Sogni di Sicilia

I got up, got ready, poured coffee, then cooked and baked all day, save for a run to Decò and the ortofrutta, to get ingredients for my last-minute idea to make an apple pie. That idea turned out disastrous, but the "pumpkin" pie is a reasonable facsimile of what it should be. I ended up using parchment paper to create a pie pan; it worked better for the butternut squash pie than for the apple. Mental note to bring a pie pan here! My oven mitt wrecked the nice top on this pie Flat, burnt on top, undercooked filling I roasted some vegetables, and decided to skip the yam chips, because I've been in the kitchen for 10 hours and it's almost time for dinner! ****** We got to Elena's and saw Fina and Giovanna there; they had to do the three-time refusal to join us for Thanksgiving dinner before finally saying yes! My contributions were hot when we arrived, but timing them for 8:00 pm and eating at 10 pm meant that I did a round or two of nuking. We ate in Nonno's ol...

Joe decided to join me at the market after all. I was on a mission to find thin ankle boot-height socks, cheap, and possibly some small silver earrings to go with a necklace that Maria Teresa and Mariella gave me. First, we had our espressi again at A Maidda, though the market push-cart espresso vendor makes a mean cup. Today turned out warm by 9:00 (dang you, AccuWeather), so he had cold drinks for sale as well. We hadn't planned on getting groceries, but there were fiori di zucca and funghi di ferla . I have nice slab-cut pancetta in our fridge. Boom! A risotto will be born. Fiori di zucca  Banana, datterini Funghi di ferla  As long as we were there, I got some beautiful datterini , which are sized halfway between a grape tomato and a roma, but with more flavor than either of those. And, because I try to balance sweets-only breakfasts with healthy ones, I got some bananas. Not to be confused with ananas , which means pineapple. Both of us actually browsed the vendor stalls...

"It's raining". I  walk everywhere, but absolutely hate walking in the rain. "What are we going to do all day?" I asked Joe. "You know what Antonio would say," he responded. On what sadly became the farewell tour with Joe's sister, she asked this rain-day question of Antonio, the bartender at my friend's hotel in Sorrento. We all love Antonio. He smiled slyly, splayed his hands and shrugged his shoulders, saying, "If you are at home with an Italian man and can't go outside, well...." To which Mary wittily responded, "Then why do you have just one kid, Antonio? It hasn't rained much?" Even the proud macho Antonio got a laugh out of that! But Mary had a way of making anyone around her smile. And now Vincenzo just called Joe to join him on an errand, so "problem" solved. They took off, and later, so did I, to buy butter for making chocolate chip cookies. They saw me walking home as they drove back, and Vincenz...