1 rabbit, cut into pieces and rinsed
1 cup Marsala
Extra-virgin olive oil, QB
1 onion, finely chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery
2 red bell peppers, cut in strips
1 tablespoon tomato paste, dissolved in a little hot water
Salt and pepper, QB
5 tablespoons capers, rinsed and drained
12 green olives, pitted
2 to 3 tablespoons parsley, snipped
Dry the rabbit pieces and place them in a suitable container, then sprinkle with half of the Marsala. Let them marinate, refrigerated, for at least 4 hours but better all night long, turning them from time to time so that they always remain a little impregnated with wine.
Add olive oil to a skillet on medium heat and sauté the onion, garlic, celery, and peppers for about 7 minutes. Remove the vegetables to a bowl. Add the rabbit to the skillet and brown on both sides, then pour in the remaining Marsala and make it fade—almost evaporate. Add the tomato paste. Season with salt and pepper. Return the vegetables to the skillet, cover, and cook over medium heat. After about 15 minutes, add the capers and olives, and more olive oil, and continue cooking on medium low for an hour. The Portuguese rabbit is ready to be served with parsley sprinkled on top.
Ristorante Don Eusebio, Eremo della Giubiliana, Ragusa, Sicilia
Caponata
SERVES 6
Sicilian soul food, as prepared by Giovanni Galesi, the chef at Nosco cooking school at the atmospheric Hotel Antico Convento. Use caponata with everything—fish, bread, meat, crackers, or just a dollop on its own. Cutting the vegetables into similar-size small cubes assures a balance of flavors. This southern version has no raisins or olives, the way it’s made in the north. I slip in two cloves of garlic. Giovanni says that in winter, spinach, pumpkin, or chicory is often added.
Extra-virgin olive oil, QB
1 onion, cubed
1 red bell pepper, diced
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
1 tablespoon honey
2 to 3 capers, rinsed
½ cup tomato sauce
Salt and pepper, QB
3 zucchini, diced
2 eggplants, diced
A few basil leaves
Add olive oil to a medium-size skillet and sauté the onion and pepper. Meanwhile, plunge the carrots and celery into boiling water for 3 to 4 minutes. Drain and mix with the onion and red pepper in the skillet. Bring up the heat and add to the pan the vinegar, honey, capers, tomato sauce, salt, and pepper. Mix well. Set aside. In another skillet, add more oil and on medium-high heat, fry the zucchini and then the eggplant until barely tender, about 2 minutes for the zucchini and 4 for the eggplant. Turn off the heat, mix everything, and add the basil. Best after a few hours for the flavors to blend.
Nosco, Scuola Mediterranea di Enogastronomia, Hotel Antico Convento, Ragusa Ibla, Sicilia
A chance e-mail from our friend Todd sent us to stay in the countryside at the six-room inn Baglio Occhipinti, a project of Fausta Occhipinti, right down the ancient wine road from her sister Arianna’s vineyard. “Love, love, loved it,” he wrote. Anything he loves, we know we will, too.
All across Sicily, we’ve seen tumbled stone farms. This one, low and spread out, is from 1860. Arabic Baglio means courtyard. There are several walled spaces with tables and chairs for relaxing outside, and a tall stone wall surrounds the long pool.
The winemaking room retains huge sunken vats with stone chutes where wine flowed in. Now they’re a feature of the inn’s gathering room, a sophisticated design of white sofas flanking an old fireplace, and antique chests with arrangements of flowers, photos, tureens, silver candlesticks, tea sets, and leaning prints on top. A guitar stands by the hearth. The way-tall ceiling suggests that the room might also have been a granary. What I love: the capacious coffee table stacked high with books. As we arrive, Sebastiano, the chef, asks if we want to have dinner tonight. Yes! He’s setting six tables with candles and white tablecloths. Only guests dine here.
