a rock jutting out into the sea. On either side of the path were clumps of yellow and purple heather, so neat they looked like they'd been planted there by an expert gardener, and rosemary bushes that filled the warm air with their scent.

On another day we set out, accompanied by one of the village dogs, to Punta Campana, at 630m the second highest peak. In four hours we didn't see a soul. As we climbed, the path got narrower and rockier and at one point I was convinced we'd veered off it completely. Still, the dog knew exactly where he was going so we gave up on the map and followed him. On the way up, the air had been alive with the sounds of bees and birds, but up here there was silence. In the distance Favignano and Levanzo were swathed in mist, their peaks poking out of a blanket of white. The sea and sky were exactly the same shade of blue, making it impossible to find the horizon. We could just about make out the wash of the fishing boats. It was utterly peaceful.

The hydrofoil zips between Trapani on the main island and the Egadi trio four times a day, so it's easy to pop over to a neighbouring island. We passed a pleasant enough day on Levanzo on a tour to the Grotto del Genovese, reached by yet another stunning stretch of coast where seagull chicks were nesting among the wild flowers. Inside the grotto are drawings, thought to be around 10,000 years old, of bison and deer and men fishing for tuna.

The waters around the Egadi still teem with blue fin tuna , and the Mattanza, an ancient ritual where schools of tuna are rounded into increasingly smaller nets before being killed with spears, is still practised. It's a bloody spectacle and one we decided we could do without. We did eat tuna one night, though, when Fausto invited us back for dinner. Having taught himself how to prepare sushi, he was keen to show off his skill and served up melt-in-the-mouth tuna sushi, sashimi and sticky rice, all washed down with a hearty Sicilian red.

Fausto told us how long it had taken him to get used to life on Marettimo. After five years of running the Residence, he was only just beginning to be accepted into the community. I told him my Brad Pitt story, but he didn't seem very interested. I got the impression that, like the rest of the islanders, Fausto couldn't give a fig about celebrity gossip.

New York Times cravings

Other foodies get their hands on Sicilian produce...

From the New York Times Gael Green writes :

Imagine a gourmand paradise where miniature cherry-topped pastries are marketed as Virgin’s Breasts and a gorgeous layering of pudding, pastry dough, and preserves created by cloistered nuns is the coveted Triumph of Gluttony.

Of course, I’d come to Sicily hungry (how else?), alerted by traveling foodies to a new generation of inspired chefs tweaking the traditional, and obsessed with digesting the island’s history through its food.

I was eager to taste high-risk improvisations like the smoked lavender-cod pyramids of Ciccio Sultano, “Italy’s Best Young Chef,” in the estimation of the magazine Gambero Rosso. I’d heard that Corrado Assenza’s cutting-edge bravado and exotic flavorings in honey, chocolates, and marmellatas at Caffé Sicilia would startle my sensibilities. And everyone was talking about the fantasy tasting menu at Il Mulinazzo, not far from Palermo. I was especially excited to try the powerful Sicilian wines that were winning prizes and showing up on menus across New York. And so I arrived, ready to immerse myself in the island’s rich tradition now punctuated by the shock of the new, carrying a list of must-eat addresses that would have had us eating a zigzag across Sicily.

My guy’s must-sees included the island’s usual wonders: Greek temples, Roman mosaics, Baroque cathedrals. I hungered to taste the mythic lemons, the capers of Pantelleria, the eggplant (in caponata and in spicy pasta alla Norma), the famous rolled-and-stuffed sardines a beccafico, Trapani’s seafood couscous, and, yes, I was primed to dare the spleen panini of Palermo.
It was an ideal moment to arrive: the week before Easter, when the country vibrates with pagan and religious rituals in every town and it’s still cool and green, fields wild with flowers before searing summer turns everything brown. Marzipan lambs grazed in every pasticceria window. By the time I’d tasted almond-paste goodies (an Arabic legacy) from every shop on Taormina’s main street, with a stop at the Greek theater, we’d had enough of the town’s tourist clots.

