There's No Place Like Home

The moon over Madison, Mississippi is a crescent -- a fingernail moon that looks eerily like the French manicure I had yesterday – just a sliver of bright white against a black sky.  It softly illuminates the lake and the cypress trees that thrust through the water and reach magestically toward the night sky.

It’s the same moon that shines half a world away over Sicily where I’ve spent time this month eating, drinking and learning the history, culture  and foodways of this ancient land.   But this moon is mine…because it shines on my place, my home. The land I stand on is ancient too with it’s own proud history.  I’ve contributed to that history today, adding holy moments of my own to the continuum of life on this plot of ground.  Today was Annelle’s birthday and what better way to mark the years –over five decades -- than spending a glorious day in the natural world. 

Yesterday we were in girlie mode – hair color, manicures, pedicures and the works – dressed in our finest and ready for a night on the town.  Today we celebrate not only a birthday but the other side of our personalities – the one with no makeup, grungy t-shirts, hair in ponytails and yesterday’s manicures chewed away by the sharp teeth of big bass.  With the backdrop of cypress trees, water, sun and sky our focus is on lures, weights, lines and most of all FISH.

One of us  (Margaret) catches the biggest fish any of us have ever seen and it takes all three to land it.  We squeal.  We run in circles trying to figure out how to get Moby Dick out of the water then off the hook. We take endless numbers of photographs on our iPhones. It’s a team effort and we revel in the accomplishments of the best fisher among us.  At the end of the day we have all caught big fish, and there are fish stories aplenty to share with friends and loved ones.

Our fishing day ends after night falls. We can’t see our lures landing on the water.  Can fish see in the dark?  We finally pack our things, tripping over rods and lines and lures and the remnants of a picnic and just a few cold beers.  We head for home and the responsibilities of the real world that await each of us.

September in Sicily was a once-in-a lifetime experience -- but it’s now only a dreamy dream and half a world away.  Tonight my feet are firmly planted on familiar ground.  I’m home where I belong under the Mississippi moon. With a tackle box full of memories I leave the lake and my friends.  Like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, I click my heels together and say three times “There’s no place like home.”

Postcard from Sicily: Welcome to the Revolution

Another day, another Francesco. Our cooking tour of Sicily has convinced us that culinary guide Elaine Trigiani knows only handsome men. In addition to three Francescos, we have met Paolo, Carlo, Accursio, Pino, Lorenzo, Angelo, Domenico, and Salvatore. Intense, talented and movie star handsome, these are among the rising stars of the Sicilian food community where a return to the ancient yields new and inventive foods and wines. They are farmers, grape growers, wine makers, olive growers, olive oil producers, cheesemakers, chocolate makers and chefs. Welcome to the Sicilian culinary revolution.

They are bold, brash and committed to their craft. They are poetic, sensitive, courageous and emotional as they share dreams of creating perfect wines that are noble expressions of their native soil and artisan cheeses from gently milked sheep grazing on mountain slopes. They cook foods that distill the essence of Sicily onto a plate. They speak of the island’s rich culinary heritage whose intricate layers were created by a parade of invaders since 1200 BC who left behind their foods and their farming practices – Phoenicians, Macedonians, Moors, Greeks, Romans, Spaniards and Normans. New is old and old is new as the young revolutionaries turn back the hand of time to ancient and pure farming practices where farmer and nature join to gently coax the bounty of the earth , not pepper it with pesticides, engineered seeds and invasive practices. Over and over we hear the words bio-dynamic, amore, passione, gentle and nurture. These are not technicians; these are artists working within the scope of history but with the future in mind. And it’s a bright future for Sicily indeed.

Postcard from Sicily - Maria Fidone's Kitchen

Our Viking Life culinary journey takes us to the small town of Frigintini just outside of Modica where we spend a memorable morning with one of Sicily's best "country cooks".

