{"id":766,"date":"2014-06-15T17:16:04","date_gmt":"2014-06-15T21:16:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wherearemomanddad.com\/?page_id=766"},"modified":"2021-06-21T11:07:12","modified_gmt":"2021-06-21T15:07:12","slug":"2014-food-and-wine-of-sicily","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/wherearemomanddad.com\/?page_id=766","title":{"rendered":"2014 Food and Wine of Sicily"},"content":{"rendered":"

Mom and I are headed to Siderno Marina, in Calabria, Italy which is located in the instep of the boot, to see the family (cue Italian folk songs) for a couple of days and then headed across the Strait of Messina to Sicily. \"sicily1\"<\/a> The plan is to start our food and wine tour in Taormina, then head to Val di Noto, Menfi, and finally Palermo over 10 days tasting as much of the local wines and food as possible.Yea, I’m thinking this will be a 10 pounder.\u00a0 What’s the number to the Betty Ford Clinic?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"DinnerWe made it to Siderno, home of Dad\u2019s ancestry.\u00a0 Here we are at dinner with some of my cousins.\u00a0 Starting at the left and going clockwise we have Maria Rosa who is holding Alessandra, then there\u2019s Mom and me, followed by Annalisa and her hubby (my cousin) Danilo, then his Dad, Gaetano, followed by Salvatore (Gaetano\u2019s other son and married to Maria Rosa).\u00a0 Last, but not least, is Chiara (the light-weight) who is the other daughter of Salvatore and Maria Rosa.\u00a0 Chiara had spent the day playing tennis and passed out after dinner.\u00a0 Dinner by the way was at a little trattoria in Sidenro Superiore called Zio Salvatore.\u00a0 The restaurant has been in Maria Rosa\u2019s family for three generations.\u00a0 They specialize in the food of the region (Calabria) and won a 2012 Slow Food Award.\u00a0 The dinner started with an antipasto of homemade salamis, fried potato zeppoli, potato croquette, rice balls, roasted vegetables, fried squash flowers, and fried eggplant.\u00a0 We then had homemade pasta with roasted tomato sauce and pork meatballs.\u00a0 Homemade wine of course with dinner and then an \u201camarro\u201d as an after dinner drink.\u00a0 Lots of fun, food, and wine.\u00a0 What a great time!\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised we didn\u2019t all join Chiara after a dinner like that!<\/p>\n

\"Tropea\"<\/a>While we were in Siderno, we took a short drive to a seaside resort called Tropea.\u00a0 What a gorgeous little beach town.\u00a0 The town is hilly and very old with great restaurants and lovely people.\u00a0 The weather was a little iffy so we didn\u2019t stay long.\u00a0 Just long enough for us to catch a quick \u201cpranzo\u201d of pasta, veal scallopine, salad, and a half liter of wine.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Taormina\"<\/a>Day 3, at last we’re here we are in Taormina, on the first day of our food and wine tour of Sicily.\u00a0 Our trusty driver, Sabastiano, picked us up in Reggio Calabria and drove us first to the ferry to cross the strait of Messina, and then to our hotel in Taormina.\u00a0 We\u2019re staying at the Ashbee, which is a hotel that was converted from a villa first owned by a British colonel around WWI.\u00a0 We took a quick walk around town and found out that the Taormina International Film Festival is taking place this weekend.\u00a0 Sure to be a lot of fun and a little crowded.\u00a0 I had pasta con le alici which is pasta with a sauce of minced anchovy, basil, garlic, and bread crumbs.\u00a0 Mom had prosciutto and melon and a salad.\u00a0 We had dinner at a restaurant called Santanera, which was pretty well hidden between several large buildings.\u00a0 We started with pasta with sea urchin sauce (Mom thinks she finally ate fish, but since sea urchins don’t have gills they\u2019re actually mollusks, i.e., like clams, but don’t tell her) and then Mom had the most tender pork loin in balsamic vinegar sauce and I had white fish in white wine sauce.\u00a0 We washed that all down with a Sicilian nero d’alva which tasted like a slightly peppery dolcetto.<\/p>\n