We headed toward Catania to meet friends at Sicilia in Bocca, hangout of actors and politicians, where at midnight on Palm Sunday a fisherman was just delivering a giant basslike spigola—still in rigor mortis, it was so fresh out of the sea. We ate crudi—raw gamberetti and neonata (baby anchovies)—and what the house does best, pasta, surprised to discover the Sicilian habit of grating pecorino on seafood pasta. (Toasted bread crumbs were the traditional and deliciously nutty sprinkle for our pasta con sarde—with sardines and wild fennel—in a region once too poor to even think of importing Parmigiano-Reggiano.) Next morning we lingered long enough to explore Catania’s rowdy fish market, stopping at Caffé Europa for a typical Sicilian breakfast: hazelnut gelato in a doughnutlike brioche.

Sicily is small, swiftly crisscrossed on the autostrada, letting you swing easily from the Greek-influenced eastern coast to the ancient ruins of Siracusa before settling into Palermo, as we did, using it as a home base for day trips and an occasional overnighter in our determination to feast and photograph.
Perhaps less-food-obsessed travelers would have skipped driving in torrential rain to the triangle of the towns Noto, Modica, and Ragusa. But then they would have missed Baroque architectural marvels built after the area was ravaged by earthquakes in 1693. And each town is also a food-lover’s imperative. Modica harbors Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, a chocolate shop dating from 1880 with a small museum. Easter celebrants had cleaned out the bakery, so we didn’t get to taste the eggplant-and-chocolate-filled half-moons (lucumie) or the beef-and-almond-paste-stuffed impanatigghe.

I was lucky to find a cinnamon bar of the house’s grainy and starkly bitter chocolate, still made from Ivory Coast cocoa beans using a secret Aztec recipe brought to the city centuries ago by wealthy Spaniards.

The daring and passion of Corrado Assenza at the surprisingly plain Caffé Sicilia made it worth a soaking mad-dash from the car park in nearby Noto. We sat for hours tasting cakes, puddings, flowery custards, candied fruits, Sichuan-pepper-spiked cookies, and exotic honeys (chocolate, basil, saffron). There was only time to sleep it off before hitting the road to the Ibla half of Ragusa and a tasting dinner, best of our stay, at Michelin-starred Il Duomo. Daring and obsessed as are all the best contemporary chefs, Ciccio Sultano plays with odd combinations of classic Sicilian ingredients in a tiny house with cherub sconces aimed at the vaulted ceiling, casting soft light on us below. A puddle of wild-apple purée comes with a warm tortino of the local cacciocavallo cheese. The stunning pungency of lemon salad cuts through the richness of lightly smoked pork from black pigs.

Settled into Palermo for a week, we spent mornings wandering through the legendary Vucciria market as well as our favorite, Ballaró, full of fussy shoppers. I bought peppered pecorino to take home for breakfast and stood in line at a cart for delicious innards stuffed into a crusty roll. When we’d walked enough to justify it, I’d buy a medium-size cup of bacia plus cioccolato under a drift of whipped cream at Stancampiano. At Antica Focacceria San Francesco, pani ca’ meusa, beef spleen stuffed into bread (plus an optional plop of ricotta), is dished up from a giant vat all day for local fans (I loved it, too). At Bye Bye Blues on a side street in nearby Mondello, we were surprised by the creativity in the kitchen and marveled at the delicious simplicity of raw fish with a ginger rice cake, layered anchovies and potato in caper sauce, and spaghetti with sea-urchin-and-fava purée.