He takes us in the kitchen for a glass of water and we stay for a few minutes. He’s chopping pumpkin. I’m totally charmed, and he’s amused that I find his kitchen so special. Any designer interested in efficiency would faint. Totally deconstructed, it seems to work for him. Two unmatched tables pushed together form the “island,” antique china cabinets hold dishes and equipment. A cake is cooling by the sink. “For breakfast tomorrow,” he says. A few rustic chairs. There’s a normal stove, a couple of small corner tables jammed with trays and flowers and containers. In the corner, a wood oven. This kitchen goes against every rule. Rough cobbles. Baskets of potatoes, grapes, oranges, vegetables stand on the floor near the door. Wouldn’t you think the space for one table against the wall could be a work station? Instead, it is covered with a collection of old silver: covered butter and cheese dishes, teapots, and wine coasters.
* * *
OUR ROOM, THE Botanica Suite, has clay tile floors, stone walls, sloping beamed ceiling. Otherwise, all white. Everything. The art consists of framed herbs and dried meadow flowers that look like a project one might do with a child on a summer afternoon.
Travel, for us, equals motion. We go. We keep going. Today, I’m claiming the rest of the afternoon to sit in one of those grassy enclosures that once held some donkey captive. I’m reading Sicily: A Short History from the Ancient Greeks to Cosa Nostra by John Julius Norwich, a thorough and readable historian. Fifty pages and dizziness sets in. Sicily…everyone attacked—Greeks, Byzantines, Phoenicians, Arabs, French, Spanish, Goths, Normans, their own internal power mongers, and last, the Germans. The invasions, beheadings, battles, expulsions, feudal semi-slavery, epidemics, and earthquakes are simply staggering. Numbing. How could such chaos have continued nonstop for so many centuries? But—who would not want this blessed isle right in the middle of the Mediterranean? Strategic and idyllic.
Norwich begins: “ ‘Sicily,’ said Goethe, ‘is the key to everything.’ It is, first of all, the largest island in the Mediterranean. It has also proved, over the centuries, to be the most unhappy.”
“History,” he continues, “has endowed Sicily with some dark, brooding quality—some underlying sorrow of which poverty, the Church, the Mafia and all the other popular modern scapegoats may be manifestations but are certainly not the cause.” That, and also that Sicily and the south in general have constantly been short-changed when the national goodies are handed around. Sicily, to the rest of Italy, is still other.
In the north, I’ve heard many times, “Below Rome begins Africa.” I once asked a neighbor if a small, darker-skinned worker was Italian. “No,” he answered, “he’s Sicilian.”
While Norwich’s history broadens my understanding of the island, two other writers do the same. In Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s The Leopard, the Prince of Salina bears the whole burden of his country’s history. The novel takes place at a charged time, the Risorgimento under Garibaldi. Sicily, for the first time since the Roman Empire, is about to be unified. Change is coming and the prince, progenitor of all Sicilian history, must fold himself into the heavy past and die. The symbolism feels heavy but the novel is a sensuous marvel. That sensuousness—who could ever forget the lush description of desserts at the formal ball?—provides the reader a direct visceral route into the heart of Sicily. The novel imprints permanently the dark vortex of the island’s history, and also the cunning, humor, and passion of those who lived it.
Another revelatory writer, and I am traveling with three of his books, is the droll and sharp Leonard
o Sciascia. A literary writer, he chose subjects of crime and the Mafia. His characters often have, as Robert Frost wrote, “a lover’s quarrel with the world,” but there’s a fierce strain of love for Sicily in his work. Even its foibles. In one story set earlier in the century, a group of Sicilians pays for passage to America. They sail for days, fantasizing about the new life, and finally are let off in the dark. They start out with their belongings on foot toward an American city. Suddenly they hear a snatch of song, recognize a road marker. They’ve disembarked near where they embarked. Duped again.
They wrote of different eras, Giuseppe di Lampedusa (1896–1957) and Leonardo Sciascia (1921–1989). Although they overlapped in life by thirty-six years, their styles differ drastically—one, lavish and Baroque, the other, lean and understated. What’s common to both, a quick, often funny, irony and a metabolic-level love for Sicily.
