February 24th, 2010 / comments 7
I found green beans at the market yesterday for the first time since we arrived in Siracusa.
They were thin, unblemished and tender. I decided to combine blanched green beans with fresh basil and pieces of roasted red pepper from the market. Here’s how I did it. … read more
February 23rd, 2010 / comments 6
Today I bought fava beans at the market. Legend has it that fava beans saved the Sicilians from famine when all other crops had failed. There is no possibility of famine in Sicily this month but since these beans that have been eaten in the eastern Mediterranean since around 6000 BC and are in season, it seemed appropriate that I try them.
Some people believe that if one carries a fava bean, they will never be without the essentials of life. The name fava comes from the Latin fabe, the word that means bean. Fava beans may also be called broad beans, pigeon beans, horse beans, and Windsor beans.
The vegetable vendor explained with a mixture of Italian, Sicilian and sign language how to separate the beans from the pods. First, the five or six fava beans must be taken out of the pale green outer pod that looks like an overgrown green bean, and then, before it can be eaten, each bean must be stripped of the thick, tough skin that encloses it.
All of the shelling can be done by the cook, or the shelled beans can be left inside the skin, sautéed in olive oil with or without garlic, salt and pepper, and served – leaving the task of popping the beans from their skins to each diner.
I opted for the easiest preparation of all. I held each pod in the fire of the kitchen cook top until I could see steam puffing out of the pod. When I had cooked a few pods, I poured olive oil onto a small plate, ground salt and pepper into it and proceeded to pop the beans out of the pod. I put them into the oil and ate them, using my teeth to separate each bean from its wrapper.
I don’t know if it was the fava beans, the fava bean pod or something else that made me feel unsteady on my feet and my lips tingly. It took a walk, half a liter of water and a dish of gelato to set me right.
Although the fava beans had a mild and pleasing flavor, a creamy texture and were a lovely shade of green and I think I give the rest of them away.
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February 20th, 2010 / comments 9
Honey in the morning, honey in the evening. Honey is a staple in my Sicilian kitchen. I drizzled this light, delicately scented gift from the bees onto rustic breakfast sandwiches.
Assembly was a breeze – toasted crusty ciabatta bread + a layer of marscapone + strawberry slices + honey = sticky fingers and a delicious way to start the day.
For a simple salad to accompany pasta minted carrot salad was a perfect contrast. I put it together before I began to cook the pasta so that the dressing would wilt the carrots a bit. Here’s how I did it: … read more
February 19th, 2010 / comments 5
This post is out of order – I blame it on jet lag. After a long night of travel, we finally arrived in Siracusa. 
We took a nap only to wake up and sleep for ten hours. The following morning, we crawled out of bed into the welcoming sunshine. Charles unpacked suitcases while I checked out my Sicilian kitchen. I found a small refrigerator, a cook-top with three burners, a tiny sink and a window with a view of the blue-green Mediterranean.
There was plenty of space in the nearly empty drawers for my arsenal of can’t-cook-without-it tools I had packed. My knives, the immersion blender that also functions as a mini food processor, the coarse and fine micro planes, a scale, measuring spoons and cups, and an instant read digital thermometer made my Sicilian kitchen seem a bit more like the one I left behind in Vermont. Even with these additions, the kitchen was not as well equipped as I had hoped so we had to set out in search of other kitchen essentials including a small toaster oven.
Life in Sicily is full of serendipity and detours. Our first detour was a stop at the Caffe Minerva for a macchiato and a ricotta filled pastry. Delizioso! Our second detour involved the open-air market. It was already noon, we had slept until ten, and the vendors would be gone long before we got back from our search for the super mercato. We needed food and since all of the fresh food we eat will be from local vendors, I had to shop for food before I shopped for the tools that I would need. The vendors’ stalls line both sides of the street for two blocks along Via Benedictine. My stomach was still on Vermont time, 5 am, so I was drawn to the fruit rather than to the squid and cuttlefish.
I filled a canvas shopping bag with blood oranges, green skinned mandarines, one very large, lumpy skinned lemon, a pair of tomatoes shaped like deeply fluted pumpkins, garlic, a head of fennel and a container of olives. At the last stall, I bought a roasted red pepper from a vendor who had a small charcoal grill. He wrapped the still warm pepper in a bit of foil, and after I had paid him thirty Euro cents for it, he took the last onion from his grill, wrapped it and tucked it into my bag with a smile. After sampling the fresh mozzarella and buying a liter of fresh ricotta we were ready to go in search of the super mercato.
The third detour of the day occurred when Charles reminded me that since we didn’t have a car and we had to carrying everything we bought, we should take the food to our apartment before we tried to find the super mercato.
Our shopping bags emptied, we boarded the free public bus and confidently set off. An hour later, with a few missteps along the way and the help of three girls riding on the bus we arrived at the SUPER super mercato. It was farther than we expected and many times larger than I had imagined. It had everything I needed – staples including dried pasta, salt and pepper, olive oil, tomato paste, butter, honey and even a toaster oven!
It was raining and we were tired when we got back to our apartment. When I turned on the kitchen light and saw the olives and tomatoes on the counter, I knew that I had everything I needed to make crostini and pasta for our first meal from my Sicilian kitchen. Here’s how I did it: … read more
February 18th, 2010 / Comments 1
Blood oranges, salami, carrots, olives, bread and cheese from the market made an easy lunch for a sunny day. 
On my mid-morning walk I bought a roasted artichoke at the panetterria/bakery near the duomo/cathedral. A simple dipping sauce of olive oil and lemon juice made the vegetables sparkle and wedges of blood orange rounded out lunch nicely.
The fruit of a blood orange may be orange flesh splashed with dots of red or be totally garnet red. My favorite orange juice is made from blood oranges and is nearly peppermint pink in color – but not in taste.
>> Print This Post <<February 18th, 2010 / comments 3
My son Noah and I made sushi for lunch the day before we were to fly off to Sicily for our two month adventure.
Noah cooked the rice and cut the carrots and avocado and I went to the market to get yellow tail tuna and ‘crab with a k’. Crab with a k or krab is also called imitation crab meat or seafood sticks. Krab originated in Japan and is a type of processed seafood made of ”Surimi” or finely pulverized white fish.
Along with the fish, I found pickled ginger powered wasabi and seaweed sheets called nori in the Asian Food aisle of the well-stocked grocery.
Ella made sushi hand rolls and Dylan opted for peanut butter. Noah and I made sushi for everyone else. Here’ how we did it .
Grilled Pizza - not quite picture perfect
Limoncello is Ready and Waiting!