From Palermo, it’s not far to the salt flats of Trapani to watch the spring tuna hunt (if you can take the gore) and to climb the medieval winding streets of Erice, a hilltop town overlooking the Tyrrhenian Sea. With so many tourists lined up to buy pastries from Pasticceria Maria Grammatico, a legend of Sicilian pastry, and a hokey donkey cart parked at the Norman castle above waiting to be photographed, it’s easy to dismiss Erice as slightly theme-park. So we were amazed at the good-natured welcome and smartly al dente ruffled ribbons of pasta in a meaty ragù at Ristorante Monte San Giuliano. Another evening, a new friend in Palermo, fourth generation of the Barbera olive-oil family, took us to Il Cortile, a small mom-and-pop trattoria in Custonaci near the sea, where we dined happily outdoors on the simplest, barely sauced pasta and boiled veal.

One morning we set out from Palermo for the 90-minute drive toward the middle of the island to sit in on the cooking class Anna Tasca Lanza gives in the charming tiled kitchen of the Casa Vecchie, overlooking her family’s sprawling Regaleali vineyard estate. A tireless champion of the island’s kitchen tradition in her many cookbooks, she shaped and fried arancine (rice balls), sautéed slivered artichoke for our pasta, and made creating individual cassatas look easy.
Tradition hits the fan at Il Mulinazzo, with its two Michelin stars, helmed by Nino Graziano, a veteran of several kitchens in France. It’s just south of Palermo in Villafrati, a quick drive for lunch. Even the tradizionale tasting menu shows off Sicilian cooking creatively rethought: elegant snapper tartare with oil and lemon on warm chickpea fritters, lasagnetta with sardines and wild fennel, almond couscous in a fish soup, rack of lamb with an asparagus zabaglione. Next day, I owed my guy a major Greek temple and an afternoon of mosaics.

Palermo among the TOP 10 cities for Foodies

Tourists fed up with the beach and not interested in golf or tennis are finding a new reason to travel - food. They are going great distances to sample local cheeses, pastries and exotic delicacies.
Forbes.com has just released its list of the top 10 cities for foodies:

1. New York City
Essential Eats: Per Se to sample Thomas Keller's constantly changing tasting menu; Bubby's for enormous brunch dishes like sour cream pancakes with bananas and cherries; bistro Balthazar for classic choices like duck confit and steak frites; Chelsea Market, a gold mine of several dozen gourmet food stores.
2. Las Vegas
Essential Eats: Guy Savoy at Caesar's Palace to sample butter roasted veal sweetbreads, chocolate ganache and the 10-course tasting menu; Commander's Palace for a jazz brunch; Firefly for Spanish tapas; the thrice weekly Las Vegas Farmers Market for a display of goods from local bakeries.
3. Los Angeles
Essential Eats: French restaurant Melisse in Santa Monica for traditional dishes like almond Dover sole; Coast at Shutters on the Beach for lemon ricotta pancakes; Hamasaku, a celebrity favorite, for sublime sushi; the daily Santa Monica Farmers Market for a vast selection of vegetables, fruits.
4. Paris
Essential Eats: Taillevent, the most famous and grandest classic French restaurant in the city; contemporary bistro Ze Kitchen Galerie for favorites milk-fed lamb shoulder and pork ribs; Au Pain d'Antan for buttery croissants; Beauvau market in the 12th arrondissement for Lebanese specialties.
5. Bologna, Italy
Essential Eats: Al Pappagallo for upscale but classic Emilia-Romagna food; Tamburini for a selection of freshly baked breads; bowls of tortellini with different sauces at Da Bertino; the daily indoor food market on Via Clavature.
6. Singapore
Essential Eats: One Rochester for French dishes like cream of wild mushroom soup with white truffle oil; Ah Teng's Bakery for assorted dim sum; Lei Garden for Chinese specialties; the dozens of food stalls at Lau Pa Sat market.
7. Palermo, Sicily
Essential Eats: Il Mulinazzo in an elegant country house for dishes that are upscale twists on traditional fare; Antica Focacceria San Francesco, a bakery with excellent focaccias; Osteria Altri Tempi for classic Sicilian favorites; the 11th century market Ballaro for local almonds, dried fava beans.
8. Barcelona
Essential Eats: Casa Leopoldo for seafood and Catalan cuisine like pork stew; Schilling, a favorite of locals, for basic breakfast choices like eggs, toast and ham; Can Manel la Puda for a paella; La Boqueria, the largest open-air market in the city, for stalls of fruits, tapas and bocadillo.
9. London
Essential Eats: Three-Michelin-star restaurant The Fat Duck for the 12-course tasting menu; the Thames Foyer for a full-on English breakfast; Indian spot Tamarind for more than 50 dishes; Borough Market for stalls of Indian pickles, meats.
10. Sydney
Essential Eats: Longrain for Asian style dishes like red curry of kingfish with wild ginger snake beans; Bills 3, a chain that has a cult following for its breakfast specialties; trendy Chinese restaurant Billy Kwong; Sydney Fresh Food Market, a collection of 800 vendors.