\"Stephanie<\/a>Day 4 We woke up late (couldn’t have been all the wine and food we had yesterday) and rushed to get to the Biondi Winery in Trecastagni.\u00a0 There, we were met by our lovely hosts and owners of the winery, Ciro and Stephanie Biondi.\u00a0 The winery has been in Ciro’s family since his grandfather.\u00a0 It’s located along side of a few of the many small volcanoes around Mt Etna.\u00a0 The elevation, rich soil, and minerality of the soil are great for everything that grows in the area, including the vines.\u00a0 While the winery operates on only 12 acres, they make several whites and reds.\u00a0 Needless to say, we tried them all.\u00a0 Stephanie and her assistant Ruth prepared a wonderful and simple lunch of sliced meats, grilled vegetables, spaghetti alla Norma (spaghetti with saut\u00e9ed eggplant in fresh tomato sauce), meatballs wrapped in lemon leaves, and then almond cookies and fruit.\u00a0 After a quick shopping spree, dinner was at a great restaurant in Taormina overlooking the strait of Messina called La Giara.\u00a0 Mom and I shared a plate of lobster ravioli in calamari sauce, then Mom had roasted lamb chops coated with an oregano breadcrumb mixture and I had a zuppa di pesce.\u00a0 Both were incredible!\u00a0 We shared a bottle of red from the Etna region called Archinera 2010 which is a blend of several red grapes.\u00a0 I can’t wait for our cooking lesson tomorrow!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Luisa<\/a>Day 5 Our cooking lesson at the Villa Britannia.\u00a0 We met Luisa and her cousin, Carmelo at the kitchen of the Villa Britannia which is only a short walk from the Hotel Ashbee (and boy did we need the exercise!).\u00a0 The Villa is part of the family heritage of Luisa and Carmelo and has been in their family for generations.\u00a0 Luisa now manages the Villa and Carmelo is a retired chef who was the chef at the Doral Hotel in the late ’80s.\u00a0 Don Carmelo showed us how to make eggplant caponata (saut\u00e9ed peppers and\u00a0eggplant), Sicilian pasta with eggplant in fresh tomato sauce, breaded veal cutlets, and for dessert, Sicilian crepes in a lemon sauce.\u00a0 The lesson started at 10:30 am and we cooked until 1:30 pm.\u00a0 After a homemade aperitif of orange and lemon juices, gin, sweet and dry vermouth, and several types of bitters, we were ready to dig in.\u00a0 Everything was delicious!\u00a0 What a great day spent with lovely people doing some of our favorite things.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Cover\"<\/a>Day 6 Sicilians are trying to stuff us with delicious food and drown us in wonderful wine!\u00a0 Today we visited the Passopisciaro winery and Cottanera winery which are both on the north side of Mount Etna.\u00a0 One of the very interesting facts about wine making in this area is that the wineries can harvest the same grape from vineyards not too far away from each other and end up with different tasting wines.\u00a0 Both wineries offer red and white wines, the difference is in the volume of wine they produce.\u00a0 Passopiscaro is a limited producer offering wines in the states only through boutique shops and Cottanera is a much larger producer offering its wines either through the internet or at restaurants in the US.\u00a0 Both make delicious wines.\u00a0 Mom and I had lunch at the Cottanera winery where Patrizia was our host.\u00a0 We enjoyed a white and a different red with each of our three courses.\u00a0 No dinner for us tonight!<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Siracusa\"<\/a>Day 7 Walking tour through Siracusa.\u00a0 After a delicious light breakfast at the Ashbee Hotel, we checked out and headed to one of the most historically important cities in Sicily, Siracua (Syracuse).