After the rain: Picking fresh figs in Sicily
Every summer in Sicily is hot. It comes with the territory. But this year, the heat has been relentless. An African anti-cyclone low pressure system has settled over the island for weeks now, baking the landscape day after day until the earth has cracked into a thousand pieces. Across the fields, deep fissures spread through the soil like the pieces of an enormous jigsaw puzzle. For days we have watched the sky, searching the clouds for the slightest promise of rain. Most of our rainfall comes during the winter months, but every now and then, summer offers a brief reprieve. This morning, quite unexpectedly, it arrived. First came the wind.…
The Nuns who Named a Cake after a Chancellor’s Bottom
“You have to try this one,” I said, pointing to the little green pastry in the display cabinet. My family looked unconvinced. They had sensibly ordered cannoli. I had chosen something called Fedda del Cancelliere — The Chancellor’s Bottom. Not exactly the sort of name you expect to find inside a convent. Hidden within Palermo’s former Convent of Santa Caterina d’Alessandria is a small confectionery bakery where centuries-old recipes have quietly found their way back to life. The convent itself is magnificent, but it was the pastries that had drawn me there. Long before cafés lined the city’s streets, cloistered nuns were creating elaborate sweet treats behind these walls, selling…
