Herbariums, Unexpected Friendships and Busted Guts

Cassata Infornato

 Busting a Gut!

My gut is busted. I set out with the intention of telling you all about the herbarium project I'm working on, the plant press we designed and built (with the help of a blacksmith from Veneto) and our first wild plant victims, but I can't go down that road yet. I am trying to live more presently and at the present moment, my stomach is stretched to its outer limits. Lunch, which is always a marathon was again delicious - Left overs from lasts nights rare and unexpected encounter with a forgiving Ragusana (to be continued). The culprit, I'll be honest, is gluttony. The pastry being crafted in this great Italian kitchen by both Fabrizia and her protege, Cheeky Chef, Linda, are too provocative!Too tasty! Desserts are normally outliers for me. I seldom eat anything sugary, unless it's dark chocolate. I have strength, you know will power! But these two gorgeous chefs have seduced me to the dark side of pastry! I can't say no! 

The Audrey Hepburn of desserts busting my gut this evening is none other then the Cassata Infornato. Say it slowly...listen to how it rolls of your lips. The Cassata Infornato, is a classically beautiful, elegant, lemon sponge cake filled with satiny Ricotta creme and candied citron - spanked, ahem... with powdered sugar. It's very naughty! 

Umberto - Food Paparazzo

And like any femme fatale, the dessert came with its very own food paparazzo - Umberto Agnello, a talented photographer hired by Fabrizia to capture recipes for a new cookbook coming out in October. Which is one of the main reasons why so many desserts were flying out of the oven this weekend.

Heeding the warnings would have been too easy, knowing full well that situations like this always come with that nagging feeling, the little cricket on the shoulder that says "Don't be enchanted! There's lactose in that creme my dear boy...LACTOSE!" and a reply from that other inner voice saying "Ah Jiminy, lighten up...what the hell do you know, anyway, you ended up in the belly of a whale?!" Well Jiminy, here I am reeling from the pleasure and pain of it all. Ensnared by an irresistable charm. They say you can't know one without knowing the other. It's true. What is life if not a journey across the entire spectrum? No regrets. It was worth every nibble! The sad reality is knowing that this won't be the last debutant to cross my path. Will I have the strength to resist next time? Probably not.

The Herbarium

Ahem...so herbariums! Who's excited?! Plant geeks out there say whaaaat! Ok, calm down. Part of my job here other then being the official kitchen taster is developing a wild edible plant herbarium. The estate is literally bustling with native, wild herbs and other plants. For those non-plant geeks, a herbarium, or "herbar" if you want to sound cool, is pretty simple, really. It's a collection of preserved plant specimens. We find em, dry em and mount em! Using a very sophisticated handmade plant-press, the plants are placed between two sheets of newspaper, layered on top of one another and sandwiched between two heavy pieces of wood. Two logs and a large Sicilian garden stone are recommended for added weight. Not really...but damn, look at that symmetry ay!?

Plant Press

For the last week or so I've been out milling around the garden hunting for edible wild plants like Sinapis arvensis, Raphanus Raphanistrum and Calendula officianalis to test in our horticultural apparatus. Wild Calendula loves nutrient rich clay soils, which the surrounding vineyard feasts on. They're everywhere.

Wild Calendula!

One doesn't have to look far from the front door to find a patch of Calendula, but I like to hike to the top of the vineyard for my specimens because that's where the wild irises and orchids grow and if you're lucky, wild fennel!

In March, everyone on the estate embarks on a crusade to find and harvest wild fennel from the hills. Salvatore, one of the sage ground-keepers at Case Vecchie is infamous for loading the back of his Vespa with bundle upon bundle of wild fennel during the harvest season. Fabrizia makes a gorgeous fennel dish called polpettinie di finnochietto which is a small eliptical shaped, fennel patty with red onion and pecorino. Food grenades for the soul. Boom.

