on our visit to a prickly pear festival

In my opinion the prickly pear is an ugly cactus. It grows huge and takes over and new plants grow from even a leaf (?) falling on the ground. I can't see any use for it.

But the Sicilians??? They love it. They don't use the leaves (I know that's not the right term but I don't know what the real name is) like people in Mexico do, but they use the fruit in many ways.

And we got to see several of those ways.

This past weekend we went to the town of Militello not far from the base where they were having their annual prickly pear festival. This festival is a big deal and takes up most of the town for crafts, produce, food and just stuff in booths packed side by side, around corners, and up and down the hills. Vendors come from all around to sell about anything you could want, including prickly pears.

I think this was my favorite booth---for a bit. This man had it all in one. Ceramics, paintings, lots and lots of every kind of nuts grown in Sicily. Chestnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, walnuts....... And figs and dates and sun-dried tomatoes and on and on. I bought a couple of kinds of nuts and was looking around to see if there was something else I wanted to buy when I saw three cakes of prickly pear "candy" that had fallen on the ground. Just as I noticed them, the man also noticed and promptly picked them up off the street and put them back up on the display to sell......to eat. I was suddenly through shopping there and glad that what I bought was safe and clean inside its shell.

We were amazed to see the many ways to use prickly pears. We saw prickly pear "candy" (sort of like cookie shaped fruit roll-ups), prickly pear juice (mostrada), prickly pear sauces and marmalades.

At the end of one of the streets when we thought we might be lost, we came upon a group of booths with nothing for sale but products made from prickly pears. There were several booths with hot tubs full of prickly pear meat/pulp being constantly stirred. People would buy a little dish of the stuff sprinkled with chopped almonds. Of course we had to try it. Hm-m-m-m tastes just like......hot prickly pears.

Actually, the flavor of fresh prickly pears is very nice. There's no other fruit to compare its taste to but it's as sweet as a grape, none of the tartness of other fruits and very smooth. There are a great number of seeds in the prickly pear fruit. The people here just eat the whole thing. We spit out the seeds. It's a cultural thing.

There were some nice carts on display around the city but none like the ones we saw in Piedemonte. These carts were mostly the racing trotter kind. Here's one I thought was especially pretty.

There was a parade, of sorts, through town but the only way to tell it was a parade was that a band would walk down the street playing a tune, then soon another band. "So...how's that a sort of parade?" you might ask? Well, you know the old saying from the sixties, "What if there was a war and nobody came?" This was kind of like, "What if there was a parade and nobody paid attention." People walked up the street as if the band members were just other people at the festival. So the musicians had to play while dodging festival-goers. The only people on the sidewalks watching, I guess, were family members. I wish I had taken more photos of the bands because they were really quite good. One military band was very impressive in their camouflage uniforms and their military air. Another that I liked was this band of "gypsies" playing a "jaunty" tune.

Today we got lost.....

.........and found some amazing things. I know getting lost isn't new for us, and usually when we get lost we find something interesting.

Today we decided to go to a little town near a housing unit used for military families from our base. For some reason the housing unit is 45 minutes away from the base but it is near the town of Mineo (min-ay'-o). So I figure Mineo must have something there for the base to have it's people so far away. Nope...couldn't find a thing of interest...no good shopping area....no restaurants....not much to keep us there any longer than necessary to find our way out (not an easy task).

Coming out of Mineo we took a wrong turn and went down a road that literally led to nowhere. We should have had second thoughts when half the road was washed out (or caved in) and barriers were set up narrowing the road to only a bit wider than a car. But, no, we plunged on.

Sheep dotted the hillside and when we stopped we could hear their bells clanking as they moved along the paths to find just the right grass. Somewhere down the road, I'm sure there was a cow telling us we were lost (she must have been by the way she was staring at us) and still we drove.

Then, at the crest of a hill was an abandoned villa that I could tell had once been beautiful. It was falling in on itself but some walls were still there. I had Bob stop the car so I could wander through the villa and we explored.

