Nuts, another mill

Having already written about where all of our bakeries get their flour, I remembered another mill operation I had seen. So I stopped by and met Dominico 'Mimo' Catanese and his wife Rosa Genovese. I have driven by their operation many times, as it is about a block from where I get my mail. And they are not precisely a mill. They run a small operation where anyone who has an almond tree can get their almonds shelled, and where pasticierias, gelatorias, and other folks who use a lot of almonds can go to buy shelled almonds.

The almonds usually arrive in bags, and Mimo and Rosa put the almonds through the shelling machine. I am not sure how old the shelling machine actually is, but Tesla wired it for electricity before he left for the US, and his losing battle with Edison as to how the US should be wired. Some of the old boards used to make the machine had the original labels that Noah put on the stall doors for the various types of animals he was carrying.

The machine was not up to snuff when I was there, but then again, the almond season is in the late summer and early fall, so Mimo has time to fix it before there is a rush. When there is a rush, he no longer can store all of the almonds in large bags near the machine, and has to use a large storage area.

As people need almonds, they come and get them shelled fresh. So it is that the local folks who make their living making almond flavored cookies, quarisimillia biscotti, and almond flavored gelato, among other things, are able to use local almonds in their work. I can not imagine finding such an operation in too many places, and it is the loyalty of the almond growers and almond users that have allowed Mimo and Rosa to continue to do a wonderful thing for the city of Sciacca. Bravi!!
Just a little side note. They were very polite as I asked them questions, and they showed me around and let me take whatever pictures I wanted to. When Rosa finally asked me why I had come to Sciacca, I told her, and told her how much I liked Sciacca. When they asked if I had many friends here, I asked them if they knew Paolo and Ignatzia, or Rino and Gabriella Marinella. It turns out they are good friends with all of them, and then they seemed really happy to see me. Finally, Mimo went over and plugged in his machine, which will only shell the almonds now, but after it is fixed will separate the almonds from the shells. Before I left, he picked through the shells and gave me a handful of freshly shelled almonds, all of them perfect.

Rites of Passage

It is usual in late spring, as the school year winds down, to hear local kids playing five a side soccer on the soccer pitch in front of my house. It is usually teen agers, and they are usually well behaved, and they always seem to have a good time.

This year the teams seemed to change. The familiar faces from the last few years were no longer about. There was a younger group playing, including my next door (summer) neighbor, Giacomo, sometimes with his brother Vincenzo, the children of Totò and Anna. The group also included Paolo and Ignatzia's grand son, Paolino (little Paolo). (In the picture on the top, Giocomo is the one with the DEE JAY shirt on, and little Paolo is the biggest kid there) On the rare occasions that the old guard came to play, they would always let a few of the young ones join them, but they did not really want to face the litigation of taking over the court, so the young lions held sway.

As it became too hot to play soccer, the boys still came up here to use Giacomo's parents apartment. They would sit on the terrace, laugh, talk, play cards, watch television, and sometimes spy on me. I think once they made pasta, and another time pop corn. They were always polite, and always said hello to me.

I had wondered what the rite of passage was here between young boy and young man. Well, I think it is get togethers like the ones I have been watching. It is also the ability to legally drive motorini, or motorscooters. And they do drive them. At lest they do not go up and down endlessly in front of the house, and they rarely even try to do wheelies, although I am sure all of them can do them.

When I went out a few minutes ago to ask if I could take their pictures, they said that they had to be someplace, so I should hurry. Then they put together a few poses that they thought I would like. They are good kids, every one of them, and I am glad to have them as neighbors.

Eating Simply

Finally, it has gotten hot enough in Sciacca to get Paolo and Ignatzia to spend more time at their summer place in Baia Ranella. Among other things, that means I get to see them more often, I get to hear Paolo tell stories about how things used to be, how they are, and to interpret for me the news of Italy and the news of Sciacca.