\u00a0 We met our guide, Enzo, at the Archeological Park in the city and started our walking tour.\u00a0 The “Park” is centered around a huge limestone rock quarry that was used to build the buildings around Siracusa starting nearly 3000 years ago!\u00a0 Believe it or not, more than 1 million cubic meters of limestone were quarried in the vicinity to build the palaces, homes, theaters, and walls that contained approximately 200,000 Greek citizens in the heyday of Sicily which was approximately 300 BC.\u00a0 We then went to the nearby island of Ortigia, which reportably was the first island of Sicily inhabited by the Greek explorers 3000 years ago.\u00a0 The island is important for being one of the only areas where papyrus grows naturally, without which history would never have been written.\u00a0 After our tour, we enjoyed our best lunch yet at Don Camillo restaurant in Ortigia where we enjoyed some local fish, pasta, and delicious nero d’avola.\u00a0 We later drove to our new countryside hotel in Ragusa called Eremo della Giubiliana, which is a converted monastery.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"Scicle<\/a>Day 8 Driving and walking tour of the ancient cities of Scicli and Noto.\u00a0 Scicli sits on a gorge above the regions\u00a0beaches and is overlooked by the Church of San Matteo which sits on top of a huge rock tour.\u00a0 After a refreshing granita, we headed to Noto which is another of the cities that was inhabited by the Sicels who were the inhabitants of Sicily well before the Greeks colonized the islands here.\u00a0 We had a light lunch at Viccola Restaurant of salad and a plate of local cheeses and meats followed by a nera d’avola from Noto.\u00a0 A special dinner has been arranged for us at La Gazza Ladra Palazzo Failla\u00a0in Modica.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\"black<\/a>The dinner at La Gazza Ladra was tremendous!\u00a0 We ate a seven course\u00a0meal\u00a0in the patio behind the restaurant.\u00a0 We started with a grilled cuttlefish, over a sweet cream, citron, marjoram, and squid ink sauce (thus the black tongue), followed by octopus over a stuffed potato, then turnip flowers over cream, which then led to spaghetti in smoked eggplant water (not my favorite), and then risotto with olive oil, black olives, and oregano.\u00a0 Finally finishing with roasted mountain lamb.\u00a0 Dessert was orange ice cream covered with grated orange and almonds.\u00a0 Each course was of course accompanied by its own local wine.\u00a0 Yea, they needed to roll us out of the restaurant.\u00a0 We barely fit into the back of our car.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Armosa<\/a>We had two wine tastings on Day 9.\u00a0 The first wine tasting was at a little seaside winery in Scicli, called the Amrmosa winery.\u00a0 This winery is only 12 years old, but already won several awards for its wines.\u00a0 The winery is owned and operated by Michele Molgg who is an enologist turned semi-conductor engineer who makes wine in his spare time!\u00a0 He researched where ancient people made wine in the area, then bought vineyards that fit his specifications and then planted local varieties of grapes (nero d’avola and muscato).\u00a0 After about 4 years, his winery produces very delicious full-bodied red and white wine.\u00a0 The production itself is very small; 10,000 bottles of his entry level wine (salipetry) and less than 600 bottles of his nero d’avola reserve (we picked up a couple of those).\u00a0 We skipped lunch (can you blame us?) and headed to our second wine tasting at the Arianna Occhipinti Winery in Vittoria.<\/p>\n

