Dreaming of Sicily

One of our readers just asked us to post this information about Dreaming of Sicily, a travel memoir by Betsy Vincent Hoffman.

Dreaming of Sicily is an entertaining and hilarious travel memoir written by Betsy Vincent Hoffman and illustrated by Kathleen Citrolo Gwinnett.

Experience the magnificent sights of this fabled island through eloquent words and evocative watercolors. Humorous travel tips will keep you laughing throughout the book, while poignant encounters with native Sicilians will prove that meeting everyday people in a foreign land is the most entertaining and authentic way to experience a country.

This book will have extra meaning for Sicilian-Americans who are curious about their Sicilian roots, and perhaps spur them into visiting the beautiful island of their ancestors.

So brew yourself a cup of cappuccino and curl up in your favorite chair; your plane has just landed in Bella Sicilia and you are about to embark on the adventure of a lifetime.

To buy the book, please visit Dreaming of Sicily: A Travel Memoir (Amazon link)

A week in recipes from Eat Smart in Sicily

SicilyGuide is proud to announce a new collaboration. In the next couple of days, we will publish a recipe per day from the book Eat Smart in Sicily (Amazon Link) by Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce for Ginkgo Press.

Rich with seafood, citrus, olives, and almond sweets, the cuisine of the sun-drenched island of Sicily reflects the influence of Greeks, Norman French, Tunisians, and Italians, among others. Unlike guidebooks that sweep Sicily into an overview of Italy, this latest addition to the award-winning Eat Smart series focuses solely on the cuisine of Sicily. Eat Smart in Sicily provides an historical overview of the peoples who have lived there and their contributions to Sicilian cuisine, with attention given to the fare distinct to the villages and urban centers of Sicily’s four regions. A helpful guide to Sicilian menus, with English translations of Italian (or Sicilian) words, makes ordering food in Sicily an easy and immediately rewarding experience. Highlighting regional recipe mainstays, Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce provide tips to shopping for traditional ingredients in Sicily and at home. The book also includes a comprehensive glossary of foods, kitchen utensils, and cooking methods to prepare authentic Sicilian specialties at home or abroad.

Here’s a list of the awards that EAT SMART IN SICILY has received:

• Winner of the National Best Books 2008 Awards for Travel Guides, sponsored by USABookNews.com.
• Best Food Guidebook of the Year 2008 from Planeta.com.
• First Runner up for the Eric Hoffer Book Award in the Reference – Travel category.
• Finalist for the 2009 Next Generation Indie Book Award in the Travel/Travel Guide category.

Joan Peterson is an experienced world traveler and the author of the EAT SMART guides to the food of Brazil, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Morocco, Peru, Poland, Sicily, and Turkey. Each book has been designed for travelers and food lovers like her who want to navigate menu and market with confidence.

Marcella Croce was born in Palermo, Sicily, and is a journalist and author. For almost twenty years she has been a teacher and coordinator of Elderhostel Programs in Sicily organized by Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.

Eat Smart in Sicily
How to Decipher the Menu, Know the Market
Foods, & Embark on a Tasting Adventure
Joan Peterson and Marcella Croce
Illustrated by Susan Chwae

Published by Ginkgo Press
Distributed by the University of Wisconsin Press
Publication Date: June 15, 2008
ISBN: 978-0-9776801-1-5 Paper, $13.95
160 pages

For more information on the Eat Smart series, visit:
http://www.ginkgopress.com/

To buy the book:
Eat Smart in Sicily (Amazon Link)

Some interesting Sicilian books

I am always in search of new books about Sicily and its culture. Sicilian culture is not fully understood if you do not take a look at the Sicilian cuisine. There are three books that are mentioned in an article of the Otago Daily Online, a New Zealand publication.

Sicily’s cuisine is quite different from that of its neighbour, Italy, thanks to its colourful history. It was in turn colonised, conquered, or ruled by Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Spanish, Norse, French and Italians, all of whom have left their distinctive flavours in the food and produce.

Manuela Darling-Gansser’s Spring in Sicily: Food from an Ancient Island (Hardie Grant, hbk, $65) does it in true coffee-table style, with glorious photographs by Simon Griffiths, a mouth-watering selection of recipes from around the island and an account of her culinary tour. With recipes for popular dishes such as tuna in many styles, cassata, involtini (rolls) from aubergine to veal, and of course, timbale of baked pasta, it’s a titillating treat to browse through.

[...] However, far more interesting to read and cook from is Mary Taylor Simeti’s SICILIAN FOOD: Recipes from Italy’s Abundant Isle (Wakefield, pbk, $35), first published as Pomp and Sustenance 20 years ago. Simeti, an American who married a Sicilian, writes with inside knowledge and deep involvement with the culinary history of her adopted home. She has both the scholarship and the ease of earlier British writers such as Elizabeth David and Jane Grigson.

Source: www.odt.co.nz