It also means that I get to eat some of the wonderful food Ignatzia makes more often than usual. I mean, I get to eat it more often, she makes it every day year round. That includes her fresh bread for Pane Cunzatta on Sundays, sometimes fresh pizza on Sundays, sometimes I sit down with them on Saturday when they do not have the kids and grand children filling their table.

However, when that happens, I often get a call from her telling me to come down and pick up some food. She may have made fresh sauce, and fried eggplant. One of my favorites. And she has always packaged more than enough for me to use. She also asks if I have spaghetti each time, as she must be worried that I would run out of that staple, or else Paolo has just found some on sale, and has bought five or ten two kilo bags.

At anyrate, the last time it was indeed fried eggplant and fresh sauce. Of course the eggplant was local. Of course the tomatoes for the sauce were local. I brought it home, prepared the spaghetti, put the eggplant on top, poured over the sauce, and mama mia, what a wonderful meal.

The next day I cheated. I just took some of her fresh bread, layed the leftover eggplant on top, poured sauce over that (sparingly, as I wanted to save some), and then grated fresh Grana Padanna cheese on top - like parmigiano reggiano, but with a bit more of a bite to it.

Of course I did not take pictures of any of that. So finally, the next day, when to my dismay I found out I was out of orrechhetti, I fixed fussili, heated the sauce, poured it over the pasta al dente, and then scooped out fresh ricottta. The ricotta was still warm from cooking, the sauce was indeed reheated, and it was a feast.

A great thing about simple cooking. It is simply delicious.

Buy Locally

Regular readers of this blog, if there are any, or even occasional readers, if there are any of those, know that I often rant about how great it is to live in Sciacca, where the food is fresh, where my butcher knows the name of the farmer who grew the pig he is cutting into chops and grinding into sausages for me, and that I can ask and within a day even find out what the name of the pig was.

The same with fruits and vegatables, and how Lilo and Loredonna always look out for me, to make sure I only buy what is both fresh and local.

I have even talked about the wonderful bread here in Sciacca, how much I like Paneficio Americana, and Maria and Pa0la, the twins who work up front, and Salvatore the master baker, and Calogero, Maria and Paola's father. I have talked about how much I like the fresh bread, how I buy it every day, and I have even gone there a couple of times at three in the morning to help make it.

Today, I went to the flour mill where the flour for the bread is made. Think local. The picture above is in St. Michele, the old agricultural part of Sciacca, on top of the hill. The building you see is Mullino San Francisco, which has been open in the same location since 1920. Vincenzo Sabella, the imprenditore, and the god son of the founder, showed me around.

It is now a modern facility. The wheat, which is currently being harvested, is stored both on the top floor, and also on the farms scattered around Sciacca. All of the wheat, the semolina and the farina, comes from the local environs. It is cleaned and cleaned and then it is cleaned, and finally, they start the milling process. To the left you see Vincenzo holding some of the grains after the first milling. Some of the chaf will still be blown off, and it will go through seven other grinders until it becomes the fine powder we know as flour.

When it reaches the right fineness for it proposed use, it then goes to the bagging station, where Vincenzo is standing. They grind wheat for bread (DOH), as well as for pizza dough, dolce dough, and cattle and other animal food. As far as Vincenzo knows, all of the paneficios (paneficii?) in Sciacca use his flour. I do not think that is quite true for the pizzerias, but one sees his flour bags everywhere around town, and sees his trucks delivering to the paneficii every day around Sciacca. He says he also sends it out to Trapani, Castelvetrano, Palermo, and other areas. Even though Sciacca is not known for grain, the way the center of the island around Enna is, there is a lot of wheat grown here, and Vincenzo, his two sons, his son-in-law, and his daughter grind it all and bag it all.

This picture is of his son and his son in law getting ready to leave the mill and make a delivery in Castelvetrano. They use a smaller truck (and only one person) to deliver the flour locally.

