Archive | Sicily

house on the beach, kids in the water

August 1, 2013 at 3:31 pm

Ever since we arrived in Sicily two years ago, Elliott has dreamed of one very specific thing:

“I want to go on vacation to the beach… somewhere where you can stay on the beach. Not drive to the beach, not walk to the beach. On the beach.”

We live on an island, so you wouldn’t think this is very hard to do. However, we’ve looked extensively, and vacation rentals on the beach are not common here in Sicily, especially in the height of the summer season (late July through early September).

We wanted to go on one final vacation with our dear friends the Arthurs, who will be leaving in just two weeks. (Gulp.) Knowing that a house on the beach would be perfect for this vacation with six kids, Elliott took matters into his own hands and searched high and low. He finally found a place that was actually on the beach (!)… but they would only rent it for a week at a time, not a long weekend. Elliott, being Elliott, negotiated and bided his time, and pretty soon we had ourselves a vacation rental on the beach… and for a full 100 euro less than their weekend asking price, too.

(Elliott, I know you know this, but I love you.)

view of the beach from the stone steps up to our house

The house was just right for two families and lots of kids. There were three bedrooms, two bathrooms, two kitchens (!), and two extra rooms that we used as bedrooms as well. The house also included a lovely shaded patio connected to the huge blue-and-white tiled kitchen. We ate all our meals on the patio and otherwise spent our days on the beach with multiple trips back for nap times, water, snacks, sunscreen, and missing children.

Would you like to stay there yourself? Here’s the listing if you’re interested! (That company also owns several other beach-front villas in that same area.) For Sigonella folks, it’s about a 2-hour drive south of base, located on the southeastern tip of Sicily near Pozzallo. The beach is called Granelli Beach. The natural curve of the land forms a large cove that keeps the water shallow for about 200 feet and the waves small… perfect for a vacation with kids.

But anyway, enough details. Here are some more pictures of our long weekend with friends!

Eden (2 months) and Gil (6 months) chilling on the patio.

The morning/afternoon sunscreen routine. Frequently overheard conversation between Josh and Rebecca: “I will do anything rather than put sunscreen on the kids. Anything. What can I do for you besides that?”

Air mattress as a raft? This was a sort of brilliant move on Josh’s part. So brilliant that I saw other people doing the same thing later that afternoon with their own air mattress.

Lena loves Baby Eden and wants to hold her, admire her, and play with her all the time.

For all lovers of Gilbert Blythe… does this photo remind anyone of this?
(Hint: “Anne, I’m sohwry.“)

Elise and Eden

Inspiring read for the weekend. Highly, highly recommend this book.

A downer of the weekend: this poor guy was almost never happy for very long on the beach. Our guess is that it was the bright sun; his blue eyes just couldn’t handle it. We borrowed some baby sunglasses from the Arthurs but that only helped for a little while. Oh well… he did enjoy swimming naked like the other Sicilian babies. Can’t blame him!

These two… seriously. Gil literally lights up when he sees Lena. And vice versa. I love how they love each other.

This calm, quiet water — knee deep for about 200 feet — was just perfect with kids. Refreshing in the mornings and warm as bathwater in the afternoons, with gentle waves and no pollution whatsoever, it might be the overall best beach I’ve ever seen in Sicily.

Lucas and Lena are the cutest little 2-year-olds together. They get each other laughing so hard… mostly Lena laughing at whatever Lucas comes up with next.

Ciao ciao, Granelli Beach! Hope to see you again soon!

13 :: in friends, holiday, Italy, Sicily, travel, Uncategorized, weekend

blogger & military wife meet-up in Catania

July 25, 2013 at 2:03 pm

A few weeks ago I got a wonderful email from a fellow military wife and mom named Stephanie. She said she was coming to Sicily for just a couple weeks while her husband was working here on base. She had found my blog and saw that I have the same strolleras she does, and so she wondered if I would recommend bringing it with her for her trip.

Pretty soon we were sending emails back and forth and then planning to meet up while she was here. Today I drove into Catania, walked into the main piazza (pictured above), and waited with Lena and Gil and my stroller… and looked for the other mom with with two kids and the same stroller! We spotted each other right away and started wheeling towards each other. The first thing she said was, “Oh, I wish we’d gotten red instead of black!” in reference to our strollers. You just never know what you might bond over, right?

We had a great time today taking our kids to a playground, fending off a sketchy guy who wanted to know where we lived (hah), discussing fun things to do in Catania, and eating local Sicilian fair at a cafe in the main piazza. I was totally inspired by her sense of adventure and the fun things she’s discovered in Catania. Wish you lived here, Stephanie!

I didn’t get any pictures of all of us, but I did snap this one of my kids sharing a seat. Time to get two seats in the stroller instead of one… baby Gil is ready to move out of his car seat and into the big leagues!

