As our airplane circled Mount Etna and descended into the airport at Catania, groves of dark green citrus trees came into view. We were landing in Sicily, an island that we would call home for two months. We had left four feet of snow and sweet Rosie, our golden retriever, in Virginia with our son Noah and his family. I was looking forward to learning new ways of cooking familiar and unfamiliar food. I had traveled to Europe but never lived there. Living in Sicily meant that we would not be tourists.

We looked out to the sea from the two balconies in the upper left corner of the creamy yellow building

We had rented a flat in Ortigia, a small island attached by a bridge to the city of Siracusa and surrounded by a sea wall built in the fourth century BC by the Greeks.

We spend part of each day getting lost. It wasn’t difficult, the narrow lanes, many impassable except on foot or scooter, twist and turn. There are ancient ruins, medieval, art noveau, art deco, and Mussolini era buildings. Each time I thought I was hopelessly lost, one of two things happened. Either I saw the sea or turned onto the via Roma. Since our apartment faced the sea and we were on an island, I knew I would get home eventually if I didn’t cross a bridge. If I found via Roma, I knew that it led to the Piazza Duomo, a sacred space with a cathedral that was originally a Greek Temple, and also the location of the best gelato shop in Ortigia.

A view of the Piazza Duomo from via Roma

The ruins of the Greek temple to Apollo, near the Archimedes Fountain and the market, were where Charles and I met so that we could go to the market together after he had spent the morning writing at the library.

Along with heaps of lemons, blood oranges, and mandarins, there tomatoes and peppers that are grown in Sicilian versions of hoop houses, olives of all sorts, and local wines in recycled, two liter plastic bottles. There was also a wide variety of fish and seafood from the Ionian Sea.

I went to the market every day and just as my first friends in Vermont were the vendors at the Norwich Farmers’ Market, my first friend is Sicily were the vendors at the Ortigia market. . Click here to see the  vendors at the Ortigia market.

I met Angelo Cappucho who like his father and grandfather before him sold all kinds of fish including swordfish, tuna, cuttlefish, squid, eels, and shrimp. When a genuine troubadour appeared in the market, all of the men at Cappucho’s joined in singing Sicilian folk songs with him. For a glorious hour, we were part of a Sicilian opera. Angelo and his son Marco insisted that all of the nearby vendors put food into a large bag as payment for the music.

A traditional Sicilian ricotta basket.

Click here to read about making cheese with Andrea.

It was Andrea Borderi who stole my heart. Andrea made fresh ricotta and mozzarella each morning. The cheese was the best I’ve ever tasted, but even more astounding than the cheese was his generosity. He fed people. Andrea’s knife had a twenty-inch blade that was in constant motion. He cut cheese and offered samples on the tip of his knife to passers by. He made sandwiches and insisted that shoppers sample them. He fed cannoli to giggling students and serious Nonna’s. He never stopped smiling, and his blue eyes matched his blue satin necktie.

Our lives were quite simple in Ortigia. We had a small apartment, a tiny kitchen and no car. We watched the sea, had small dinner parties, ate gelato every afternoon after a walk around the island, read and wrote each day.

The day before we left, I went to the market and said goodbye to Giuseppe who sold the best olives, Mario with the small plum tomatoes I liked best for pasta, Joseph who offered grilled peppers and artichokes, Francesco who sold traditional chocolate from Modica and of course the musical Cappucho fishermen. It wasn’t easy, but I managed until I saw Andrea. He smiled and offered me a piece of cheese. I began to cry. He put down his knife, kissed my hand, and I wept as we said arriverderci.

Charles and I have been in Sicily for nearly a month and we continue to discover new corners to explore in the winding lanes of Ortigia.

I shop daily in the open-air market and my feelings about it have changed. Initially it was inspiring and fun to shop at the market and that hasn’t changed.

What has changed is that I am no longer a stranger in the market, a tourist with a camera passing through.

The vendors are my friends. I know that Angelo Cappuccio is the best singer at my favorite fish stall.

I always buy olives and capers from Francesco and I got the grumpy vendor with the best lemons to smile.

This is my market – my community of fellow foodies.

