Constant Craving, a two act play featuring The Hubs

The Hubs had one of his arancini cravings, but it was late in the day and lots of places had run out of these little saffron-meat-carb bombs. As we were about to give up and head on to Siracusa, we found a place where the Hubs could get down to business.

I mean, it's pretty awesome:

That was the climax. Here's the sweet finish: then he had a gelato...after already having had one about an hour earlier at Cafe Sicilia.

Fini

Still at Cafe Sicilia

When the waiter placed this on the table, I was all "This was an option?!" Jon's ice cream brioche looked amazing, and I sat and watched him eat it until he became uncomfortable and offered me some, and well, it was just so unexpected, I mean, I couldn't. Really, no, it's yours, you go ahead raaaaar!!!

Adjusting crosshairs...

Mmmmph!

O, das ist gut. (Learned that from Knut the polar bear, btw.)

But wait. The Hubs has something up his very short sleeve.

Need about 48 more hours to six months at Cafe Sicilia

Amazing gelato.

These chocolates had basil in them!

Sicilian pastries

cinnamon and chocolate

pistachio and chocolate

Laura's most perfect almond granita! Seriously, I had to get one after tasting hers.

Right into Noto's sweet and stormy embrace!

This shot took a while to arrange, but the Hubs loved absolutely every minute of it, didn't you honey?! Here we are in Noto on the steps of the cathedral, acting as if we never had a bad meal in Ragusa, the pictures from which were immediately erased. And Noto is a very healing place indeed. But first, let us set the scene. Approaching storm:

Low-hanging heavens:

Baroque underside of balcony:

Here we have Laura's last name featured in a real live Italian sign! It says "Fresh Butchered Rabbits."

Big dork, little car:

That's enough sight-seeing. Now we can move on to the food!

Guy and Moped, Girl and Door

The musical sort of writes itself.

Ciao, Modica!

The noodle wins again. But arancini had the Hubs at hello..

There were many meat-based treats at Fattoria delle Torri, and I would recount them to you had I not mistakenly thrown away the piece of paper with all the names of the dishes on it. But going down the list would probably be boring anyway, and these were clearly my favorite ones, since I bothered to remember them. First, we have the (here deconstructed) arancini, which is a fried saffron rice ball stuffed with meat sauce — a common Sicilian specialty and damn. The Hubs quickly grew attached and spent the whole rest of the trip being struck by arancini cravings (like every couple hours in between gelato cravings). Now he shivers when thinking about life before the arancini.
Here we have bits of pasta cooked like a risotto in a broth and topped with squid. This dish was my favorite. Noodles RULE.
And I'm including this dessert because...it's made of eggplant! Eggplant clearly covered in sweet sauces. A big Grazie to the hosts of Fattoria delle Torri for taking care of us!

Spaniards brought the chocolate to Sicily?

Booking flight to Spain NOW. But then, I guess they brought the chocolate everywhere. I'm still booking the flight. Anyhow, check out the chopped up chocolate at Antica Dolceria Bonajuto, where they follow the original Aztec recipe that doesn't melt the sugar or add milk or butter. Makes for a crunchier and dustier texture, and less-mellow, but more zappy flavor.

Cardamom, lemon, vanilla, salt, cinnamon, sugar...

A random taste tester.

You'll NEVER guess what this is. It's a MARZIPAN olive!

Sugared-up, caffeinated Laura in the alley leading up to the Bonajuto's. Didn't I tell you Modica was awesome?

San Pietro, Day and Night

Modica: Awwwww...

I haven't been posting for a very lame reason: Modica is the cutest f**king town ever, do you hear me? I have too many photos and don't know where to start. But I guess we could start here, on the steps looking out onto the view.

We got some product placement as well:

The climb (there's always a climb):

...up to the Cathedral of San Giorgio:

As we were climbing...

...we remembered it was our 7th wedding anniversary!

Who DARES combine gelato with the exploration of ancient Greek ruins?

I'm this close to getting a t-shirt that says "Italians do it better." Such a happy Hubs. And by the way, a common argument on the trip was how early in the day one could start in on the gelato. The Hubs repeatedly made the point that it was considered reasonable in Italy to have ice cream sandwiches for breakfast. So having one while touring the Valley of the Temples was like, being rilly responsible and stuff.
All the temples (seven of them) are in the Doric style, but some are in better shape than others.
The Ancient Greeks were here, then the Romans, all the way to Count Roger (seriously his name) of the Normans. Please just wiki Agrigento already.
The best part about ruins is that they are the perfect setting for a modeling shoot.
So Laura and I have known each other since junior high. This is our first trip abroad together, since when we were in college I went abroad to France and she to Italy, and so goes it with the Francophile v. the Italophile. Rarely do they meet in the middle. Ten years later we agreed to meet on Italian soil but only the part that had once been conquered by the Normans. See how Sicily makes everyone happy?

