Seeking Sicily by John Keahey

Seeking Sicily: A Cultural Journey Through Myth and Reality in the Heart of the Mediterranean is the title of John Keahey‘s new book, a travel narrative that captures Sicily and its various cultures through his eyes and the eyes of Sicilian authors of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most notably Leonardo Sciascia (1921-1989) of Racalmuto, province of Agrigento. As the author travels around the Mediterranean’s largest — and most conquered — island, he will share photos of the places he visits, anecdotes and regional folklore.

The breathtaking sights, unique and mouth-watering smells of Sicily abound in John Keahey’s narrative. His adventures through this historic island will awaken your senses and capture your imagination. Famous for its distinct identity and heritage, as well as its notorious mafia ties, Sicily is the Mediterranean’s largest, and most conquered, island.

I had the chance to meet Mr. Keahey in person in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. He read a few pages of this book in front of an audience of 50 people or so and gained their attention with his gentle and refined manners. When I got the chance to talk to him directly, I was surprised to learn how much he grasped of the Sicilian culture and its real essence during his visit. I am always fascinated by the stories I hear about Sicily when outsiders report them. Mr. Keahey a meticulous observer and writer.

Giovanni Verga (1840 – 1922), Novelist

Giovanni Carmelo Verga (2 September 1840 – 27 January 1922) was an Italian realist (Verismo) writer, best known for his depictions of life in Sicily, and especially for the short story (and later play) Cavalleria Rusticana and the novel I Malavoglia (The House by the Medlar Tree).

The first son of Giovanni Battista Catalano Verga and Caterina Di Mauro, Verga was born into a prosperous family of Catania in Sicily. He began writing in his teens, producing the largely unpublished historical novel Amore e Patria (Love and Country); then, although nominally studying law at the University of Catania, he used money his father had given him to publish his I Carbonari della Montagna (The Carbonari of the Mountain) in 1861 and 1862. This was followed bySulle Lagune (In the Lagoons) in 1863.

Meanwhile, Verga had been serving in the Catania National Guard (1860–64), after which he travelled to Florenceseveral times, settling there in 1869.

He moved to Milan in 1872, where he developed his new approach, characterized by the use of dialogue to develop character, which resulted in his most significant works. In 1880 his story collection Vita dei Campi (Life in the Fields), (including “Fantasticheria”, “La Lupa”, and “Pentolacchia”) most of which were about rural Sicily, came out. It also included “Cavalleria Rusticana”, which he adapted for the theatre and later formed the basis for several opera librettos including Mascagni’sCavalleria rusticana and Gastaldon’s Mala Pasqua!. Verga’s short story, “Malaria”, was one of the first literary depictions of the disease.

He then embarked on a projected series of five novels, but only completed two, I Malavoglia and Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889), the second of which was the last major work of his literary career. Both are widely recognized as masterpieces.

In 1894 Verga moved back to the house he was born in. In 1920 he was elected a senator. He died of a cerebral thrombosis in 1922.

The Teatro Verga in Catania is named after him.

The book Le immagini e le parole dei Malavoglia by Silvia Iannello (Sovera, Roma, 2008), contains passages from Verga’s novel I Malavoglia with commentary and photographs of Aci Trezza and a chapter devoted to Visconti’s 1948 film La terra trema which was based on the novel.

Novels

• Love and homeland (1856–1857)
• Carbonari of the mountain (1861–1862)
• On the lagoons (1862–1863)
• A sinner (1866)
• History of a Capinera (1871)
• Eva (1873)
• Eros (1875)
• Royal tiger (1875)
• I Malavoglia (1881)
• Elena’s husband (1882)
• Novelle rusticane (1883), translated as Little Novels of Sicily by D.H. Lawrence (1925)
• Mastro-don Gesualdo (1889)
• From your to my (1905)

Short stories

• Nedda (1874)

Spring and other story (1877)

• Spring
• The tail of the devil
• X
• Certain subjects
• Rosso Malpelo (1878)
• The stories of the Trezza’s castle

The life of the fields (1880)

• Rustic Chivalry

Sicily, the New Winter Resort: An Encyclopedia of Sicily

A friend of Sicily Guide highly recommends this book Sicily, the New Winter Resort: An Encyclopedia of Sicily. It was written in 1905 and is still a good source to plan your trip to Sicily.

You can buy the hardcover or paperback edition on on Amazon or just download the e-book at Google Books for free.