Ryanair new potential destinations

After launching a new direct flight between Dublin and Trapani in February 2007, Ryanair is seriously interested in adding a new route to its Sicilian destinations: the new airport of Comiso (Ragusa province) in the south-east side of the island.
Ryanair was Europe's original low fares airline and is still Europe's largest low fares carrier and currently employs a team of 4,500 people, comprising over 25 different nationalities.

http://www.ryanair.com/

Sicily among the safest regions in Italy

The Godfather, The Untouchables, The Sopranos. They all have one think in common: Mafia.

But do Mafia movies and television shows affect the image of Sicily and Sicilians? Hell, Yeah!

Isn't it a bit unfair that while far more potentially dangerous countries like Russia or Brazil enjoy the glory and fame of their emblematic Vodkas and hot Samba dancers, while Sicily is defamed by its Mafia stigma, mainly with thanks to the entertainment industry?

We have been living in both Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo and we can ensure you that it was far more dangerous than Palermo or even Mafia capital Corleone.

Yes, Mafia is still a plague, as it is Camorra in Campania, Ndrangheta in Sardegna as well as Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka and gunfighting gangsters in South America. But when one happens to shake hands with a Columbian you are much less likely to say: "Oh really, Bogota?...drug dealers! Kidnappers!" Instead, when one shakes hands with a Sicilian, the same old song plays over and over again :" Oh really, Palermo?...Mafia!"

But believe it or not, despite the bad publicity, Sicily is among the safest regions in Italy!

According to the ISTAT (Italian Institute of Statistics), Sicily registered one of the lowest crime rates in the country in the past few years.



Crimes every 100,000 people:

Sicily 3,481

North-West 4,770

Turin 6,823

Bologna 7,223

Pickpocketing every 100,000 people:

Palermo 124

Center Italy 446

Italian average 287

Stolen cars, robbed stores and apartments:

Palermo 2,152

Milan 3,780

Bologna 4,485

Rimini and province 5,761



Numbers talk! Sicily is a safe destination. If you refrain from visiting Sicily because of safety concerns, keep in mind that there are more chances that something could happen to you in a big North American city. Unfortunately though, publicity for Sicily is still pretty bad. The images of The Godfather are well entrenched in peoples' minds all over the world!

May I suggest that next time you shake hands with a Sicilian you might consider to say :"Oh really, Palermo?...Damn good food there!"

behind the Siesta

A bit of Wikipedia first:

Siesta is a short nap taken in the early afternoon, often after the midday meal. Such a period of sleep is a common tradition in hot countries. The word siesta derives from the Latin HORA SEXTA - "the sixth hour" (counting from dawn, therefore noon, hence "midday rest").
Siesta has nothing to do with a simple cat-nap. This is a whole different concept, as siesta means the deep, dreamy, and "comatose" postprandial sleep.