\"Occhipinti\"<\/a>The\u00a0 Occhipinti Winery is altogether different from the Armosa Winery.\u00a0 Occhipinti produces hundreds of thousands of bottles of\u00a0wine\/year and prefers to produce\u00a0lighter wines than those of the Armosa winery.\u00a0\u00a0Occhipinti was started by\u00a0Arianna\u00a010 years ago at the tender age of 21 after completing enology school in Milano.\u00a0 Unfortunately, Arianna was not available for\u00a0our tour, but her trusty side-kick Giovanni did a great job.\u00a0 Their wines\u00a0are available\u00a0in the US.\u00a0 After the Occhipinti, we freshed up at the Eremo\u00a0and headed to our dining odyssey at Duomo Restaurant in Ragusa.\u00a0 I say dining odyssey because\u00a0I lost count\u00a0at the 10th course of our meal!\u00a0 We actually started\u00a0dessert with a pre-dessert and then had an after-dessert after the dessert!\u00a0 I became bleary-eyed after the 7th or 8th seafood course.\u00a0 Everything was delicious and\u00a0Chef Ciccio was very attentive\u00a0to our dining preferences.\u00a0 WHAT A MEAL!!!!!!!<\/p>\n

\"Agrigento<\/a>Day 10 found us leaving the Eremo Hotel and headed along the southern shores of Sicily to Agrigento.\u00a0 Agrigento is another town with a rich ancient Greek history.\u00a0 Our guide, Sergio, showed us around the ruins of several Greek temples along the Valley of the Temples.\u00a0\u00a0The temples were built in 500 BC out of local sandstone, but were destroyed by the Carthaginians in around 400 BC and then the Christians in around 600 AD.\u00a0 The Greeks chiseled the huge sandstone\u00a0blocks out of the quarries and lifted them using ingenious\u00a0cranes powered by several men inside a running wheel resembling a rats toy.\u00a0 The running wheel would wind up the rope holding the block, thereby lifting it up the crane.\u00a0 By the way, Sergio is a surfer and gave me a couple of\u00a0surf breaks\u00a0to check out in Calabria (Bova Marina) and Sicily (anywhere along the southern shore).\u00a0\u00a0We are staying in the outskirts of Agrigento at La Forestieria Planeta which is a winery and five star hotel.<\/p>\n

\"Cover\"<\/a>Day 11 was a short day.\u00a0 We left our room at the Planta Hotel and headed to the Donnafugata Winery outside of Marsala.\u00a0 The Donnafugata is a family run winery that has been in the Rallo family for six generations.\u00a0 In the early days, the winery made marsala wine which is a fortified wine.\u00a0 Three generations ago, the Gabiella Rallo rebranded the family winery and changed its focus to match the tastes of the evolving tastes for wine lovers.\u00a0 Today, the winery has hundreds of acres of vineyards and produces around a dozen different wines.\u00a0 Our lovely sommelier Julia, took us through a thorough wine tasting of two whites, three reds, two dessert wines, and two of their grappas.\u00a0 Needless to say, we slept all the way to our next and final destination, Palermo.\u00a0 Here we will stay at the Hotel Plazzo Sitano, which is a very contemporary hotel in the middle of the very urban Palermo.\u00a0 Our dinner this evening was at the Osteria delle Vesperi which is another gourmet meal of 5 courses and 5 wines.\u00a0 Delicious!<\/p>\n

\"Cover\"<\/a>Day 12 Our last day in Sicily.\u00a0 We took a short auto tour of the city and then headed to the mountain city of Monreal.\u00a0 Monreal overlooks the city of Palermo and is the jewel of the area.\u00a0 It’s filled with winding narrow streets walled in shops, bars, restaurants and homes.\u00a0 There is a Sicilian saying which translated says “If you take a tour of Palermo and don’t visit Monreal, you come as a donkey and leave as a pig.”\u00a0 A little strong perhaps, but Sicilians are a tough bunch.\u00a0 It was a great trip and we had a great time. Ci vediamo, Sicilia!<\/p>\n

Check out the\u00a0other pictures in the\u00a0photo album below.\u00a0 Either click on the “slideshow” or arrow down to page through the pictures one at a time.\u00a0 Enjoy!\u00a0 Don’t forget to sign in\u00a0on our Guest Page!

<\/div>
<\/g><\/svg><\/span><\/g><\/svg><\/span><\/g><\/svg><\/span><\/div>To see the full size images, you need to enable javascript in your browser.<\/span><\/noscript>
<\/div>
<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>
<\/g><\/svg><\/span><\/g><\/svg><\/span><\/span>
<\/div><\/div>