In Agrigento, Massive Amounts of Carbs Linked to Memory Loss

I don't remember the names of any of these dishes.

BUT, I remember what was in my dish: tortelloni and pistachio-cream sauce

Tagliatelle and almond sauce, I think. Laura, do you remember?

There were eggplants in the Hubs' dish for sure.

Spaghetti con Jon?

Segesta: It's not all about me, I swear.

I'm getting really good at warrior three, guys! And let's not kid ourselves here; we all know this blog is very much about me. Sorry about the short break, but it was a really long week last week. 1) I was not in Italy. This automatically multiplies the length of the normal week times two. 2) Would you believe that work people needed things from me? "You need to be here earlier, stay later, blah blah blah." 3) I can't blog and listen to "Knock You Down" at the same time. So "Knock You Down" won that fight, and can I just say that if you go on YouTube and search for acoustic versions, the Filipinos rock that song like nobody's bizness. Nobody! Just another song that goes on the Filipino reserve list when we're in the karaoke box.
Everyone, please say Buongiorno to Jon and Laura (and high-five to the Hubs)! The thing about these three characters is that they are all Italophiles and chose to study abroad in Italy. Laura and Jon are super-duper fluent in Italian, which helped not only when food was involved, but those are the times I remember clearly and hold dear to my heart.

The view! It's hard to see, but the Doric temple sits on the hill in the middle of all the other hills in the photo.

The hike!

Yup. That's a Doric temple.

Another view, but this time from the theater.

All sorts of drama up in here.

Frank Black: Headache

The Hubs was playing this the other day, and I've had it in my head ever since. (Go Hubs!) This obviously isn't the Frank Black video, but a cool one nonetheless with a bunch of old movie clips set to the song. Groovily angsty.

The most dignified thing in the sh*thole apartment

Before we leave Palermo (virtually), I want to share with you this remarkable lamp. Allow me to give you some background. Basically, we were trying to save money; you have to skrimp, kids, if you want to be able to afford donuts and pasta. This old apartment was located in a narrow alley in a working class neighborhood (the area was pretty cool, actually) and rented-out by a nutty expat, who decorated the rooms with her own posterboard collages (literally, magazine cut-outs and musings pasted on hot pink posterboard). An orange stuffed monkey doll hung with its velcro hands from a torn piece of tapestry. The bathroom had a western toilet, as opposed to the Turkish toilet, but no seat — just the thin, cold rim. The bathtub had no curtain, the drain was rusted-over and clogged, and the surface of the tub was sticky. There was no AC, but rather large windows in the main room and bedroom, both of which opened-up onto another building. The kitchen had a broken window, and the sheets in the bedroom had — no joke — crusty stains. At some point, the combination of the stifling heat with the whirring of the fan and the sounds of motorcycles and yells from the street made me think it wouldn't be a bad hide-out. If you were a whore.

But I did love this lamp.

My favorite part of the market...

The zucchini man! Yes, let me explain. We were wandering around the market in the hot sun, and I saw this man handing people paper cones filled with something that people were eating on the spot as soon as he handed it to them. They would order one cone, finish it, and order one more. So I asked him what it was, and he said, "Zuchini," like with the "ch" instead of the hard "k," which doesn't really matter, except that no matter how you pronounce "zucchini," you wouldn't necessarily think it was going to blow your mind or even be something you'd want to gobble down on a hot day. EXCEPT that it was! Here it is:
The zucchini man kept his boiled zucchinis in a cooler packed with ice. He would take a zucchini out, slice it, dump the zucchini in a cone, squeeze lemon juice on it, and sprinkle it with sea salt. Seriously, the cold, sour, salty mixture was so refreshing. Maybe it was the heat or the surprise factor (who thought you had it in you, zucchini!), but it was a lovely thing to taste. And the delight grew tenfold when a couple more big Sicilian dudes with gold chains came up and ordered some zucchini cones. Oh! Another surprise:
I'm assuming the above are the "zucchini" we're talking about? I've never seen such gourds!

EDIT: Prof. Spoots has spoken! The zucchini in question are cucuzza lunga, my new best serpentine-gourd friends.

The Hubs' favorite part of the market.

The Hubs will forever remember this part of the market because nestled amid meats and cheeses was something he had always dreamed of but had given up searching for due to general lack of imagination among deli owners. That's his finger pointing to it above. Overheard, "Oh. My. God. Is that a bunch of chopped up cheese and meat?"
Here's a close-up. It is, indeed, a bunch of chopped up cheese and meat. This is where the Hubs began rambling about how he had always wanted something like this, but no one offered it, and he had been too afraid to ask. (Sorry for the slightly red tint, btw. I couldn't get the lighting right because the sun was shining through orange awnings and there were also florescent lights.) Finally, a shot of the Hubs' grab bag of ham, salami, provolone, and a certain other yellow cheese:

Close up of the ricotta, olives, capers and dried peppers:

More ricotta!