P.S. If you’re new here, thinking of visiting Sicily, or have questions about moving here, I would love to help you and meet up with you just like I did with Stephanie. My husband also hosted a vet student that he met through his blog while the kids and I were in the States. These connections are so much fun and make the world a smaller place! Last night I updated by About Me section on the blog, so you can check that out to get to know us better or send me an email anytime. I love to hear from you!

2 :: in friends, Sicily, visitors

an Italian tradition :: Tiramisu!

May 28, 2013 at 4:01 pm

I have a confession: I really am not a huge tiramisu fan. In fact, I didn’t even know what it was until I moved to Sicily. Am I alone in this? It seems like a lot of people have a love/hate relationship with tiramisu.

But then my friends and I got together recently for another Italian cooking class and we all learned how to make tiramisu. My first reaction was: wow, it’s really easy! Surprisingly so, considering what an elegant dessert you can create in so little time.

My second reaction came when I bit into the fresh tiramisu itself: wow… I think I love this. Cool on a hot day, the perfect blend of cream and coffee, light as well as rich… I was hooked. One piece wasn’t enough. I wanted to eat the whole plate!

And now here’s how to make a whole plate for yourself. I’ve included the kitchen-friendly recipe at the end of the post for easy reference.

First, brew up 6 cups of Italian espresso, which is how much one Italian espresso pot makes. In American terms, that’s 9 oz, or about 1.5 measuring cups of very strong, very dark coffee.

Admire any cute babies while you’re at it.

Pour the espresso into a shallow dish, add 2 teaspoons of sugar, and let it cool while you prepare the cream filling.

Assemble your ingredients: 4 eggs, 120 grams of sugar (1/2 a cup), 400 grams of lady fingers (about 50 cookies), and 1 lb of mascarpone cheese. Divide the eggs into two medium-sized bowls.

In the bowl with the egg whites, add a pinch of salt and then beat the egg whites until soft peaks form. This picture of Ester beating egg whites on the floor made me laugh because it is so typical of my own cooking experience in several Italian kitchens, ie. electric sockets are not always where you expect them!

In the bowl with the egg yolks, add the 1/2 cup of sugar and then beat the mixture until it is a very light yellow. After that, add the 1 lb of mascarpone cheese (see above) and mix it by hand until it is white and fluffy.

Fold the two egg mixtures into each other in one bowl.

Now it’s time to assemble your tiramisu! Make sure you have your shallow dish of cool coffee, your bowl full of the cream mixture, your packet of lady fingers, and a dish for your tiramisu.

Begin by dipping a lady finger into the coffee mixture. Lay it in the mixture, flip it over to soak the other side, and then remove it. Take care not to leave the lady finger in the coffee too long or it will become too soggy and begin to dissolve. Lay your cookie in your tiramisu dish. (Note: we used both a casserole dish and a plate, and in our opinion the tiramisu on the plate looked prettier in the end.) Continue this process, laying lady fingers next to each other in a neat row, until you have made the base of your tiramisu as large as you would like it.

Spread about half of the cream over the top of the lady fingers.

Dust with a layer of unsweetened cocoa powder.

Continue the process with another layer of coffee-soaked lady fingers. Add another layer of cream and unsweetened cocoa…

… and voilà! Tiramisu! Isn’t it pretty? I love the sloppy elegance.

Chill in the refrigerator at least 4 hours before serving. Alternatively, you can put it in the freezer for 30-45 minutes and serve.

Here are a few possible variations:

You might have noticed that this recipe includes raw eggs! Not good if you’re pregnant… or if you’re just not a fan of raw eggs. You can use panna montata (whipping cream) with mascarpone and omit all eggs for the cream. Beat the whipping cream with the 1/2 cup of sugar and whip in the mascarpone cheese.
If you do not like the flavor of coffee or just want a different option you can use crushed strawberries mixed with sugar. Soak the biscuits the same way and you can also add fresh strawberries as garnish.
Liqueur is sometimes added to the cream to add a twist to the dessert (and is commonly included in tiramisu gelato, too!). Add brandy or another liqueur if you would like.

Tiramisu Recipe

Ingredients

6 Italian cups of espresso + two tsp sugar (cooled)
4 eggs
120g sugar (1/2 cup)
400g lady fingers (about 50 cookies)
unsweetened cocoa
500g or ½ kilo or 1 lb mascarpone cheese (if you are in Italy, I recommend the Galbani Santa Lucia brand)

Directions

Prepare 6 Italian cups of espresso. While still hot, add 2 teaspoons of sugar and let it cool in a shallow dish.
Divide the egg yolks and the egg. Put the egg whites in one bowl and the egg yolks in another bowl (both bowls large enough to beat the eggs in).
Put 120grams (1/2 cup) of sugar in the bowl with the egg yolks. Make a cream by whipping it by hand until it changes color to be light yellow. Mix the mascarpone cheese in with the egg yolks until it is white and fluffy.
Add a pinch of salt to the egg whites and beat until it forms stiff peaks.
Fold the two egg mixtures in together to form a cream.
Dip lady fingers very quickly into the espresso mix and place quickly in to the pan. Don’t do them too long or they will be soggy. Place lady fingers only in the bottom of the pan.
Spread less than half of the cream on top of the biscuits.
Sprinkle unsweetened cocoa on top of the cream. Add another layer of biscuits, the rest of the cream and top with unsweetened cocoa.
Chill in the refrigerator for at least 4 hours or you can put it in the freezer to eat it faster. You can also freeze tiramisu and eat frozen; just pull it out of the freezer 30 minutes before you want to eat it.