* * *
AS A CURIOUS person on holiday, I don’t experience the complexities. From a casual perspective, Sicilians don’t have the upfront immediate and boisterous personalities that you encounter constantly in Tuscany. But then neither do the Piemontese, the Fruiliani, and others. The Sicilians I’ve met over several trips do not seem dark. They have been cordial, extremely polite, and present. Unless you’ve lived here, I suppose you’re not able to comment on the national character, but I wonder if there is in the past decades a lifting of this darkness on this blessèd isle.
* * *
ED HAS BEEN off for a visit with Fausta’s sister, Arianna, the winemaker at the restored Occhipinti vineyard. And now we have Sebastiano’s dinner to savor, along with the wine of the house. We’re visiting someone’s home, it seems, only we don’t dine with the other ten guests. Each couple has a private table and the room is hushed until everyone has had a bit of wine. Now, laughter. We end up talking to two young women next to us. Lawyers from New York, they’re tearing up the roads all over Sicily. How lucky, to feel independent that young. And knowledgeable. Like travelers everywhere, we exchange names of places and restaurants. Sebastiano serves the dinner he made for us. Risotto with pumpkin, not too sweet, followed by a homey beef stew. Their Occhipinti Il Frappato 2015, from frappato grapes, is easy to love and tastes lighter than our usual nero d’Avola choices. Cannoli, signature dessert of Sicily, he serves deconstructed: Instead of the curl of deep-fried pastry stuffed with the sweet ricotta and sprinkled with pistachios, his ricotta comes in a bowl with the nuts and cracked pastry on top.
* * *
DEEP NIGHT IN the countryside of Sicily, Ed off to dreamland. I’m reading The Day of the Owl by Sciascia when I hear one calling from the fields.
A woman from the village serves our breakfast under the olive trees. Fresh cakes and fruit and cappuccino made with the Moka pot. Our two friends from last night are off to the ruins at Agrigento. We plan a leisurely day seeing some of the small towns in the area. Fausta appears, an immediate strong presence. She’s forthright and smiles with her whole face, obviously a people person. Painted eyes, the name Occhipinti means. Hers are not but they are deep-set, fringed with thick lashes. Her genes must go back to the Byzantines. We learn more about how she and her sister restored the tumbled farms and built their secluded inn and a vineyard that is getting big notice in all the competitions. “We’re dreamers in my family, artists, winemakers, landscape designers, architects. I’m a landscape person. I worked for years in Paris, but I love my island and came home to do something here.” Her uncle nearby owns COS, another fine vineyard that is aging wine in clay amphorae, the way it was done eons ago. Fausta gives us advice about the day and we’re off, though it would be great fun to spend the morning with her.
* * *
WE PARK EASILY in Vittoria, a good-size market town built around a shady piazza. I’d say three hundred teenagers are hanging out, talking in groups, huddled around café tables, and speeding about on motorcycles. On Friday, why are they not at school? We check out the Palazzo Carfí Muscolino, Palazzo Giudice-Santapá, Palazzo Traina, and other Liberty (Art Nouveau) buildings the town is known for, another piazza with palm trees and Chiesa Madre, Mother Church, a handsome pinkish-yellow façade topped by matching domes. On the altar floor, two inlaid marble ex votos commemorate John the Baptist saving the winemakers. On the left, a black marble urn, dated 1798, holds dead grapevines; on the right, dated 1801, the urn holds healthy grapes, hanging in abundant bunches. There’s a fabulous painting, Deposition of Christ, attributed to Antonio Scalogna, 1725. Who is he? A quick Internet check reveals nothing. What draws me is the style. Scalogna is onto something here. He’s finding planes and angles, chiseled edges to his figures. A knowledge of Caravaggio shows.
When we stop for coffee, Ed strikes up a conversation with an ancient man in a tweed cap and ascot. The students milling about? “They’re on strike,” he says.
“High school students on strike? Against what? Grades, teachers?” Ed asks.
“Oh, everything,” the man answers.
Before we left this morning, I asked Fausta where she found the old tiles she used above the sinks in the bathrooms. “Go to Caltagirone. It’s one of the big ceramics centers of Sicily.” Well, that’s saying something, as decorative tiles define Sicily.