The villa was on a hill overlooking valleys of olive trees, orange trees and grazing land. There were many rooms in the house and every room looked out over an amazing view. Balconies skirted most windows tall enough to walk through at several levels.

What looked like old wall paper on the walls was actually painted designs (frescoes) and you could tell they had once been bright, cheerful and welcoming for those who visited there. The ceilings gently curved upward giving the appearance of being domed. Sadly, though, the ceilings now opened to the sky and pigeons used these beautiful rooms for nesting areas.

As we looked into an area that resembled an old cooking or laundry room, we were greeted by the villa's present inhabitants. Pigs. Resting on large rocks that had once been the walls, they were enjoying a gentle breeze and the shade of what was left of the roof. They seemed to welcome us and one even came to say hello.

We decided it was time to move on and hadn't driven far when I told Bob to pull over again to see stone posts opening like doors into the rocky hillside. A closer inspection gave me the impression that these places used to be graves/catecombs/sarcofogi (I'm not sure what to call them). Inside was a roughed out room-like area with a bench where a loved one who had died might be laid to rest. There were three at that place and we saw more as we drove on down that road to never-never land.

Soon the road let us know we were going the wrong way by ending. After about five miles of driving we came to a fence where the road just.....died. No more road...turn around. So we did.

Just another of fletchers italian adventures.

It's almost weekend again and...

I haven't told you about last weekend. In Sicily, autumn is the time for festivals. In Piedemonte we went to the "uva" (grape) festival a couple of weeks ago, last weekend it was Zafferana. Zafferana's festival is actually four festivals. Each Sunday in October they celebrate a different harvest. Last week it was supposed to be grapes but we didn't see any grapes there. (Plenty of wine vendors, though) This week it's honey, and I forgot what the other two weeks are. So, instead of calling it the ____ festival, they call it Ottobrata. It's becoming pretty famous and people come from all over Italy, Europe and even the States to celebrate with the town.

Zafferana is a good-sized town about two thirds of the way up the mountain (Mount Etna) and the weather is beautiful this time of the year. The climate is excellent for growing grapes which is the main crop of the mountain area. There is also an abundance of chestnut, pine and apple trees.

In the States when our little Midwest towns have an October fest, we cordon off a bit of a main street and in the rest of the town, life goes on. In Zafferana, the whole town is shut down for the day (I guess that's why they have it on Sundays). People have to park as much as a half mile from the festival area and those who come late might had better have on their hiking boots.

A very busy place those few weeks. Parades, puppet shows, costumes, food, and lots of people.

Vendors come from all over to show their "wares." Some are commercial and some are local farmers and artisans. They have booths, stands, and even blankets on which to spread out wonderful products for sale. From the farmer bringing in his cheeses, peaches, apples, artichokes, etc. to the guy demonstrating the miracle window cleaner at least a hundred times a day. Products from Italy, Turkey, Senegal. Things to eat, to enjoy the beauty of, to wear, to cook or to cook with.

The town is built on three levels with stairs going from piazza to piazza at each level. The bottom level has vendors for a variety of things but the two main parts to this area are the games and the food. Outdoor grills serving up everything from Tuna (beside the grill sitting on a table of ice was the whole tuna from which they cut a steak-sized piece to cook for you), to horse meat pinani (plural for pinano which in Italy just means sandwich, hot or cold--same sandwich).

In fact, it's difficult to find a stand there not serving caballo (horse meat) so when I went to one of the stands to tell the guy what I wanted for a sandwich I said, "Sono Americana, no mi piace caballo. Per favore un altro coso."

I think I said I am an American, I don't like horsemeat. Please give me another thing. He showed me a meat in a tray and I said it would be fine but I really don't have a clue what I ate. Bob, on the other hand, didn't care. He'll eat anything.

One thing more. On the way to up the mountain we stopped in the nearby town of Via Grande which was enjoying a bit of the spill-over from the larger festivities at Zafferana. There were many interesting things there but the one that caught my eye was the little shop with two guys outside grilling artichokes. Bob and I like artichokes but to buy them fresh, steam them or cook them in some other way is a LOT of time and trouble for the little bit you get to eat----and, we always end up eating them with butter which we don't need. These were delicious and made with only a bit of olive oil and salt as they grilled.