I really HATE siesta, the whole country goes dead and you literally cannot do anything for four hours! Business hours in Sicily are usually 8:00 to 12:00 and 16:00 to 20:00 and in the black hole of Siesta, getting anything done becomes next to impossible. Need to speak with a call centre operator? The phone will ring through. Need to report a crime? The police officer will tell you to come back at 16:00. Need to shop for supplies? You can starve...
But worse thing is, instead of having rush hour traffic only in the morning and the early evening, main cities in Sicily have rush hour traffic four times a day: Morning, beginning of siesta, end of siesta and end of work day. Secondly, those two hours of spare time are too long to hang around in the office, but too short to do anything meaningful. Third, when I finally get home and have made myself dinner it is too late to do anything of substance if I want to get a full night sleep before work.
Getting started is half way to getting the work done, what happens with productivity when you have to get started twice a day???

My mother took siestas this all her life, to a point that her body had adjusted to the nap time, and literally '"shuts down her system"' everyday at 14:30 on the dot. After lunch each day, she disappears into her bedroom and like clockwork, fall into a deep sleep. The entire house falls into a religious silence and the telephone absolutely must be off the hook. By doing so for many years, my mother would party hard until 4 am, be up by 7 and to the office by 9, then sleep from 2 to 4 in the afternoon. Then back to the office and party again. And always feeling fresh.
I had started to wonder what all the fuss is about Siesta and what the positives might be, so I started to research a bit more about this Latin beloved habit. Here is some interesting facts I managed to uncover:

FACT: A siesta goes beyond the 30 minute rule at which the brain suddenly goes in to deep sleep with undesirable consequences. Naps are short, refresh the mind and body and, according to scientists, improve night time sleep.

FACT: Siesta lovers... Winston Churchill did it, even during the London blitz. Spanish and Portuguese gentlemen do it, not to mention Italians. Most upper-class Greeks used to do it -- although the practice has stopped because there are no real Greek gentlemen left. Gianni Agnelli, of Fiat fame, does it every day, as did Aristotle Onassis, Charles de Gaulle, Benito Mussolini, the Duke of Alba, Juan Peron, the King of Spain, and Lucky Luciano, among others.

NEWS: France's health minister has floated the idea of making the siesta official government policy on
the grounds that "a short nap is good for efficiency and safety at work".
Under his proposal, French workers would be encouraged to doze off in special "quiet rooms" provided by their employers and also be equipped with a "sleep passport" in which they could record how much napping they fit into their day.
Why should only the French, the Spanish and the Italians have all the fun? Should the Anglo-Saxon world adopt the siesta too and thus relax, enjoy life more and generally "chill"?
Or is the siesta a symbol of everything most decadent about life "on the continent"? Is it just a rationalisation of the Mediterranean countries' natural laziness?

Get set for a glorious food lover's weekend

Source : Epicurious.com
Bon Appétit Magazine - Mara Papathedorou writes :

I fell in love with Sicily the moment I set foot there. Stepping down from the plane, I walked into a warm breeze so fragrant it stopped me in my tracks. "What is that delicious smell?" I asked a man near me. His reply was enthusiastic. "Signora, that is la zagara — the orange and lemon blossoms. The trees are all in flower now!" Could there really be enough blossoms to perfume a whole island?
I was soon to discover that Sicily abounds in such resources. Its flavors, scents, and colors are more intense than anywhere else in Italy. Ripened by the sun and tempered by the salt air, fruits and vegetables take on a greater depth of flavor. They form the basis of Sicily's complex gastronomic culture, the roots of which are buried in the island's history.
As on all islands, Sicily's winds, when they come, have names and identifiable characteristics. When lo Scirocco blows in from the Sahara desert, the air is thick with yellow-ocher or brick-red sand. And then there is la Tramontana, the cooling wind from the north. The tiny thin-skinned brown lentils of Ustica, an island near Palermo, grow best when facing such a wind. The same lentils, planted elsewhere, are just not as flavorful.
Those lentils have been taken up as a cause by the Slow Food movement, the Italian organization (which now has members worldwide) that is devoted to protecting artisanal foods from the encroachment of globalization and mass production. In fact, all across Sicily, foods and culinary traditions are being rediscovered and celebrated. From the island's unique grapes, to cheese, candies, even salt — all are being safeguarded as the treasures they are. For those of us who love Sicily, these developments are both comforting and exciting.

