Oh the Places I'll Go

           It took six and a half days to cross the Atlantic Ocean by ship—a trip we could have completed in a little more than eight hours by air—but Scott had long wanted to do an ocean crossing, so we decided to take the long route over and the more efficient one back.   Queen Elizabeth in port at Ponta Delgada,  Azores We chose to make this voyage on one of the storied “Cunard Queens” as they are the grand dames of transatlantic crossings.   The Queen Mary 2 regularly sails between New York City and Southampton (London) while the Queen Elizabeth makes the journey only a few times each year, sailing between Fort Lauderdale, Florida and somewhere in Europe.   In our case, the end point is Barcelona. As we sailed, we explored the history of this ship and cruise line and found many fascinating details.   Samuel Cunard began providing transatlantic steamship service in 1840.   His company was established primarily to provid...

A trip to Iceland was on my bucket list for many years.  My only previous “visit” to this remote nation was in 1970 when my low-cost Icelandic Air flight from New York’s JFK to Luxembourg stopped there briefly for refueling.  For years I have been saying that I had landed in Reykjavik, but in reality, I had stopped briefly at the airport in Keflavik, about thirty miles southwest of the capital city.  I learned on my recent trip that the Keflavik airport is on the site of a US Naval base, established during World War II as a strategic location for the Allies.  The US “occupation,” as the Icelanders referred to our presence there, didn’t end until 2006.  When Icelandic Air (now Icelandair) started flying between the US and Europe, it was given tax breaks because it flew out of the US Naval base.  So many young Americans flew this route in the early 1970s, that Icelandic Air was also known as the “hippie airline.” Before the Covid pandemic interrupted all or o...

For the past ten days, in addition to taking several cooking classes, I have been exploring the eastern coast of Sicily with five others enrolled in this Road Scholar course.  Our guide is a man named Moshe (Moses), an Israeli Jew who came to Sicily nearly thirty years ago to study Italian and never left.  He has squired us around to cathedrals and told us stories of saints and relics.  He has provided a great deal of historical context as we have visited ancient Greek and Roman sites.  And he has been full of information about Sicilian traditions and foods and even the Cosa Nostra (Mafia). We have visited the cities of Siracusa (Syracuse), Catania, Taormina, and Messina; the village of Castelmola; and hiked a portion of the active volcano, Mount Etna, which erupted just as we were leaving.   Sicily was settled by the Phoenicians who sailed here from Palestine and Tunisia, by the Greeks and later the Romans, by the Norman invaders who came down from Norther...

 As promised by the title of my latest Road Scholar adventure, “Cooking in Sicily,” I have learned to prepare many typical Sicilian dishes.  In addition, last week I completed a Road Scholar adventure in Puglia, the boot heel of Italy, which included one cooking class.  I share here some highlights of what we have prepared (and eaten, of course) with three different Italian chefs. Chef Maya at Cooking Experience in Lecce In Puglia, we made simple pasta ( orecchiette and macaroni ) using only flour (two kinds), a little olive oil, water, and salt.  In Sicily, the chef had us add eggs and more oil to all of our pastas— tagliatelle, macaroni , and ravioli .  All were delicious, but I will more likely make the simple Puglian version at home.   Orecchiette and Macaroni The tagliatelle and ravioli we made using a pasta machine to work and flatten the dough, the orecchiette and macaroni were made entirely by hand.  Our ravioli were stuffed with pur...