7 :: in eat this, Italy, Sicily

the last blood orange of the season

May 22, 2013 at 2:45 pm

Elliott and Lena have befriended the farmers that live in the valley below our house. Not only do these farmers have pigs, chickens, ducks, rabbits, and puppies (one of which Elliott has named Luigi and really wants to adopt), but they also have a huge vegetable garden and an orange grove. On multiple occasions Elliott has returned home bearing bags of produce and fresh eggs. Farmers are good people to know!

A few weeks ago the farmer handed Elliott a bag of blood oranges and told him that these were absolutely the last blood oranges of the season. Feeling nostalgic for my favorite Sicilian delicacy, I took a few photos as Lena and I ate the final orange.

(Am I being absurdly sentimental? Maybe… but after my friend Desiree moved back to the States, she told me that she can’t get blood oranges there and that its cousin — the Cara Cara orange — costs $1.30 per orange. So I’ll savor these oranges for as long as I can… especially when they’re given to us for free and were picked from trees growing right outside my house!)

“Mmm… bloody,” Lena’s friend Lucas exclaimed the other day as he bit into a blood orange.

“Now that,” commented his mother, “is a unique word for a two-year-old to have in his vocabulary.”

Next winter, Gil, I’ll give you all the blood oranges you want to eat!

Although there were no oranges in my favorite market truck today, it was loaded with other things. I bought ruby-red cherries and the first sun-kissed apricots of the summer. I reached out to touch rock-hard peaches with something akin to reverence; I hadn’t eaten one in almost a year. That is the comfort of eating seasonally: one delicious thing is just replaced by new ones… all year round!

13 :: in eat this, Italy, Sicily

we have a castle in our front yard

May 21, 2013 at 1:34 pm

When people in my little Sicilian town ask me where I live, I love my answer: “Io vivo vicino al castello.” I live near the castle.

They raise their eyebrows and smile appreciatively. Not many Americans would ever choose my neighborhood, which was originally built in the Middle Ages and boasts narrow cobblestone streets barely wide enough to fit our Honda Civic.

“You live near the castle?” they repeat, smiling. “The Campinole neighborhood?”

I nod, thinking of the green-and-gold neighborhood pride. “And I love it,” I reply sincerely.

And I do. Living in our neighborhood isn’t always easy. Our car has lost a lot of paint as we have learned how to drive and park on streets meant for horses and ox carts. We’ve shivered through the winters in a house without any heating system. We often feel out of place and isolated in a neighborhood that is entirely Sicilian (and mostly elderly). Many evenings our dinnertime conversation is almost drown out by drumbeats outside our front door as the neighborhood’s musicians practice for the annual Medieval festival.

But for all its quirks, this neighborhood is impossible not to love. The faded buildings and cobblestone streets are so quintessentially Italy. The old women with their shawls smile from the windows, the old men pause to greet Lena (“ciao, bella!”) on their walks to the piazza. There is a closeness, a real spirit of the neighborhood, which comes from its endless preparation and hosting of the Medieval festival every summer. All year round the youths practice their baton twirling, their dances, their drum routines, their flag throwing. For a week every August the whole island of Sicily knows about Motta Sant’Anastasia, and the best performances of all happen just outside our house in the piazza in front of the castle.

Last week Lena, Gil, and I went on a walk on a windy afternoon and ended up inside the castle itself. I only visit the castle every 6 months or so, even though I look at it every single day outside my front door. In the photo on the left above, our house is the yellow one, and the photo was taken from the castle’s window.

The castle was built in Motta when the Normans invaded Sicily, and the costumes and artifacts inside the castle are from that time period. I love watching the informational video with our visitors because it reminds me of the generations that have lived on the edge of the cliff for centuries before my little American family took up residence here. In the castle there’s even a dungeon (above right) with a true story of a rightful duke who was thrown into it!

Stairs (and stairs and stairs) lead up two more levels to the top of the castle, where there are beautiful views of Etna over the valley (above right).

And finally, more mannequins in Medieval garb and more beautiful views from windows. What an amazing privilege to live in such a place, where we have gelato in the piazza, a volcano across the valley, and a castle right outside our front door!