There's no better place to start exploring Sicily than at the heart of Palermo, in the island's oldest food market, La Vucciria. On this Saturday morning its narrow streets seem like a maze, lined with tables and crates stacked with bright pyramids: the satiny purple eggplants; pale green cucuzza squash like long curlicues; dark green artichokes; yellow citrons as big as grapefruits, and lemons as sweet as oranges; round sheep's-milk cheeses. I buy a few plums to eat as I walk; they are wrapped for me in a cone of rough paper, like a bunch of flowers.

My favorite stall is the deep-red one of tomatoes and peppers, the air around it exotic from sweet and salt, herbs and spice. Here the tomatoes come in every shape and guise: fresh; sun-dried; vine-dried, then tied in tangled bunches; preserved in oil; ground with herbs for pesto Palermitano; or pressed into salty slabs of concentrated paste — l'estratto — that are sold from an open tray by the spoonful. To accompany them are blisteringly hot peperoncini, woven strands of pink-veined garlic, and sprays of wild herbs.

"This area has been a market for centuries," explains Lia Verdina of the city tourist office. "Its name has evolved from boccheria — from the French boucherie, or butcher's — to Vucciria."

It's time for a midmorning snack, so we walk around piazzas ringed with palm trees and weave through chaotic traffic past eighteenth-century palaces to a bar known for its pastries. "Salato o dolce — savory or sweet?" asks Lia, opting for an arancina, a hot golden orb of rice that reveals a nugget of cheese at its center. It's hard to choose, but the cannoli look irresistible. The shells are filled with sweetened ricotta only after I order them, so they remain crisp to the last bite.

Our tour continues past the splendidly restructured Teatro Massimo opera house to the Kalsa, where Arab emirs lived a thousand years ago. One lofty section of an old wall has been strikingly converted into a cocktail bar, bookshop, and meeting place. It is a symbol of the rebirth of this once run-down quarter — at night, the streets around it are alive with restaurants and wine bars.

The autostrada west from Palermo toward Trapani follows the coast between imposing hills and sea so blue it's dazzling. I'm going to visit Marilù Terrasi, whose restaurant and hotel, Pocho, in the seaside town of San Vito lo Capo is renowned for its couscous. Called cuscusu in Sicily, this dish is an Arab legacy that is now the Trapani area's most popular meal. Indeed, San Vito lo Capo hosts an annual couscous festival, where cooks from around the Mediterranean compete.

"Our couscous is traditionally served with fish," explains Terrasi as I am served a heaping platter of it adorned with a host of sea creatures. "We season it with bay leaf, but some people also like it very piccante."

I drive on through seas of vineyards — Trapani produces more varieties of grapes than any other province in Italy — and then climb the steep, winding road to Erice. This stunning medieval hill town with narrow, intricately paved streets was built beside an ancient Greek temple dedicated to the bee goddess Aphrodite. This is the stuff of mythology: Virgil mentions the temple as a landmark in the Aeneid. Today, the views from Erice's peak are spectacular, and in summer its breezes are always cooling.

But there's another reason for my visit. I'm here for the delicious cookies and pastries that are produced by Maria Grammatico in her little shop. Grammatico learned her craft growing up in a convent, as did generations of sweetmakers before her. Grammatico's recipes, and the story of her life, have been published in Bitter Almonds, the book she wrote with Mary Taylor Simeti.