We cross a bridge decorated with tiles, a good intro to the ceramics-mad town. There are ceramics shops everywhere in the old centro. We’re both stunned when the street ends in a wide sweep of 142 steps up to the church—steps with tile risers of blue, yellow, and white designs of waves, horses, acanthus leaves, birds, arabesques. Small shops line the way. In several, women are painting designs on the formed clay. I buy a tile clock in one, a spoon rest in another, a small bowl. That’s it. We have carry-on luggage. These I can slide between my clothes but if there’s more, we have a problem. We’d have to check, a practice Ed forbids. No checked luggage, he wants carved on his tombstone.
We don’t find anything old that we could ship back for the bathroom we are planning to add at Bramasole. Fausta must have bought them all. But I do see a great sun-yellow and blue tile to put under a pot that might ooze moisture onto a table. “I’ll put it in my handbag. Really, promise.”
We dutifully visit the ceramics museum and the Duomo, but I admit, my mind is singularly focused on the old tile. We have a quick vegetable crepe lunch in a bar and keep walking. Although the centro is mono-themed, a few Baroque buildings catch our eyes. Quite a few others look dreary and neglected. All the color goes into the ceramics. Gilda will like her spoon rest, and my daughter the little bowl. I’ll think of Sicily when the tile clock ticks in the kitchen. The steps were amazing to see. Wonder if, as I’ve seen in Portugal in such places, anyone does penance by walking up to the top on their knees.
* * *
BY MID-AFTERNOON, WE are back at Baglio Occhipinti. We both are craving a calm few hours to read and rest in our quiet haven. Then dinner again, under the good care of Sebastiano. Tonight, the first fire of fall in the big room. Suddenly, the season is turning. We have a glass of prosecco and look through the books on the coffee table. One is on Mafia cooking. Can only imagine that it’s quite good. Design books from London. Travel guides left by guests.
We’re only three tables tonight and we keep to ourselves. Little bites of eggplant parmigiana, big plates of pasta with ragù, then lamb and chicory. Proud to drink SP68, Arianna’s awarded wine (tre bicchiere, three glasses, the top distinction in Gambero Rosso), a mix of frappato and nero d’Avola. The wine, named for the road the vineyard is on, tastes quite at home with Sebastiano’s refined and simple food. At this place, everything fits everything else.
The two young New York lawyers are dining somewhere up the coast. We toast them and all adventurous travelers. It would be lovely to sprawl on the sofas and read by the fire. The place is not quite that informal, so we sit upright and enjoy a thumb-size glass of Marsala.
* * *
THIS WEEK WE’VE stayed in three places. We didn’t really need to, as
the distances we’ve covered are not extensive. If you check Marzamemi, Scicli, and Vittoria on a map, one base works if you’re willing to drive a bit. I loved all the places we stayed. Now, after one more stop, we get to see Catania.
A brief stop in a special town, a hill town with intimate medieval streets. Chiaramonte Gulfi has been lolling under the Sicilian sun since first established by Greeks in the seventh century B.C. The pleasant town today belies its rugged history. Seized and destroyed by the Arabs in 827, it retains the name they bestowed: Gulfi, meaning pleasant land. Added later, Chiaramonte was the name of the man who rebuilt the town after it was leveled in 1296.
Like everywhere else around here, it was hit by the harrowing 1693 quake. Unlike other villages, the citizens rebuilt on the old plan, winding and narrow and climbing, giving onto broad views of the valley below.
The rectangular Piazza Duomo, with palms, cafés, and small shops, is dominated by Santa Maria La Nova. Its weathered doors carved with saints in panels are exquisite and in need of care. A few people out, walking dogs, chatting with neighbors, having a coffee. No cars to dodge, an almost strange quiet.
We read about several museums inside Palazzo Montesano: embroidery, Liberty objects, ethnic musical instruments, and olive oil. Closed. One of the frustrations of travel! Often museums and churches are closed when you think they might be open. (Shops, too. Most of Italy outside the cities is closed on Monday.)
See You in the Piazza Page 38