Ragusana

A few years ago, Fabrizia posted a thoughtful video to Youtube demonstrating a recipe passed down by her mother for Scaccia Ragusana, a traditional pizza from the Sicilian province of Ragusa. The short video was met with comment after insult after comment about how blasphemous her recipe was. Unaware of the mistake, the dish Fabrizia had made, was not, according to locals from Ragusa, a real Scaccia Ragusana. One brave soul, Giovanna Scaccia (Not her real last name) chimed in with a forgiving voice among many angry naysayers and offered to teach Fabrizia how to make a true, unadulterated Scaccia Ragusana. After some planning, Giovanna finally made it out to Case Vecchie yesterday afternoon for a lesson! How incredible!? After such negativity and harassment, it was an absolute pleasure to have someone in the kitchen, a complete stranger no less, with a love of food and culture share her wisdom. That's what food is all about, sharing! She even brought her own rolling pin, which if you look closely, is actually the leg of a table. Legend. 

Giovanna Scaccia demonstrates while Fabrizia takes note

The evening was a huge success and a fantastic example of how people, food and new unexpected friendships can come together over hearth and home, even in the face of begrudged critics. Well played ladies. Well played.

A revised Youtube video is in the works to quell those distance grumblings...

Tasca Lanza International Cooking School: Take 1!

Case Vecchie

Case Vecchie

Case Vecchie or "old house" as it's translated, is my new home for the next four months! Located in Vallelunga, Case Vecchie is the heart and home of the Anna Tasca Lanza International cooking school where nearly two hundred years of food, culture and Sicilian family tradition coalesce. Fabrizia Lanza, the daughter of Anna Tasca Lanza (And my boss!) has been running the international cooking school for a number of years. Trained as a curator for the arts, she now uses the art of food as a medium to interpret her rich family history and connect people from all over the world by bringing the "old ways" back to life - with a little modern day flare.

Panoramic view of the teaching kitchen

When I first arrived, I asked Fabrizia how long she had been a chef and her answer was both surprising and revealing. She replied poignantly "I'm not really a chef, cooking has always been a part of my family, a part of Sicilian culture. It's not a profession one chooses, it's a lifestyle that becomes part of who you are as a person. These new food trends on "eating local" has been a way of life in Sicily for hundreds of years". And the longer I live in Sicily, the more I realize this truth. It's a part of a world where families still eat together on a regular basis. Food is prepared by hand from sources that are almost always local and seasonal. Every recipe that Fabrizia teaches to her students contains ingredients that have either been grown in the garden (I know, because I help maintain it) or sourced locally from small family owned businesses in Vallelunga.

There are some exceptions. For instance, Himalayan salt. That's not source locally. Also Fabrizia might use fish in a recipe. We obviously don't live on the Agrigento or Trapani coastline, but fish mongers local to Vallelunga or a neighboring village make several fishing trips per week. In other words, the supply chains are about as short as it gets. Fabrizia knows exactly where her ingredients come from. Her heart is in Sicily. Teaching students with ingredients sourced from outside the region, would go against everything she stands for. This is what makes her Sicilian cooking school so special. You can't grow the same quality of tomatoes, lemons or oranges that are specific to this region anywhere else in the world. Not to mention that the estate sits within the Tasca D'Almerita winery, a legacy passed down by Fabrizia's grandfather, Giuseppe, where every glass poured is literally a glass of Sicily. Wines like Amarone, and Valpolicella from northern Italy are fantastic, I love them, but a glass of wine made from grapes from the Regaleali Vineyard is like tasting the sun. 

The Winery which is located just a few kilometers up the road from where we are, produces just over 3.2 million bottles per year and has made a stunning video that describes "The Sound Of Wine", a symphony of melodic notes generated through the strumming, sliding, drumming, bowing and blowing of bottles and wine glasses. The video's production is as magical as the winery itself (I'll tell you about the wine tasting later!).

Needless to say, I've died and gone to heaven being a part of all this. Gratitude is an understatement. Everyday I wake up to the song of a thousand swallows outside my window (punctuated by a roosters long morning call) and think "I don't know what I did in a previous life to deserve this, but thank you!" 

Assortment of vegetables from the garden

 So what do I do here? Well, I work with Giovanni, the head grounds-keeper in maintaining the estates giant kitchen garden! We grow a variety of heirloom fruit trees and vegetables, many of which are wild such as Calendula and Fennel. It feels strange (in a good way) being back in the garden. I've had shake the dust off of my horticulture hat and reacquaint myself with a few Latin names and techniques like plant propagation. The weather has been dramatic lately with rain and hail cutting through the sunny skies at odd hours of the day so when I'm not in the garden, I'm either learning new Sicilian dishes with the cooking students or developing a sustainability framework for the business. 