Workin' off those carbs at Monreale Cathedral and Cloisters

Okay, we're not working off that many carbs touring a church, especially since we took a bus to get there. Anyhow, I gotta blog about this just to split up the frequent food postings, otherwise you'll think I'm an absolute pig (quiet, you). This is the glorious Cathedral of Monreale with its detailed glass mosaics. (I'll have to find the scene where Eve is sitting on a rock, and Adam is toiling behind her, and she's all, "Whatevs. You work it out." Still awesome 800 years later.) Here's my think-piece "Glowy Angel Shadow in Church (on Stripy Background):"
The church combines traditional Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic architecture and Muslim sculptural detailing! (Exclamation point is earnest. We were in awe.)

I think the cloisters were the coolest part, though.

Each of the sculpted capitals were unique:

All the columns had inlay detailing, which is crazy to contemplate, because there are 216 of them.

Ladies and Gentlemen: My Donut

Here we are having breakfast on our second day in Palermo at Massaro's pasticceria. At first the Italian dessert-for-breakfast approach seemed like a very good idea: 

Little pistachio and almond cookies with cappuccino and a strategically placed Massaro sugar packet.

The Hubs' apple and custard tart. At this point, in between bites of donut and tart and cookie, we started to slow down and admit that we might have over-ordered. Even when the Hubs started burping and giggling and my eyes started rolling into the back of my head, we still braced ourselves for more bites of the never-ending donut and would only allow, "It's a lot of donut."

Finally, we couldn't finish the last three bites of what is now known as the "Sweet Ring of Shame," but I'm sure whoever cleans Massaro's floors and tables is grateful for human beings' built-in portion-control censors.  If I had to do it again, I perhaps wouldn't have gone with the previously tried-and-true "biggest sparkly thing under the glass case, please" strategy, but instead I would have filled up on these little guys above (all the variations of almond and pistachio cookies) because they were delicate (compared to that mofo of a donut) and had a slightly chewy texture. I like the chewy in my cookie.

EDIT: Fine. I admit it. I actually saved the last part of the donut in case I got hungry later. I wrapped it in a paper bag and put it in my jacket pocket, but after we went to Monreale Cathedral, the paper bag was so damp from the oil from the donut that the bag tore, and I had sugar and soggy donut in my pocket. At that point, I had to let it go. Just don't say I didn't love that donut enough.

Decision 2009: P.Y.T. vs The Girl is Mine

Please settle this argument for us: Which MJ song is better, P.Y.T. or The Girl is Mine? These are the hard-hitting questions occupying us in Sofia in the wake of friends leaving (Joslyn, Larry, and Sid, we miss you!) and on the eve of a new government in Bulgaria. 


Admit it. It's a tough one.

Moody in Palermo

There was a bit of unseasonal wind and rain that passed through Palermo in the evening and next morning, but it made for cool photos. Above, the Quattro Canti.

Camilliani's fountain at night.

The Albergheria neighborhood.

Man with Pasta, a short story

We made it to dinner on our first full day in Palermo! Here is the Hubs with the pasta — an almond, zucchini, clam, shrimp and tomato explosion. 

Here is me hovering.

Face in pasta. The end.

Vroom vroom!

I wish this was my vespa.

If we were in New York, this would be Little Italy.

Trees growing in a roofless church.

Playing at the Stand Florio.

Awnings around mid-afternoon. It was pretty hot and dusty.

Interesting...? More hungry, though.

Nom nom nom nom nom

Woo! I bet you thought we'd never make it to lunch. If we've ever eaten together, I think I've shared with you my memory of scarfing down an amazing plate of spaghetti con vongole in Sorrento back in 1996, and really, my compulsion to order this dish at all Italian restaurants is a desperate attempt to recapture that particular plate of vongole. Alas, while the dish above was pretty darn good, it wasn't quite the same — I seem to remember it being spicier and the broth a little saltier, though who knows what kind of tricks memory can play on the buds after 13 years? On a trying-new-things-note, the swordfish carpaccio in lemon and olive oil below was a refreshing experience:
On our way to lunch, the Hubs and I managed to fit in a few more sites, like the baroque Quattro Canti: 

Camilliani's fountain in the Piazza Pretoria:

Teatro Massimo (the largest theater in Italy, and the third largest in Europe):

And also where Sofia Coppola was shot in "Godfather III."