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…
Why I write Letters from Sicily
“If you can’t come to Sicily, let Sicily come to you.” There is a moment each morning, just before the heat begins to settle over the valley, when everything is wonderfully undecided. It’s a new day where the day will unfold where it wants to. The swallows are already awake, stitching invisible lines across the sky. Somewhere beyond the olive trees a tractor coughs into life, and the church bells from a neighbouring village drift across the fields a few seconds later than they should, softened by distance. It is my favourite part of the day. Here we expect the unexpected and we are never disappointed. By eight o’clock the…