The local wheat is known as grano duro, which means it is a very hard wheat, which gives Sciacca its own special type of bread, recognizable by texture as well as by taste. Depending on the bakery, it can be mixed to produce a white bread or a yellowish bread. They are both good. Indeed, I really have not found a bakery in Sciacca that does not produce good bread, and that is partly because of the work of the Sabella family.

Each day, they produce and deliver 1800 quintals of flour. For those of you like me, who do not know the difference between a quintal and a trintal, that equals 18,000 kilos of flour, or about 18 metric tons per day. A metric ton is 2,200 pounds. That is a lot of flour, and a lot of bread, and a lot of wonderful flavor that squeezes through Porto Calogero each day.

Va Bene va Bene va be va bo

Okay, okay, okiedokie, okay

As those of you who have visited, or have chatted with me since I came here, probably know that 'Va Bene' (goes well) is the Italian equivalent to Okay, or OK. However, I keep hearing variations of it, just as we hear variations of Okay in English, so this will be about those variations, Okay? And I do not pretend to be a great linguist, so I will not swear that all I am writing is 100 percent correct. Va Bene?

We can start with the various ways English speaking residents of the US of A say Okay. There are a lot of ways of saying Okay, all having to do with what the person means when they say Okay. For instance, if everything is in order and ready to go (tutt 'aposta?) then we hear Okay. The equivalent is Va Bene. Simple and straight forward.

If we are agreeing with a parental type unit who is telling us for the eleventeenth time to pick up our dirty laundry from where we left it hanging on the refrigerator door, we may tend to say oKay. Stangely, or perhaps not so strangely, the Italian equivalent is just about the same. va Bene.

If we are being asked to agree with something a third or tenth time, something we have already agreed with, and then had to listen to the point being labored and belabored beyond endurance, then we are liable to say Okay, Okay. And here in lovely sicily we indeed do hear Va Bene Va Bene.

If it is something simple we are responding to, often it is simply the unstressed, and sometimes barely said okay (ok'e). Of course, in Italian, it is va be. That is something one often hears the kids saying, and Fran, when she was heavy into her language teaching mode, would point to something like this as part of her dirty sneakers theory of language, in that the more words get used (the more sneakers get worn), the dirtier they become, and parts start falling off (both the words and the sneakers). (And by the way, I once heard that Okay or OK is the short form for Oll Korrect. )

Now, for me, the interesting part of all this, assuming, of course, that you were bored out of your skull with the previous part. This one has to do with a mixing of two languages, and creating a new form of va bene. It is similar to listening to someone who is telling you about the aliens landing, and starts to explain how the internal flouronickel space drive works, and checks to see if you are following him, and yes, you are indeed following him, but not really buying what he has to say, so you sort of mumble 'okay'
to let him know that you understand him, but you do not think he or you has the answer. Well, hereabouts, there is a useful word, sort of like Homer Simpson's 'Doh'. It is Bo, and it has nothing to do with the great Bo Diddley. Bo means basically 'who knows'. Actually, Sicilian has two such words. Maa and Bo. Bo is more common, and the older folks tend to use maa more. As to the reason for this, maa. I mean bo.

Lately I have heard folks saying, when they are asked if they agree with a discourse so far, or if they are willing to accept a prediction of the future, for the sake of argument, Va Bo as a response. I love it. Whatever you say is Okay with me, but only as long as I am with you and you are watching my face, because I really do not believe a word of it, I do not know what the heck you are talking about, and I think you have little idea of what you are talking about as well. Va Bo.

And yes, I know what you are saying to yourself now. Va bo, or is it Va ma.

A house with no number

On a street with no name.

Back when I taught at Blodgett, a friend once described my non conventional way of looking at the world (sometimes) as if my mind lived in a house with no number on a street with no name. Later, when I got to Fulton, my chief psychologist often told me I had loose associations, and while he thought this was a descriptor of a serious mental illness, I sort of like the description, but asked him if he could find an associations wrench, if he thought my associations needed tightening. This just further convinced him.

