Here’s my ingredients, all from my garden – Romas (plus a few Medfords that were ripe too), garlic, yellow onion, fresh basil and thyme (plus some salt, pepper, bay leaf, oregano, and sugar).

I cut the tomatoes in quarters, chopped the other ingredients and put them all in a large pot, brought it to a boil and simmered for about 20 minutes, and then put it through the Foley Food Mill. (My grandmother used to say that you can’t call yourself a cook unless you have one in your kitchen. I don’t give it heavy use I must admit, except at tomato time of year.) Then I let the now-smooth sauce cook on low hear overnight, so it reduced down to a thicker consistency, about half the volume.

Freshly picked!

Small batches in the Foley Food Mill.

Next morning, I filled up the canner with water and went and did other tasks while it came to a boil.

Once boiling, in went the first batch, 6 pints and 8 half-pints. For 35 minutes. And then a second batch, just one more pint and 3 half-pints. I lost one of the half pints in the second batch, perhaps I overfilled the jar, since the bottom broke cleanly off. But all the rest were fine.

Looking forward to winter pasta and pizza!

A full canner.

The finished sauce!

The city was founded by Phoenicians about 2,700 years ago, and has been ruled by a half-dozen different cultures since then. An interesting place to see this is to look at the churches; as each group in power arrived, they would build their house of worship on top of (or combine it somehow with) the previous group’s, so the outside of the big cathedral shows this combination of cultures. (We saw this in Siracusa too, where the 5th-century BC Greek temple has long been a church, but the original massive stone temple pillars are still there, visible inside the church.)

The hotel I  stayed in was fairly near the Opera house (Teatro Massimo, the largest theater in Italy), so I walked past it many times on my explorations. It is an impressive sight, and the people of Palermo are very proud of it.  I have yet to go inside (the entrance was roped off), but the acoustics are said to be perfect. Some day I’d like to see a production there.

I recommend getting around by walking, or by public transit – driving in the city is a risky affair and parking is crazy. At intersections it looked like people just pulled their cars at high speed into a random small opening between other parked cars and the flow of  traffic, and then bolted on foot. And the next car would do the same and just block the others – the cars could be several deep pointing in different directions – I have no idea how anyone ever gets their car out again. And then there are scooters everywhere too.

We sampled several arancini from little stands and cafes around the city – the small, egg shaped, fried balls of risotto with a filling inside. These seemed to be very popular with schoolkids. Some arancini were large (more like a small ostrich egg!) but others more duck-egg sized. I was not always sure if I was getting an arancini with meat or cheese or both as the filling, but since I’m omnivorous I didn’t mind! They were very filling, I found it best to buy one and share with several others.

Make sure to try some of the sweets – gelato and pasta reale (marzipan) from an excellent pastry shop such as Alba – not to be missed!

The Teatro Massimo (opera house) in Palermo

Arancini! Very tasty.

Street vendors in Palermo

A few of the many flavors of gelato at Pasticceria Alba in Palermo

The food market in Palermo - lots of fresh produce and fresh seafood, but many other things too

Scooter parking area in Palermo - much more orderly than the cars parking in the street

Erice is a joy to explore – a maze of tiny winding cobblestone streets lined with shops and cafes, and with two castles to boot. It’s small enough though that you can’t really get lost, and there are handy map displays scattered around the city. Erice was the ancient city of Eryx, much conquered over the last few millennia; the castles sit atop ancient temple ruins.

On my next visit (our October, 2010 tour to Sicily – please join us!) I for sure will seek out a pastry shop I’ve since heard about, called Maria Grammatico’s, which apparently one should not miss!

Fall 2009 tour guests enjoying an afternoon espresso at a cafe in Erice

One of the lovely views from Erice, looking northwest

Erice

Erice

It’s a bit ironic, that although the state of Michigan does have moose (I’ve met Michigan moose – they are large, kind of like horses on stilts), bobcat, coyote, wolves, and apparently cougar (happily I’ve not met one of those), among many other animals, the wolverine has long been extinct in Michigan.

So what do wolverines have to do with Puglia? I wasn’t worrying about the absence of the Michigan wolverine, but I’ve been reading up on Puglia. The latest book I read, called “Venturing in Italy: Travels in Puglia, Land between Two Seas”, is a collection of essays by a group of writers who traveled to Puglia in 2008. Joanna Biggar, one of the contributors, writes about her visit to the large, wild, national park in Puglia, called the Gargano. It is one of the few areas of Puglia that still has dense, original forest – the Romans deforested much of Puglia thousands of years ago, and so created some of the large agricultural areas in Puglia that have remained ever since, but they did not touch the Gargano. Joanna lists some of the flora and fauna in the Gargano, including, wolverines!

Our trip to Puglia will be to areas south of the Gargano, but still, it’s fun to know that when I travel in Puglia I’ll be visiting a region that managed, unlike Michigan, to hang on to its wolverines.

-Jillian

This southern and historically poor area of Italy did not have many of the food staples their neighbors to the north had – such as soft cow cheeses, eggs, salamis, cream. But they had abundant seafood, fresh fruits, vegetables and legumes from their gardens, olive oils they pressed themselves, goat’s milk cheeses, and the breads and pastas they made from their hard wheat. (The pasta shape that Puglia is famous for is called Orecchiette, aptly shaped like a little ear.) And they have created a cuisine that is getting international attention.

And of course, there’s their vineyards and wines, which are also becoming known, as the growers there start to bottle their own specialty vintages rather than selling their grapes to larger wine producers in the north.

Go Puglia! Am looking forward to May 2011.

-Jillian