Book Details

• Book: Sicily, the New Winter Resort: An Encyclopedia of Sicily
• Author: Douglas Sladen
• Publisher: Kessinger Publishing
• ISBN-10: 1163640433
• ISBN-13: 9781163640432
• Edition: Paperback 09/2010
• Total Pages: 640
• Language: English
• Dimension: 6 x 9.02 x 1.29 inches

The Reverse Immigrant – Book Review

The Reverse Immigrant (Amazon link) is a love story. The object of Alfred M. Zappalà’s love, however, is not a person. The author loves an island, Sicily, or perhaps better his idea of the island since he was not born there. His connections to the island come by way of both grandparents who hailed from Trecastagni, a village on the slopes of Mt. Etna, as well as by an affinity for everything Sicilian. Yet his love for the island is such that in his maturity he has decided to leave his native Lawrence, MA and become a reverse immigrant by moving to Sicily on the slopes of majestic Mt. Etna.

Alfred M. Zappalà is a father of three and a grandfather of four. His view on life is
that everything else after that is pretty much gravy. He holds a law degree and teaches at prominent law schools in Boston. Considered an expert on the bar examination, he has trained thousands of aspiring lawyers to successfully become lawyers. He has authored several books on the bar examination and a screenplay. He also is a dual American-Italian citizen. He introduced thousands to the wonders of Sicily by importing various products from Sicily, including one that was deemed the best in its category at the nation’s premier food event, The Fancy Food Show. He has posted thousands of times on his popular blog and continues to write of his adventures in Sicily.

Palmento West Coast Tour Book

October 25, 2010 6:00 pm

to

November 1, 2010 8:00 pm

Robert Camuto (photo on the right) – award-winning journalist and author of Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (Amazon.com link) will be on a book tour on the West Coast to talk about his last book, which recently was reviewed by the New York Times.

Books and Sicilian wine and food in relaxed settings. Be there! Tell your friends. Here are the details:

San Francisco

Oct. 25

6p.m.Reading/ signing at Books Inc. Marina (2251 Chestnut St. 415-931-3633 )

followed by… 6:45 p.m. **Palmento Sicilian wine/food evening at A-16 Restaurant** (2355 Chestnut St.,) with Robert Camuto, Shelley Lindgren and A16 staff. Sicilian menu. Wines featured in Palmento.

Berkeley

Oct. 27 **Palmento Sicilian wine/food evening at Locanda da Eva** (2826 Telegraph Ave. 510-665-9601). Special Sicilian menu and a selection of wines from Palmento. $75 ($50 for designated drivers.)

Portland

Oct. 29 5-7:30 p.m. Palmento presentation signing and wine tasting at Cork: A Bottle Shop. (2901 NE Alberta St., 503-281-2675).

Seattle

Nov. 1 5 p.m. Reading and book signing at Elliott Bay Book Company (1521 10th ave. 206-624-6600) .
followed by 6:30 p.m **Palmento All Saints Day Sicilian soul food and wine evening at La Medusa** (4857 Rainier Ave. So. 206-723-2192).
$25 includes wine and food.

To learn more about Robert Camuto, read our blog interview.

Blog guest: Robert Camuto

I was in Sicily on vacation when Robert Camuto (photo on the left) – award-winning journalist and travel writer – tried to contact me about his new book Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (Amazon.com link). I am a Blackberry addict, but I let my emails pile up for a few days while on vacation and I missed his book tour in New York City the second week of September.

Since Robert Camuto and his family moved to France nearly a decade ago, he has contributed travel, wine and epicurean articles to publications including the Washington Post and the Wine Spectator. His critically-acclaimed first book, Corkscrewed: Adventures in the New French Wine Country (Amazon.com link) was published in 2008 . His second book, Palmento: A Sicilian Wine Odyssey (Amazon.com link) – a testament to winegrowing , food and life in his grandfather’s homeland– has just appeared.

Determined to make up for this missed opportunity, I contacted Camuto last week. He was very gracious and agreed to answer a few questions about his new book for SicilyGuide readers.

Video (14:41 min.) Palmento presentation & reading at McNally Jackson in SoHo (NY)

You say that you cannot be objective about Sicily, is it just because your family has Sicilian origins or you feel something else?

Camuto: No, it is not just because of my Sicilian roots, and I discuss this in Palmento. To me there is a magic in Sicily that permeates the air and the countrysides and defies our sense of neat, objective truth. Incredible things happen when you open yourself to happenstance there. These qualities have been felt for centuries by many who have no Sicilian or even Italian roots.

You describe your travel to Sicily as a transforming moment, why is it so? France was not so transforming?

Camuto: Moving to France in 2001 was indeed a transforming moment in my life. Particularly because it was Mediterranean France. There is something about olive trees and the way they reflect sunlight– it’s something I cannot live without. But in much of the south of France– as well as Italy– traditions are being buried by modern life and supermarkets and convenience. In Sicily, change has been slow, and I find that people still live life as it should be lived: with a pace and an appreciation that comes from the heart. Talk about Eat, Pray, Love: to me in Sicily they all happen at once– like the time I ate just-made ricotta in the middle of a snowstorm on Mt. Etna. I will never forget the moment because there was something nourishing at levels: physical, emotional and spiritual.