But I'm not the only non-Italian resident here! I work a girl named Linda, a hip Brooklynite with Greek heritage who is Fabrizia's sous chef. She is a wonderful chef and has a cool blog called The Cheeky Chef  Check it out! She's worked on a lot of different food projects in New York and frequently rubs cutting boards with some of the best chefs in the city. Both Linda and Fabrizia are helping me quit my egregious egg eating habit, which when I left London, was nearing two dozen per week....eek...but gosh they're so good! Anyway, while my American sensibilities tell me that this is perfectly normal, I am reminded that in Sicily, where food is coveted, eggs belong in pastries. I had my first egg-ervention tonight just as dinner was coming to a close. Linda, who I had confided in and purged my deepest darkest egg secrets too, had ratted me out! I thought Greeks were loyal? Then again...she's a Greek from Brooklyn.... I jest....and I protest! They don't understand! I can't possibly eat a traditional Italian breakfast consisting of bread and marmalade (albeit freshly baked bread and best marmalade I've ever tasted) every day? I'm a man in the garden and a man OF the garden needs his eggs! Sigh.... Thus begins a new twelve step program at Case Vecchie where for the first time in a long time...eggs are off the menu - for now...

Alla Matriciana

Anyway, the mouth watering pasta dishes more then make up for the egg drought that I am about to go through. On my second day at Case Vecchie we made a pasta dish for lunch called alla matriciana, a traditional Italian tomato sauce originating from Amatrice, a small town in the mountainous province of Rieti. In in, fresh tomato sauce, pecorino cheese, chilli pepper and guanciale. Sooo good! You wouldn't expect it, but the chili pepper gives it a nice spicy kick!

We complimented our peppery pasta dish with a bottle of Lemuri 2010, one of Tasca D'Almerita's best red wines. The boldness of the grapes brought out the sharp pecorino undertones and blended perfectly with the aromatic of flavors the tomato sauce - Meraviglioso! If you see this bottle at a shop near you, buy it! You won't be disappointed. Actually, if you see any wine produced by the Tasca D'Almerita winery, treat yourself!

On a rainy Tuesday afternoon with the garden over-saturated, I was invited to join one of Fabrizia's cooking classes! Before our first lesson (my first cooking lesson!) we took a short tour of a local farm where the owners are in the business of making Ricotta Cheese! The owner, Filippo, is a fourth generation cheese man.

Filippo removing the Ricotta in the last stage

 

Filippo works long twelve hour days, often seven days per week. You can tell he takes great pride in what he does. Every movement is calculated. He explains (In Italian) which is translated back to the group, that before Ricotta can be called Ricotta, it goes through a series of stages where the goats milk is strained and skimmed several times. The word "Ricotta" means "re-cooked" because the whey which is separated from the tuma curds in the first stage are brought back to a boil and skimmed in the last. When asked how Filipe knows when the Ricotta is done cooking, he answers in typical Sicilian fashion "It's done when it's done...". He's a master. By sight and feel alone he knows when the Ricotta is ready to be lifted from the boiling cauldron.

And because we were there AS Filippo was finishing a fresh batch. We all shared in the warmth of freshly brewed ricotta cheese! Yum!

Fabrizia shows us how to make Arancini

Returning to Case Vecchie with our stomachs full and half asleep, we prepared for our afternoon cooking lesson with Fabrizia. On the menu - Arancini! Fabrizia taught us a new method for making risotto, a key ingredient in forming the arancini ball, which I described in a previous blog posting. We filled our little arancini balls with ragu, lightly battered and fried in olive oil from olives grown on the estate.  Lunch and dinner is always enjoyed at the schools family sized dinning table. Eating together and relishing in the fruits of our labor is paramount to Italian cooking.

For dinner Fabrizia showed us a dish I've always wanted to learn how to make - ravioli!

Using the fresh Ricotta from the farm, we forged two dozen handmade ravioli's. When you have the right equipment, they're not that difficult to make! Having access to a pasta press makes a huge difference. Rolling and stretching out long pieces of ravioli dough by hand without tearing it sounds impossible. Though, I suppose that's how it was done for centuries before modern day kitchen accessories were born. Ching, ching for technology!