Then, when Fran and I came to Sicily to live, I had to register as a resident of Sciacca in order to get car insurance. It as not easy. Of course the first question was 'What is your house number?' followed quickly by 'What is your street name?' Well, of course you know that the house we were renting from Rino had no number, and the street had no name. If Paolo had not been my friend, AND a neighbor, I probably would never have been able to register, however the mention of his name cleared all hurdles for us.

Then about three years ago, they named the street off the main road that leads to the street that leads to our street. Then they named the street that leads to our street, although it had two different names, one on each end of it, so it was either Via Faro or Via Bonsignore Georgio. We seemed to be getting closer.

Great news. We now have a street name, and the 16 apartments on this row of apartments actually has a number, it is 8. I could even get mail delivered here if I wanted, but with the travel I do, and the trust I have in Post Italia, I think I will keep my Mail Boxes Etc mail box.

Anyway, here is the address.

I am sure you all remember the name Nausicaa from Chapter 13 of James Joyce's Ulysses. It makes me want to run right out and buy the book!!

Dam

The cast of characters, from top to bottom, and from left to right in each picture, include Tom and Kelly, sitting next to Matt with kerchief head. Next is a photo of Jacque, Christine (of Tom and Christine), and again, Tom and Kelley. Rob is so great, and you may recognize him as the Pampered Chef, that he gets a picute all to himself. And then I finally decided to turn the camera on myself. Maybe that is why there are no other pictures. Maybe I broke the camera.
That was the cast for five nights and six days in Amsterdam. I am the only one not connected with the military in anyway, and the others are either civilians working on base, or married to civilians working on base. What a great time. I went with these six young folks from Sigonella, who claimed that even through they comprised three married couples, they still needed a mature and responsible chaperone. Of course once again I left my camera in my room, or my machina photografica in my camera, most of the time, so there were only a few pictures that I took. I did manage to get everyone's picture during the canal cruise that was included in our three day transportation and museum pass.

We all went to the Van Gogh Museum, and as usual it was stunning. I keep getting pulled into the work of the impressionists more and more, and it is always exciting for me to see them. This time, in a special exhibit of some of Van Gogh's still lifes, they showed some of the paintings of his contemporaries, and there was a beautiful painting of flowers done by Pisarro, one of Fran's favorites. It was like visiting an old friend.

I lolled around outside while the others went into the Reichsmuseum, as it still was not open in many parts due to the long restoration it is undergoing, and I felt like I had seen the Black Watch and the other fine Rembrandts and other paintings that were on exhibit enough over the last several years and visits.

Of course everyone wanted to go see the Anne Frank House, so I busied myself with other things rather than re-seeing that. I was able to get some shopping done, including buying new coffee makers (I break about two bodum French Presses per year), and getting a great CD at the FAME record store.

I went to the market and got a new beach caftan for the summer, and my friends also loaded up on souvenirs and gifts, particularly at the flower market, right around the corner from our apartment. Our apartments, by the way, were on the top two floors of a building that housed the Cat Museum (KattenKabinet) right on the Herrengracht canal, so the location was wonderful.

I would tell you more about what we did outside, and try to explain it, but as you can see, there is no explanation for it.

ADDIO BO

Just a quick note to mark the passing of Elvis McDaniels, the best rock and roller ever to come out of Jacksonville Florida. I remember listening over and over again to the scratchy album of Bo Diddley's 16 all time hits when I was in high school. I just listened to them again. I hat the opportunity to hear Bo play at a road house in Oswego County once. There was a steak dinner before the show, and only about ten of us showed up for the steak dinner. That meant we were all able to sit and eat and talk with Bo Diddley as he fueled up for the show.

Elvis McDaniels - Bo Diddley - one in the same. The beat is there, and continues in rock. If only he had gotten some of the royalties he deserved.

Addio Bo, I will miss you.