Oh the Places I'll Go

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...