This past week we've had Pasta with Cauliflower, Currants and Pine Nuts, Biscotti Regina, Biancomangiare / Blancmange and Pesce Spada Impanato to name just a few. Hats off to chef, Fabrizia and Linda! You two are mavericks.

Well that just about brings you up to speed on my first week at Case Vecchie. The food, people and experiences have been amazing! I feel so very fortunate to have been given this opportunity. I can't wait to see what next week brings. 

Unfortunately, I've come down with a mild case of the manflu, so I'm going to sign off. Buonanotte!

Anecdotes from Palermo

Palermo Special - GT Giunca!

* I am about four days behind on my blog! A lot has happened and I was just about to update and fill you in when my blog froze and roughly 40% of what I had written was not saved...I cannot possibly re-write it, but I will give you an abridged less witty, less thoughtful version.

Cruising the Streets

Thursday February 7th

What a relic?! Of what, I'm not exactly sure...Palermo is full of hidden treasures. Each narrow street has a story to tell, the anecdotes written on the faces of fifth generation shop owners struggling through a waning economy. On one particularly occasion while Cassandra and I were on route through the city we stumbled upon a road crowded with bicycles and retired Vespas - pieced together like soldier's in the battle field. Scarred, but not defeated! The photo on the left is of a Vespa with surgical dressings from a what looks like a motorcycle graveyard and car boot sale! (Garage sale to the Americans and venditori ambulanti if you're Italian) haha are those bike handle bars? I love it! Why not? It works...Most Vespa's on the road aren't as makeshift as this harley, but many of them are carefully crafted together with various parts and pieces. This makes a lot of sense. The Vespa is a life line for people, here and for many, buying a new one if theirs breaks down is not an option. They get creative! They figure out a way to make things work. Anything. I'm not sure people from Southern Italy get enough credit for their ingenuity. Some praise is definitely over due. 

Now, if I'd been told I was going to be given a tour on hog with dirt bike suspension, mag wheels and a pair of handle bars (with basket) from a Schwinn cruiser, I would have gladly said hell yes! but I wasn't. Instead, I was offered a joyride through the city on the next best thing, a forest green, 1974 TS 125 Vespa Piaggio. Original paint. Original windscreen. Original high pitched horn that tapers off the longer you hold it down. Original EVERYTHING! Sadly, I don't have a picture, because its owner, Manlio keeps it garaged and rightly so. This particular model, in such good condition is rare. As Manlio revs the two stroke engine he proudly recants a story about the time he was at a traffic light and a guy in the car next to him offered to buy it for €5,000 cash! Manlio explains that his Vespa is worth more then money. He's never had to service it. It's never broken down. They simply aren't made this way anymore. Like an old pair of shoes, it fits him perfectly. He'll never sell it. And before I can respond to his heartfelt memory, he revs the engine one last time, kicks his baby into first gear and we're off, taring down the Via Schuiti, instantly joining the Vespa brotherhood and the swarm at large! 

The only words that come to mind as Manlio navigates through hairpin corners and afternoon traffic is "Wahoo!". Now I get it! Now I understand. Yes the Vespa is practical, but it's also damn good fun!  And being a committed plants-man, and a good host, Manlio kindly gives me the guided tour of Palermo's most important fauna, half in Italian and half in Italian English. Manlio doesn't realize, but I only have one eye open, because  I'm half terrified and half pumped up on adrenaline! At one point, Manlio passionately identifies a 40 foot Palm Trachycarpus fortunei (The one thing that unites us in a common language we both understand are the Latin names of plants!) he saved and recently transplanted in-front of a historic palace, with one hand on the gas, one eye on the traffic. He's a multi-tasker. A man waiting for a bus whistles frantically, waiving his hands at us "Ciao, Manlio!!". This happens a lot to Manlio. He's seems to know everyone. Many "Ciao's!" are exchanged. And feeling like this might be a good opportunity to practice my Italiano, I reply too, "ciao bella!!". Ok, enough about vespas! On to the food.

Friday, February 8th (This unfortunately is where the blog failed to save....)

Friday was my last day in Palermo. To celebrate or mark the occasion, Cassandra and I decided it would be a day of eating and boy was it. We stuffed our faces with Arancini's "little oranges" in Italian. They're risotto balls filled with ragu. Divine...