My modestly equipped kitchen is quite serviceable and I manage to cook with many fewer tools and ingredients. Except for a battery-operated scale, I have regularly used all of the tools I brought from home. Occasionally, I wish that I had a cast iron grill pan, a food processor or a particular cookbook.

Other than purchasing a toaster oven and a pepper mill, I have tried to “make do” with what I have. A frying pan works as the lid for the large pasta pot. A wooden orange crate from the market, topped with a coarsely woven cotton dishtowel, is the side table for a cup of tea. At a construction site I found a piece of wood and a ceramic roof tile that are now a cutting board and a fruit bowl, respectively. Gelato is impossible to resist and the small plastic bowls it comes in are a good size for serving honey or olives. Charles cut off the tops of empty plastic water bottles to make storage containers for dried herbs, garlic and leftover pasta.

I used part of a small, plastic egg carton as a divided antipasto dish for olives, pickled mushrooms and artichoke hearts. A slotted plastic ricotta tub worked both as a basket to drain cutlery and as a colander for cherry tomatoes. Stems of parsley in an empty tomato paste tin, in the center of a rough weave cleaning cloth, lit by candles in ad hoc aluminum foil candle sticks made a decorative centerpiece for a cocktail party. Unbleached dish towels with bands of green and red stitching served as place mats and a piece of terrazzo picked up on a walk made a trivet for a hot pan.

The unglazed foot of a porcelain dinner plate doubled as a knife sharpener. When a guest brought a handful of irises, I wrapped the stems in a collar of aluminum foil so that they would stand up in the only vase we had.

Along with make-do hardware, I have been using make-do ingredients. A limited pantry from a limited market has been an opportunity for creativity. Fish filets dusted with chickpea flour, the only flour I had, were an innovation I will repeat.

Honey and fresh lemon juice stirred into a cup of boiling water made a warming drink when there was a downpour between me and the closest tea bag. I have used the herb blend from the market to flavor marinades, salad dressing, and a cannellini bean spread.

Share your most creative make-do in a comment by May 15th and win a white cotton cloth from Sicily like the ones I used as place mats for a make-do dinner party.

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We had been invited to a gathering on Sunday afternoon and I roasted the last of the carrots as a base for a hearty carrot spread I took to share.

I haven’t figured out what to call it but it was delicious. Here’s how I did it: … read more

Although it has been sunny and warm, Saturday was a cold rainy day and the sea was white with rolling waves.

I got wet and cold on a short walk and wanted something to eat, something warm and comforting. Soup! I had carrots and tomatoes so I made tomato and carrot soup. Here’s how I did it: ... read more

When I was seven, I liked to eat carrots with vinegar. I would peel a carrot and dip it into a small glass of cider vinegar between each bite. When the carrot was gone, I drank the vinegar. I thought it was wonderful. My sister thought I was out of my mind.

My interest in carrots may have been sparked by my desire to be able to read in the dark. I had learned from my mother that carrots were a rich source of carotene, also known as vitamin A, the vitamin that improves night vision. She was living in London, spending nights in the underground, during the Battle of Britain. One night, while waiting for the all-clear siren to sound, she was told that the common carrot would help the Allies win the war. This is the story that she often served with boiled carrots:  “In an attempt to mislead the Germans about their radar capabilities, the Royal Air Force circulated a story that British pilots were able to see in the dark because they ate enormous quantities of carrots. That is why many Britons, who anxious to improve their night vision because of the wartime blackouts, grew and ate so many carrots.”

I moved on from dipping carrots in vinegar to dipping carrots in hummus and blue cheese dressing and to using carrots in soups and stews. Carrots were a way to add a bit of taste and color but I didn’t consider them a vegetable with star power.

Before I came to Sicily, I thought of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, artichokes and mushrooms as Italian vegetables. Carrots were the wrong color for my red, white and green Italian palette. But, since my daily trips to the market, I have changed my mind. The carrots in the market are freshly pulled, sweet and crisp with attached greens that attest to their freshness. Carrots are no longer merely supporting players, edible utensils used to transport tasty bites from bowl to mouth. They shine as the primary ingredient in appetizers, soups and salads. I used carrots, honey and mint to make a salad that I served with baked salmon. Here’s how I did it:
… read more

When I was shopping in the market on Friday, I bought a chunk of flavorful, slightly aged provolone at the stall that also sells fresh mozzarella, ricotta, cannoli, ricotta salata and other cheeses that I look forward to being introduced to. Gaetano, the man behind the counter with a scruffy beard and fairly good English, saw me looking at the cauldrons in the small, utilitarian workroom behind the counter.