“I don’t know how to measure, I feel it with my hands.” Maria Fidone

Maria Fidone cooks the caponata

In Maria Fidone’s sunny kitchen at Cucina Casereccia in southeastern Sicily the makings of caponata – celery, red peppers and eggplant - cook on the front of the stove. A rabbit stews on the back burner waiting for carrots, potatoes and other colorful vegetables to enrich the broth. Dough for sciacci is rolled, layered with tomato and cheese and carefully folded into a long flattish loaf shape ready for the oven. Daughter Grazia is rolling sheets of pasta for ravioli then expertly adding a ricotta filling then cutting and crimping the squares. Like spectators at a tennis match our attention bounces back and forth between Maria at the stove and Grazia and the pasta. Suddenly the air is punctuated with a staccato sound – rat-a-tat-tat. It’s Grazia using a strange homemade contraption that marries a Black & Decker hand drill to the head of a cavatelli maker. We are all mesmerized and amused as the clever contraption grabs hold of sheets of pasta and spits out perfect cavatelli shapes. Standing in the doorway her father, the creator of the “cavatelli drill”, smiles bashfully at our obvious admiration of his machine.

Except for the clunky pasta contraption, most everything in Maria’s kitchen is prepared with “the knife”, a plastic handled 4” paring knife, the kind you find encased in a blister card and hanging on a supermarket display “The knife” is the only cutlery visible in the restaurant kitchen and Maria and Grazia share it. It cuts onion eggplant, red peppers, garlic and celery. She uses it to cut through rabbit bone. It slices sheets of pasta dough into long strips and cuts the ravioli into squares. It serves as a scraper – both on the counter and in the pan. Maria picks marjoram from the kitchen garden and minces it in her hand with “the knife.” There are no cutting boards; everything is prepped on the granite countertop or in the hand. Onions for the caponata never touch a flat surface. They are nestled in the palm of Maria’s able hand and expertly chopped.

"The Knife"

According to Elaine Trigiani, culinary guide on our Viking Life journey through Sicily, “the knife” is the cutlery of the Sicilian home cook. Early in her career Elaine, an American who has lived in Italy for the past 12 years, toted her fine German- made chef knives to cook in the home of her Sicilian relatives. Her offer to lend her prized knives for the formidable kitchen tasks at hand was met with scoffs and knitted eyebrows. Gently rebuffed, she was handed “the knife”.

Maria’s pots and pans are of supermarket variety, too. There are no layers of clad materials to promote conductivity, no cool grip handles. The pans are thin stainless steel, some missing knobs and handles. “The knife” and the cookware are the professional tools she employs to cook for the 95 grateful diners who pack her restaurant for lunch and dinner.

Maria Fidone considers herself a cook, not a chef, but she is revered by chefs who make pilgrimages to her restaurant in Frigintini just outside of Modica. The “big deal chefs” refer to her as the best of the traditional grandmother cooks in the countryside of the Iblean mountains in southeast Sicily. She is noted for her honest interpretation of traditional Modican recipes and has run her casual restaurant in Frigintini for the past 21 years simply preparing her mother’s, grandmother’s and mother-in-law’s recipes.

Grazia and the amazing cavatelli contraption

There is no doubt that this is a female kitchen and the sole man, Maria’s husband, wisely stands slightly outside the doorway ready to fetch, tote and wash a dish when beckoned. We are ten lucky women who are allowed to spend the day with Maria and Grazia. It’s Monday and the restaurant is closed so we have the run of the place, watching, questioning, ooh-ing, aah-ing and laughing . In Italian and English we speak the secret language of women – one that is born of universal female experience and innate knowing. It is a language that needs no interpreter.

When the last dish comes out of the oven, we head for the dining room to sample the results of the morning work. We talk of our culinary tour of Sicily and recount the dining adventures of the past week. We’ve met a parade of handsome chefs in starched white jackets. We’ve seen the gleaming stainless steel kitchens of Michelin starred restaurants. We’ve tasted inventive dishes created by daring young chefs who are pushing the boundaries of their native cooking, and turning the attention of the culinary world to this ancient island.