 I had no idea that this is what an Arancini was supposed to look and taste like. Unbelievably delicious. The soft crunchy texture mixed with a savory ragu sauce. Evidence of heaven if I've ever seen and tasted it.

Heaven....

Crisscrossing the city, we saw the Palazzo dei Normanni a famous food market called Ballaro where you can find almost ANY Mediterranean ingredient. And it's fresh! I snapped a photo of some broccoli I stumbled upon. They were the size of small planets! Italy's valley's are so fertile. They can grow anything.

From Ballaro we cruised down a number of narrow roads, through a bit of construction and ended up at a small Pasticcerie called Pasticcerie Cappello where they make some of the best pastry in Sicily.

Because we were on a mission and needed to be mobile, I bought a bag of freshly made cookies. Cassandra and I were supposed to split them, but she had an English lesson to teach later on in the day so was very kind in letting me eat ALL of them! Which I happily did.

Dinner was definitely the crecendo of our day. Manlio insisted I try a traditional Sicilian fish recipe before leaving Palermo, so he made his world famous squid-ink pasta! It was one of the best pasta dishes I've ever had. It was also the messiest!

The photo above shows a few of the steps taken in preparing the ink-pasta. Palermo is such a wonderful city and precursor to what's evolved here at Case Veccie, where I will be a permanent resident for the next four months! 

Case Vecchie

 I've been at Case Vecchie for the last five days and I can't wait to tell you about what it is that I do here, share stories about the food (So much food!) the history, the wonderful people that help make the cooking school possible and the wine...my goodness, the Tasca D'Almerita wine...words don't do justice. It's euphoria in a bottle. I promise to have a full update ready by Saturday evening - ish!

Ciao for now!

We Swarm Together!

Preface for today's blog: 

For interest, my friend and personal translator (thank God...) Cassandra, have decided to create a kind of Palermo/Sicily focused blog - dialogue that explores her seasoned, dare I say Palermitani perspective on gastronomy, music, culture, architecture and design, with my own observations. As a foreigner, I have no personal history in this country. I can therefore see its potential without the influence of political and economic bureaucracy. However, I am not naive. I am aware that a bureaucratic labyrinth exists and is interwoven into the fabric of Sicilian society. Like any other major social system, the mechanics are complicated. As a Californian and Silicon Valley native, I remain perpetually optimistic and maintain the belief that anything is possible! It will be interesting to see how my view of Sicilian life compares and contrasts with that of Cassandra's as this American blog adventure unfolds.

Here is Cassandra's blog link, in case you missed in the first post!

Episode 2: 

My first few days in Palermo have been really exciting! Cassandra and her partner Manlio have been exceptionally generous hosts offering me a spare bed for a couple of days to acclimatize before heading over to the Tasca Lanza farm, Saturday morning. I'm very much looking forward to meeting Fabrizia Tasca Lanza, the estates proprietor. She runs the estate as well as the acclaimed international cooking school there. And although my duties will be centered around creating a wild plant herbarium, I hope I have the opportunity of diving into the kitchen from time to time to catch a cooking lesson or two! 

Many of Fabrizia's famed recipes use a combination wild plants from around the estate, which is why there preservation is essential. I love this earthy style of cooking. A strange comment to make, perhaps, because all food should be earthy, right? Not exactly. If you have any basic knowledge of our global food system, then you know that much of what we eat is hardly homegrown or wild for that matter. Another blog entry for another day! I'll provide more details of Fabrizia, the Tasca Lanza family and the farm after I settle in over the weekend. For now I'll give you an update on Sicily's mother city, Palermo!

Palermo:

Everything about this place has that new book smell. The street food, animated flow of arterial roads, stunning piazza's, sub-tropical fauna and mix of architectural history all have the aroma of fresh pages being thumbed beneath ones nose. Yet, while the experience might be fresh to my senses, the pages certainly are not. Many of the pages are torn and unfinished, but that's part of the regions charm. Palermo is still an urban city with almost 3,000 years of history under its belt. Tucked in the creases of each page are stories of love, conquest, death and of course a great Italian icon, the Vespa!