Down again, and a drive farther west toward Marsala by way of the coastal road that runs along the Mozia lagoon and past ancient — but still productive — salt flats. I love to come to this magical world halfway between sea and land. If you are lucky with the weather, you can have an aperitivo at the bar by the salt plant and watch the sunset reflected in the salt pans.

"Taking the best, mineral-rich salts from the sea and leaving the impurities behind is an ancient art," explains Giacomo D'Ali Staiti, who has restored a handsome sixteenth-century windmill here and created a salt museum. "It involves pumping sea water through a series of shallow insulated fields whose salinity increases under the hot summer sun until salt crystals form. The salt is then gathered into pyramids." At the end of the season, these large mounds are protected from the autumn rains with terra-cotta tiles. Without them, the salt would wash right back into the sea.

For dinner I treat myself to a plate of busiati — pasta that has been hand-rolled around a reed stalk to give it a spiral form. It is dressed with chunks of locally caught tuna and sprinkled with intensely aromatic capers preserved sotto sale — in sea salt.

It's lovely to explore the hills of southeast Sicily, where the extraordinary baroque towns of Ragusa, Modica, and Noto are situated. This landscape is unique, whatever the season — in spring when the pastures are colored by wildflowers, and in summer and autumn when their parched gold is broken only by the network of white dry-stone walls. Even the cattle blend into this monochromatic world of whites and browns. Their milk is used to make caciocavallo Ragusano, a well-salted firm cheese that is pressed into large rectangular blocks and matured hanging from ropes. A consortium has been formed to ensure that local farmers and artisans will continue to produce the cheese just as it has been produced for centuries.

Indeed, this is where some of Sicily's most interesting food artisans are to be found. In Modica, at Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, Franco Ruta makes pure, aromatic chocolate using the methods of the Aztecs. In Noto, maestro gelataio Corrado Costanzo carries on an ice cream tradition that was begun by the Arabs a thousand years ago using snow and infusions of jasmine and rose petals. Also in Noto, the Assenza brothers, at their Caffè Sicilia, produce a range of honeys scented with chilies, wild herbs, fruits, and spices. Their pastries range from classic favorites like cassata to innovative desserts that successfully use vegetables in place of fruit.

Such modern twists are not unusual in twenty-first-century Sicily. "Modern Sicilian cuisine bridges the gap between the future and the past," points out Ciccio Sultano, the talented young chef and owner of Ristorante Duomo in the ancient town of Ragusa Ibla. Sultano has built an inspired cuisine around the area's uniquely flavorful ingredients, like cherry tomatoes, pistachios, bitter almonds, and the delicate long-stemmed pears from Mount Etna. "There are excellent wild foods, too," he says, "from the herbs that have chosen to grow here — fennel, mint, thyme, and oregano — to the game, mushrooms, wild berries, and chestnuts."

My final stop, the pretty fishing port of Syracuse on the east coast, is a good place to find the varieties of Mediterranean fish that star in so much of the island's cucina. Swordfish — traditionally caught in the Strait of Messina — and tuna are often accompanied by tomatoes, as well as raisins and pine nuts, mint and garlic, or capers and olives. Sardines, red mullet, and inky squid are popular, abundant, and affordable. They are best when cooked with delicate Sicilian extra-virgin olive oil — never butter — and eaten with chewy fresh bread.

From the port, I walk across the bridge to the tiny, beautiful island of Ortigia, where the city center is located. Its creamy-pink streets are full of restaurants, shops, and wonderful architecture, like the baroque cathedral, which was built on the site of a Greek temple to Athena and houses a medieval church within it. The piazza here is a great place to sit, have a glass of the local wine, and watch the passeggiata, the parade of couples and families out for an evening stroll.

And it's a great place to reflect on Sicily's ancient allure. Here, in this city, are some of the best of the Greek archaeological ruins — Syracuse was one of the most important cities in the western world for more than a thousand years. Those ruins are now surrounded by a modern city and, beyond that, by orange and lemon groves that fill the Sicilian air with their exquisite perfume.