We’re pretty sure that the anonymous Michelin inspectors don’t visit this little restaurant so we take a vote around the table and bestow our own three star rating on Maria Fidone’s. We leave a post-it note on the wall inviting all to see Maria as we see her –with the imaginative young chefs standing on her tiny shoulders. With the blazing fire of culinary revolution, they shatter the boundaries of tradition. And in her sunny kitchen, Maria Fidone is keeper of the flame.

To join us on next year's Viking Life trip to Sicily visit: www.thevikinglife.com

For more pictures of our day at Maria Fidone's visit:  http://on.fb.me/rrkp3m

Postcard from Sicily

Having a wonderful time.  Wish you were here!

If you were here you would have spent the morning walking through teeming stalls of the Ballerò, Palermo’s loud and lively street market.  Fish are delivered straight from the boat and every type of vegetable grown under the Sicilian sun is artfully displayed creating a panorama of brilliant color. Delicacies of the season abound with their praises extolled, screeched or sung at full volume by proud and fiercely competitive vendors.  Eels squirm in plastic bins; butchered animals hang from hooks and the squeamish among us avert their eyes and focus on mountains of ruby red tomatoes and deep purple eggplant that proliferate on each aisle.

This is a typical day on a Viking Life culinary adventure where we experience first-hand the cuisine of a region from its historic beginnings.  This week we taste the past, present and future of Sicily, the mysterious and strategic island that has been host to a long line of invaders.  The island was inhabited well before the arrival of the Phoenicians around 1200 BC and successively imprinted by the ruling Greeks, Romans, Tunisian Berbers, Normans, German Swabians, Angevin French, Aragonese, Spanish and Italians.  Each left a mark on the flavors and aromas of modern Sicilian cuisine.

Exiting the market with a refreshing cup of peach gelato in hand, you’d leave behind the ancient narrow, noisy, congested streets of Palermo and head for the hills with our group of ten culinary adventurers.   Next stop is the winery of Francesco and Manfredi Guccione who practice biodynamic cultivation on their historic family property.  As soon as you arrive, you feel an almost religious atmosphere.  Each vine, stone, plant and insect seem to have an important role in the cultivation and vinification of the grapes.  After tasting their delicate wines, we wind our way through the hills to Francesco’s 17^th century farmhouse where he has prepared lunch – fresh figs, meatballs, frittata, pasta “norma” with tomatoes and eggplant, salumi, local cheeses and of course, his wines. Francesco tells us he was cooking till 1:00 this morning and was on the phone with his grandmother who coached him on the finer points of the old family recipes.  It is a picture perfect day for a rustic Sicilian luncheon in a setting we thought only existed in our dreams or in movies.

We reluctantly bid “arrividerci” to Francesco as we are reminded by Elaine Trigiani, our leader and culinary educator, that we have “miles to go before we sleep.”  And we do.  The van is quiet as heads nod and drop into wine-infused afternoon naps.  We roll through hill towns and villages making our way back to our hotel perched dramatically in the middle of a hillside vineyard near Menfi.  Back at the hotel, we relax for a couple of hours then gather for our next epicurean adventure – a cooking class with noted chef Angelo Pumillia.  Our day ends in the spacious kitchen of La Foresteria, our hotel, with a class on “noble cuisine” followed by dinner on the vineyard terrace under the light of the Sicilian moon with a balmy Mediterranean breeze blowing through the vineyards.  We'll wake tomorrow morning to the sounds of workers harvesting grapes and the sun's rays dancing on the sea below us.  And we'll head off again -- to eat, drink, learn and celebrate the bounty of this magical island.

This is Viking Range.  This is the Viking Life.  And this is what we do.

For more information on Viking Life trips visit: www.thevikinglife.com

To see more photographs from our day in Sicily visit: http://on.fb.me/pLsN9q