Unfamiliar with the history of the Vespa, I conducted a thorough investigation using the most up-to-date research technology available, i.e Google. I found through very reliable sources (wikipedia) that the original Vespa design was inspired by the Pre-world War II Cushman scooter. The Cushman scooter was made by the Cushman Company in Lincoln Nebraska, as an alternative to automobiles for U.S military troops fighting abroad. 

In 1944 renowned Italian engineering company Piaggio took the Cushman scooter concept and re-sculpted its features into a sleek, polished piece of machinery that ultimately provided the Italian public with a practical means of navigating the war ruined city streets. The Italian Post World War economy and infrastructure simply could not support the automobile. Vespa would remain, forever, in the hearts and minds of Italians as a symbol of freedom.

The allure of Vespa continues today as the brand conjures images care-free bliss of romance, of young couples zipping down sun-washed cobbled streets. At least that's the scene I always had in the back of my mind, painted by decades of indie films. That is, until I witnessed the darker side of the wasp. 

Clouds of Vespa brotherhoods, swarm the streets under and over-cutting traffic from every direction, their owners, completely oblivious to any rule or law governing the road. Clearly defined road lanes don't mean much. The notorious "California Stop" pales in comparison to the Scicilian Roll. Single lanes quickly become two, sometimes three, while Vespas and motorcycles pour in from right, left and center, filling empty spaces, a symphony of micro-horns ablaze. 

Drivers play their part in the orchestra of organized chaos as well. They pay little credence to turning into the face of on-coming cars to over-take a slower vehicle, in hurried traffic, in the rain. Yes the on-coming traffic might be barreling in at 40 mph an hour, but there's time! To an Italian, there's always time! I love this about the culture. They have this uncanny ability to slow down time while simultaneously move through it at the speed of light! It's incredible.

Italian drivers are pillars of calm. What I see as outrageously risky behavior are calculations to the trained eye, their senses and reflexes tuned for precision driving. It makes perfect sense that many of the top Formula 1 race-car drivers in the world are Italian! There could be ten-thousands obstacles outside of a moving vehicle on any given day - slashing rain, black ice, mountains of slippery dog mess, clueless people, man eating plants, puppies, kittens, mortar shells, you name it, but to a steady mind, inside the cockpit of a 1989 Fiat Panda....the operatic ballads of Enrico Caruso, resound. As an American, I'm far from used to this way of life. I yearn for some semblance of order, straight lines, organization and yet I reject it at the same time, because I know that great design and great art are both born out of this chaos. I identify with the process. Palermo is a little crazy, but then, heck, so am I! In Palermo, no matter how much you resist, one eventually becomes part of the swarm. Whether you're in a car or straddling a wasp, Sicily is a family and Sicilian families, fly together!

In my next blog I will recant my first ever ride on a Vespa through the very streets I've described above. It was both the most thrilling and terrifying experience of my life! And share a bit of the delicious food and sites I've discovered so far - thanks to Cassandra. Stay tuned!

From London to Sicily

This American Blog... in Sicily

Episode numero uno: Where does one begin with writing a blog?! I suppose I should introduce myself and provide some context for the who, the what, the where and the why...here goes nothing.

The Who:

My name is Andrew Sundling (Handsome Andy) for those who know me best. And no it's not a nickname I've bequeathed to myself. It was bestowed upon me one morning while I was working with the Arancini Brother's, (a fantastic street food business and coffee shop in London, owned by my two good friends Dave & Dave) at a bespoke music festival over the summer. The story goes like this:  I was supervising a dozen over easy eggs, half asleep from the previous nights shift and Dave (little Dave) was refreshing our food signage for the breakfast rush. Scribbling away he wrote "Crazy Dave's Morning Wraps!" paused, laughed....and then finished the rhyming jangle with "& Handsome Andy's Breakfast Baps!" ( For my American friends and family, Baps = Sandwich & Handsome = Me)  - Some say. Hence the name of my blog. With that said, welcome to the Adventures of Handsome Andy! My first blog, from Sicily. More on that in a moment...

The What: London

2.5 years ago I left the warm, temperate, Mediterranean climate of sunny California for the cold, wet, very wet, busy streets of foggy London. Air quality in London is much safer and cleaner then it was a hundred years ago, so there isn't much fog...but the streets and lifestyle of most Londoner's is certainly still very busy. In fact, busy is an understatement. Everyone rushes. Nevertheless, London is still exceptionally beautiful as a city and supports many of the world's top academic universities, which is why I was there.