He explained that most mornings, he and his father Andrea Borderi, the man with the blue silk tie, the sunny smile and the big knife, made ricotta and mozzarella.

I hesitated for less than a minute before I asked if I could watch the next time they made cheese. He frowned, shook his head and said “No,” and then with a smile he said, “Ma (but), you can come and work if you come at seven on lunedi.” I said yes, of course, I would come. A quick check in the Italian/English dictionary confirmed that I had a date for Monday morning at seven.

I started the day by watching the sunrise over the sea. The colors would have inspired Maxfield Parish. Then, Charles and I had to hurry across the empty Piazza Duomo to the cheese shop. We were greeted with smiles, and with a sweep of his arm, Andre invited us into his kitchen. He quickly looped an apron over my head and tied it around my waist. Charles stepped back from the action, camera poised so as not to miss a shot. I washed my hands and was ready to work.

My first task was to help with the caldron of ricotta. We used ladles to skim the warm curds into slotted, one liter, plastic containers that were then put on trays. When full, the trays were put into the refrigerator. When ricotta is sold, the slotted container is put into a double plastic bag and the whey continues to drain from the curd making it thicker each day until it has all been eaten.

The curds for the mozzarella had been started before we arrived. Whole milk and rennet had been mixed in a huge stainless steel pot and then heated slowly until it reached 32 degrees centigrade or 88 degrees Fahrenheit. It took about 15 minutes for the curd to form. The curd was in a bucket, a dense mass covered with whey. It was large as a watermelon with texture similar to raw liver. Andrea handed me a knife with a blade that was at least two feet long. To cut the curd, I held the knife with its blunt tip resting on bottom of the pail and pulled the blade through the curd again and again. When it had been to cut it into irregular pieces that were about the size of walnuts, it was drained and put into a large basin.

Andrea asked me to knead ottocento (800) grams of sea salt into it.

When he decided that it had been sufficiently kneaded, the curds were rinsed with  water until his taste test determined that enough salt had been washed away.

The next step involved stretching and shaping. The curd was covered with very, hot water and I was given a three-foot long wooden tool. I mistakenly thought that what looked like the handle was a handle.

After Andrea turned it around, he placed my hands on it, put is hands over mine and together we stretched and squeeze the curd until “Ecco!” The curd had become stringy, tender, fresh mozzarella.

With amazing speed and skill Andrea stretched, cut and braided cheese to form ten braided loaves called treccia. It would be smoked later that morning and offered for sale as affumicata the following day.

Then he pulled a coconut-sized piece of cheese from the mass still in the basin and indicated that I should flatten it into a disc as thin as I could manage. My memory of Lucy and Ethel trying to twirl pizza dough in the air provided the restraint that kept me from trying to do the same thing with this piece of cheese.

I patted, poked and pulled it until Andrea indicated with a quick nod that it was a good size.

I followed him and the cheese to the large cutting board where he handed me two tomatoes, a handful of mixed olives, a few sprigs of flat-leaf parsley and a knife longer than my arm. He covered the cheese disc with two thin slices of ham, used signs and smiles to indicate that I should cut the tomatoes, seed and chop the olives, chop the parsley and put it all on top of the ham.

When I had finished, he splashed it with olive oil, and it took four hands, his and mine, to lift the cheese and its toppings onto a large piece of foil. The last step was for me to tightly roll the cheese into a cylinder with the ham and vegetables inside. That done, he put the cheese roll in a bag and gave it to me.

I shared it and the story of its creation with two new friends who came to our first dinner party in Sicily.

If you would like to recreate the tastes without the travel you could make a mozzarella torte by layering the freshest mozzarella you can find, with the tastiest bits of vegetable and/or cured meat you can imagine, in a straight-sided bowl. Covered, weighed down and chilled it will be perfect served with a smile and a toast to Andrea, THE premier cheese artisan of Siracusa.

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