It was another great day and we came home with a few purchased items for eating or for Christmas gifts and with tired but happy bodies.

I think it's time I put some more photos on flickr. I'll try to do that this three-day weekend when I can go to the base and spend an hour on the computer with a good signal.

Off on another adventure

Last Saturday Bob and I decided we would go to a little place up north-----a factory just outside of Patti (accent on last syllable) called Caleco that makes tableware with distinctive designs. Plates, bowls, saucers, etc. Very nice. The outlet sells the not-perfect ones at a lesser price as outlets do, but then, they also give a 25% discount to people from Sigonella. We had been there once before a bought a few serving bowls and now wanted to add to the pattern. And we did.

Going up was nice but it was the autostrada--pretty much like an interstate. We wanted a bit of a different view so decided to come home a different route. Easy----just pick up 116 to Randazzo then through Linguaglossa, Piedemonte then hop on the autostrada for the ten more miles home. No problem......???

Never trust the GPS over the road signs in Sicily. If...you can find any road signs.

We started out at Patti and went to Tindari to pick up the SS116, a nice road that encircles Mount Etna. Found a quaint little shop that sold their own cheeses, breads and wines along with fresh meats, sausages and other locally produced goods. We bought a few things and went on to find the road to Randazzo. Here is a picture of the little shop. Maybe I should have taken the photo before we got in the car.

We must have missed a turn or turned when we weren't supposed to and the GPS took us, as only a GPS can, on a road that, on the map, was only a tiny white line twisting and turning throughout the many foothills and valleys. We passed cows grazing at the side of the road, farmers looking up from their work to see who the idiots were who had gotten lost because, obviously, the only ones who drove that road either were neighbors or lost tourists following their GPS. Other than thinking the road was going to end soon and we'd be forced to back up several miles before being able to turn around, we enjoyed being out int he countryside on that glorious autumn day.

Up and over and back and forth we drove and drove (twisty, turny, narrow, dirt-washed roads) for about two hours before finally arriving at Randazzo (which meant we still weren't home) to find a sign pointing to the SS116 and telling us we were about fifteen miles from Patti.

Autumn in Sicily is cooler weather and the second growing season for fruits and vegetables. Similar to Missouri without the winter to follow. And...Sicily has two distinct climates. The mountain where we were has the kind of weather that is conducive to growing the same kinds of things we see in Missouri, apples, peaches, pumpkins, and daffodils (my favorite). The lowlands of Sicily are more like the mideast, olive trees, cactus and desert in the summer months. Rain in the fall and winter with a little cooler temperatures for growing artichokes, zucchini, tomatoes, etc. Those things that produce quickly.

As we came closer to Randazzo we found a farmer selling apples and peaches by the side of the road. We picked up two large bags of each to make all sorts of autumn goodies.

After Randazzo and Linguaglossa we came to Piedemonte. We had tried to go through this town last year when we were on our way to Basico and was detoured due to the annual grape festival. This year we made it for the yearly detour but instead of bypassing, decided to stop awhile and join the festivities. And....I finally found those traditional little carts I've been looking for since we got here. What a great surprise.

They were lined up all along the main street. Some very old, some more recently made but all were intricate and beautiful. The pictures carved or painted on the wood typically depicts a scene from a historical battle or a familiar Sicilian love tale, or the story of the making of wine from grapes. Other shapes are cherubs, doves and other such icons of hope for a good harvest. And all parts of the wagon are decorated, even the underneath and inside the wheels and the axle.

We stayed for the parade and saw a clown band, the town band and flag throwers (typically found in Sicilian festival parades) But the most interesting to me was the large group of townspeople dressed in costumes depicting the early days of grape harvesting with the farmers and women who stomped the grapes. By the way, small farmers who make their own wine still stomp the grapes even today.

The day had been long and we were close to the autostrada so after an hour or so we slipped out and went the few miles home to relive the memories of a wonderful adventure in Sicily----once again.