I do agree with you that the world has become more and more of the same thing, but Sicily keeps some uniqueness. In spite of the insularity of the island, I think that this is changing fast for Sicily too. Do you want to add anything to this?

Camuto: Yes Sicily is changing, and that is inevitable. But as I discuss in Palmento, hopefully Sicily will learn the lessons of other places — such as parts of Tuscany– that in my opinion have lost too much of their character with their success and trying to please outsiders. What I find in Sicily is that despite the changes, its soul and values– among them family, la cucina, and a mistrust of rules from outside– remain solidly intact.

Why did you leave the title of the book Palmento?

Camuto: Palmento is a word that is so evocative to me…The palmenti are the old traditional stone wineries you see across much of the island–many of them wine huts right in the vineyards that are now abandoned. Palmento conjures history, wine, a way of life that I hope will not be lost. In fact later this month I will be returning to Mount Etna to help with the harvest and winemaking in an old palmento that the winemaker Ciro Biondi is putting back into use as a sort of private experiment among friends.

Did you get to taste this vino cosmico?
Camuto: One of the last passages of the book features a local man on Etna who makes what he once referred to as vino cosmico. Yes I tasted Pietro’s wine and like the good home wines in Sicily— it didn’t have all the big scents and flavors we have come to expect in commercial wines. But it did have a happy and lively soul conducive to what is to me the essence of wine– sharing with others in a sort of communion with the world of living things. You could certainly call that vino cosmico!

Robert is going to Sicily for the harvest on Mount Etna in an old resurrected palmento in two weeks and continuing his book tour on the west coast of the US in late October. Look for his book at your local bookstore or buy it at Amazon.com.

Description of the book

Here, amid the wild landscapes, lavish markets, dramatic religious rituals, deliciously contrasting flavors, and astonishing natural warmth of its people, Camuto portrays Sicily at a shining moment in history. He takes readers into the anti-Mafia movement growing in the former mob vineyards around infamous Corleone; tells the stories of some of the island’s most prominent landowning families; and introduces us to film and music celebrities and other foreigners drawn to Sicily’s vineyards. His book takes wine as a powerful metaphor for the independent identity of this mythic land, which has thrown off its legacies of violence, corruption, and poverty to emerge, finally free, with its great soul intact.

More about Robert Camuto

Robert Camuto is a prize-winning journalist and author living in the south of France. Since he moved to France nearly a decade ago, he has contributed travel, wine and epicurean articles to publications including the Washington Post and the Wine Spectator.

A New York native and graduate of the Columbia University School of Journalism (1984), Robert has over the years contributed to publications including the New York Times, New York Daily News, the San Francisco Chronicle and Examiner, D (Dallas) Magazine, the Sydney Morning Herald and many more.

Robert worked for years as a newspaper reporter and editor in Texas, before founding the irreverent, award-winning alternative newsweekly Fort Worth Weekly in 1996. After selling the newspaper in 2000, Robert realized a long-time dream of moving to France with his French-born wife and their Texas-born son.

The Camuto family renovated a centuries-old olive oil mill as their home. When not traveling, he cultivates olives and vines on his property; he and a fellow wine lover began making red wine on the property in 2006.

Dear Sister: Letters Home to Sicily from Wartime America

May 26, 2010
6:00 pm	to	8:00 pm

A special event at the Italian American Museum in New York City to meet Pauline M. Spatafora, the author of Dear Sister: Letters Home to Sicily from Wartime America. A unique insight into the lives of Italians and Italian Americans during the tumultuous World War II Period and based on actual letters written by the author’s mother to her aunt in Sicily. This is a book that will touch everyone regardless of country of origin. This is a voyage that is not only literal but symbolic for Anna, the young woman away from family and friends – embarking on a journey filled with surprising twists.

About the Author:
Pauline M. Spatafora has had extensive experience in Corporate Management. (Director of Housing for Cornell University Medical College.) She has a background in theater, dance and music, and as the former president of P. S. Communications, designed and taught specialized programs in Communication Skills, Speech & Accent Correction and numerous workshops for Health care Professionals. For the past twenty-three years she has been a Professor of English at CUNY. Education: undergraduate studies at Queens college and graduate degree at New York University. Pauline has written three books: Proper Pronunciation Made Easy, The Absent Mother-A Psycho literary study of Virginia Woolf, and her latest, Dear Sister a book of letters from her mother in America to her aunt in Sicily during the tumultuous World War Two Period.

Italian American Museum
155 Mulberry Street
New York, NY 10013
(Suggested Donation of $5 per person)

Seating is limited
To reserve a place for this event please call the
Italian American Museum at (212) 965-9000
or email: info@italianamericanmuseum.org

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