December 11, 2012
This story takes place in Licodia Eubea, a foggy place high on a hill in Southeast Sicily, one of those time-frozen towns with a generous rhythm of life.
A big white van was inching its way through the slick streets when a man in a navy coppola flagged it down.
Out popped the driver. He tossed open the back doors to reveal a whole supermarket inside: oodles of noodles and bread and cookies and chips and cheese and sausage.
The man in the coppola fingered some brown eggs to make sure they were good and fresh, then fished a few euro from a pocket.
“Excuse me, signore. That’s a lot of eggs. What’ll you do with them all, if I may ask?”
(You can be a nosy snoop in Sicily.)
“My wife sent me out to get them. She likes to make cakes.”
Then the man was off, shuffling carefully over wet cobbles, holding the fragile treasures like his life depended on it.
I wondered: Will the eggs make it safely? Will he get a peck on the cheek for running the errand? What kind of cake will she concoct? Orange? Lemon-thyme? Walnut? Ricotta cream?
Such are the daily dramas of life in small-town Sicily.
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Sleepy Licodia Eubea comes alive during the September grape festival!!!
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September 21, 2011
I can’t find in Sicilian stores what I really want: plastic baggies, Twizzlers, Gorilla tape, almond butter, skim milk, a simple T-shirt without mangled English, ant traps.
Ants march into my living room in the evening as if they’re out–like every good Sicilian–for a passeggiata. I scour the hardware store and then ask my GoogleTranslate-prepared question: Ci sono trappoli per formiche? Are there traps for ants?
The shop assistant looks at me and laughs. We have traps for mice, Signora, but they are too big for your ants. Ha ha.
Anyway, while I’m rifling through the anti-pest section of the store, I come upon this mean-looking anti-pigeon device. I get four. Pigeons mate and roost and coo and poop on my balcony–of all the milllions of places they could’ve chosen! They’re not at all scared of a banging broom. Will these torture devices work?
Another weird thing I buy that day is a porta banana, a banana-carrier. Made in Italy, by the way.
“Why?” I ask the salesclerk.
“So that your banana does not get crushed in your bag,” she explains.
Leave a comment on this post (or a previous one) and you’ll be entered in a raffle to win the porta banana! (You must have an address in North America–not to leave a comment, but to win the weird green thing.) You could put a string through it and carry it as a banana-purse.
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Have you bought something odd recently?
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January 31, 2011
I spied a lonely old oil jar lurking in a corner of Piero’s antique shop. “Pick me, pick me!” it breathed.
And so I did. It has found love in my bright kitchen. Dating from the late 1800s and used by Sicilians until about 1950, this jar isn’t much different from the ones the Greeks–who introduced olive trees to Sicily millenia ago–used for storing olive oil.
It wasn’t expensive. Everything in the antique shop owned by Piero Occhipinti (literally Peter Painted Eyes) is reasonable, and it’s the only such shop in Ragusa Ibla. (Of course you have to bargain, like you do for most everything in Sicily.) If you cannot make it to a Sunday flea market while you’re in Southeast Sicily, visiting Piero’s shop is a good substitute. He sells distressed violins, old books, baroque candlesticks, ornate desks, faded old pottery from Caltagirone. He’s rummaged around Sicily’s antique fairs since he was 10, so he knows what he’s doing.
By the way, girls, Piero is single and looking… (And not just for old Sicilian treasures.)
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Piero Occhipinti Antiques, 335.539.6735, Via le Margherita, 11, Ragusa Ibla, Sicily. If his shop is locked up, you can usually find him refinishing furniture in his nearby laboratory on Via Orfanotrofio 51/53.
 A new home in my kitchen Click to subscribe to BaroqueSicily.
November 18, 2010
People ask: Do you, uh, have a trust fund or something? How can you afford a house in Italy?
Answer: We’re just a couple of free-lance artist-teacher types, wondering from which tree the next job will drop. I acquired the house in Sicily on a shoestring budget by sheer force of will. (Prices in Sicily are, certo, a fraction of those in Tuscany.)
We practice frugality. We schmear paint on the walls ourselves with big sponges, sand plaster from raw stone, putty every crack and crevice.
Our coffee table is a weathered old skid scavenged from the street. We extracted the rusty nails and polished the brittle wood to a shine.
We eat from mismatched china scavenged from Sunday-morning flea markets.
 Old mixing bowl from the Modica flea market, €5  Glasses from the Modica flea market, €1 each We decorate with “trash” that Sicilians have tossed.
 Sicilian chandelier, circa 1950, from the Modica flea market, €10  "Found" antique chair, gratis  Bath door made of found wood (and flea-market knobs, €2)  Flea-market chair, €30 We shop the sales at Upim.
 Flatware purchased on sale at Upim (Italian version of K-Mart), €1 each We frequent church bazaars, jam-packed with cheap new or vintage homemade goodies.
 Potholders crocheted by a local woman and sold at a church bazaar, €2 And did you know that in Sicily you can bargain for new beds and couches (like for cars in the US)?
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September 21, 2010
Spotted in a Sicilian antique store: Baroque armoire of honeyed rosewood. Curlicues. Cornices. Roomy shelves. Way out of my range.
I keep going back. Just looking, I say, petting the piece. The price drops. But still…
“Bellissimo,” rasps the bleached antiquaria, pulling on a cigarette like it’s oxygen itself. ”One of a kind. From the villa of a barone.”
I imagine it in its former life, surrounded by Chinese porcelain, bibelots on the mantle, gilt-framed mirrors, Persian carpets, embroideries heavy with tassels. I fork over a wad of euro-cash, and she stubs out her cigarette and says two delivery guys will be on the job posthaste. And won’t it be absolutely gorgeous in my salone.
I don’t have the heart to admit it’s going in my bagno, bathroom, just steps from a toilet.
My buzzer goes off and two rosewood-laden guys heave into the house. My joy sinks a notch when I see her, the antique dealer, imperiously bringing up the rear.
I point toward the bathroom. When she sees how I’m violating Sicilian protocol, she exhales a puff of black smoke, utters a curse, and waves her cigarette around.
Later, I wipe out the centuries of baronial grime, fill it with my plebian doodads, and sweep up her long trail of ash.
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For all of you who love Stromboli, or the Aeolian Islands, or Sicily, or Italy–would you help save a gorgeous (earthquake-damaged) church on Stomboli by signing a petition? It’s the project of one of Baroque Sicily’s readers, Beatrice Ughi. Signatures can only be collected until the end September. The link is in Italian, but it’s simple: go to the 3 long, thin boxes at the bottom and put in your name, email address, and the verification code. Mille grazie!
http://iluoghidelcuore.it/san_bartolomeo-stromboli-isole_eolie
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My Tourist Tips for Southeast Sicily
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