In 2011 I graduated from Imperial College London with a Masters degree in Environmental Technology and Business. It was an incredible experience. I'm not sure the education was worth the outrageous international student fee's and debt - There  is something to be said about a good library card, however, the friendships and experiences I've had since, are worth every penny. London might be cold and rainy 6....ok, 9 months out of the year, but one of its most illustrative facets is its ability to shine as a cultural hub, where people from all over the globe mix, brew and stew. Opportunities for adventure are everywhere if one can see through the stale rushing, corporate ladder climbing and obsessive box ticking. As it turned out, my corporate spectacles were a bit scratched. Wrong prescription. I couldn't see sh*t! Timing is everything, they say...

Rather then fight a perspective that clearly wasn't reflecting the world view I saw,  I've exchanged them for a pair that is somewhat more alternative, less mainstream, more liberating, more f*ck you, more Bob Dylan; a glass composite that combines Thoreavian meditation, with the exacting yet unpredictability of Julia Childs. Throw in a dash of Alan Watts and George Carlin for good measure. Life is not about boxes, it's about people and being human. The view through my new lenses are still a bit fuzzy at times. The unknown is a scary place to be. I crap myself on a regular basis, but it keeps me humble....and hungry. (Fist bump, Steve Jobs). At least now the bigger picture appears to be more in focus...

The Where: Sicily

Three days into the New Year I received a life changing email from my good friend, fellow American expat and honorary Sicilian, Cassandra Funsten. She's been living in Sicily as a writer for almost five years. In 2006 without knowing the language, she excavated her roots in Berkeley California and transplanted them in Italy with a pair of her own hand-crafted lenses. The women has balls! She might be a Cancer sign, but she's got the tackle to follow her dreams and her heart. Bravo! After living in Sicily for almost six years, she translates complicated academic papers from Italian to English and is raising a bilingual three year-old daughter with an artistic life-partner who directs the Palermo University Botanic Garden. His name is Manlio (pronounced "Mall-i-o"). Half hippie, half Sicilian, 100% awesome! I digress. Back to the life changing email:

Cassandra had written with great news! One of the oldest families in Sicily had asked her to find a suitable person to intern on their family estate which also happened to be a world renowned vineyard and acclaimed international cooking school for the next 3-6 months. There was a catch, she needed to know yesterday if I was in. The clock was ticking. At the time I was bartending in a great pub in London just off Regents Street, called The Stags Head and wasn't sure how I could make it work on such short notice. What would I tell my boss? "Sorry, Nigel, I'm leaving the pub, the locals and a steady paycheck for Sicily - the mafiosi - a region of Italy that is on the verge of economic bankruptcy? In addition, I had a contract on my flat with roommates who expected my portion of the rent to be paid on time for the next three months, plus my goodness, it was Sicily!? Did I really want to pack my bags for a farm in a country who's economic status is comparable to Greece? I checked out the website and calculated the risks. The photos spoke for themselves, leaving me with two words "I'm in!".  Logistics turned out to be easier than I thought. My flatmates were excited for me. I found a friend to take my room and two days ago, I literally packed my bags, boarded a plane and landed in Palermo, Sicily, just as the sun was setting behind Monte Pellegrino. Bellisimo. And so it begins...

Why:...Perch`e No!?

I am reminded of a quote:

"I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong"

- Richard P. Feynman -

 

We are so afraid to let go, to just be, to allow the unfolding of this marvelous life without getting in the way. Why have I moved to Sicily to work for a family I've never met on a farm in the middle of the Sicilian countryside? Because I don't want to be afraid of being wrong. Ten years from now when I'm teaching my children how to cook or chop an onion, I don't want to tell them that when I was 30 years old, I gave up the opportunity to live and work in Italy with a historic royal family, learn the language, its culture and culinary arts, because I couldn't foresee the answers. 

And even if this road leads to more questions then answers and my tambourine man ramblings fall to the unknown like a rolling stone, I'll know the truth is out there, man, somewhere, blowin in the wind, the answers, blowin in the wind...

This blog is about the beginning of a Sicilian Adventure that I hope to share with friends, family and anyone else who's interested in following along!