Did You Miss Me?

I can't believe that I haven't blogged since July and here it is November. What in heaven's name was I doing all that time? Well for one thing, I got a new computer. That was a major undertaking. You know I'm not the brightest light on the tech scene. I've used it for a couple months and there are still moments that I'm completely mystified by how different it is from my old computer. Oh, well, life goes on.

OK, let's try to catch up.

Last Spring I received an email from the art director of a national magazine - Bridal Guide - asking about my bridal banners. She asked for me to send her a particular one. They were going to photograph it for their Fall issue. I was thrilled to pieces. I packed up the banner and sent it off.

It's hard to see, I know - but the brides are each holding the ends of one of my banners

I had visions of selling millions of bridal banners because of the exposure in a national magazine and began to furiously collect more vintage doilies. Then I gave up on that tack and began to purchase new doilies. Vintage doilies are a labor intensive proposition. I reasoned that banners made with new doilies looked just as pretty as the ones made with vintage doilies and I could make them at less cost, therefore, charge less for them. The ones made with new doilies don't have the enchanting history and heirloom quality of the vintage lace ones, though. But I was in a crunch with no time to hunt down local estate sales, compete against antique dealers for the linens, launder them and prepare them for transformation into a wedding accessory.

All handmade vintage rectangular doilies banner

I made a bunch of the ones with vintage doilies before developing the new plan (B). On these antique doily banners, each doily is unique, created by a different individual, different hands, different crochet hooks, different parts of the country, different time frames..................... I suspect they were mostly created around the 1900's to the 1940's.  At that point in time, there was no polyurethaned (case goods) furniture, no plastic coatings whatsoever, no fake/faux wood. Wood was wood. It wasn't plastic. It came from a tree. It got transformed into furniture (beds, dressers, chests, tables, stands, pianos, chairs........................... It needed to be carefully cared for. You didn't eat on it for fear the dish or glass would sweat or drip and leave a mark on the wood surface. It was covered with something (linen tablecloth, lace tablecloth or doilies, etc.). The case goods (dressers/chests) were covered with lace or linen as well (doilies/scarves). These valuable pieces of furniture required protection from perfumes, lotions, even scratches, dents, etc.  

The upholstered furniture was protected with doilies as well. There were no "miracle fabrics". Upholstery was wool, silk or cotton - all natural fibers. The housewives protected the headrests and arms of their upholstery with..............what else?  doilies. You could easily launder the doily. Not so, the sofa.

Doilies are outdated, passe', unnecessary today.  Sadly, I suspect there are many of them in landfills. . But these pieces of vintage needlework art have captured my heart. I just can't get enough of them. And they seem to be the perfect romantic vehicle for a wedding, especially a vintage, Boho or barn wedding.

Alas, my big dream of being inundated with orders for wedding banners has not materialized as yet. But whenever it does, I'm ready.

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My Favorite Part of My Visit to Sicily

My favorite event of my holiday in Sicily was a cooking class at a farm (Fattoria Mose')/B&B/cooking school in the Villaggio Mose' in Sicily.

Our tour group arrived about 5PM at the most charming sight. A working farm with chickens, a rooster, many cats, many dogs, many plants, olive trees, almond trees. verandas, long oil clothed tables for dining al fresco underneath shade trees on the veranda.

chickens in the garden

bougainvilla on the veranda


 

Inside the farmhouse, a "classroom" with long tables set out with dangerous looking knives for many budding gourmands. And a busy kitchen, of course.



We were tutored by the head chef and her advanced pupils. note: it looked, to me, like the pupils lived at the farm and the ones we met were quite advanced. They run  B&B on site as well, therefore, there is much opportunity for the pupils to have food prep experience. I later discovered that a stay at the  B&B costs $50 per night!!! That almost floored me. I would give a guess that a stay at a B&B of that caliber in the U.S. would be at least $100 per night.

When we arrived, the executive chef had already started chicken Marsala and was working on eggplant Parmigiana. On the kitchen counters, we saw a pile of ground almonds (produced on that farm) waiting for their next step in becoming truffles for dessert. On the same counter, we watched as the crust of a crostata de marmellata was created by a pupil of the school. She had previously preserved the marmellata (a mélange of several fruits).

In the kitchen - chicken Marsala on the stove - ground almonds - genesis of a crostata

Meanwhile, in the big room with the long tables, were the dangerous looking knives and wooden cutting boards, we played sous chef to the executive chef as we all prepared and put together a potato, artichoke, cheese (caciocavallo), onions, capers, and bread crumbs drizzled with extra virgin olive oil (produced right there) casserole bake.

the makings of the potato-artichoke bake

Next came those ground up almonds tossed into a pan with a simple syrup, then (when cooled a bit) kneaded together into a dough. Brought into the "classroom" for the sous chefs to roll into tiny balls, then rolling the tiny balls, some in cinnamon sugar and some in cocoa. That was part of our dessert (truffles).

pinch off a bit of dough-roll into a tiny ball-dust with cinnamon sugar or cocoa

Part II of dessert were orange roses (arancia de canella). We, the sous chefs, pared oranges, removing all the peel (down to the orange segments). Then the oranges were sliced in a spiral and wound into the form of a rose. These were arranged on a large plate, cinnamon sprinkled on them and a few mint leaves for garnish.



truffles and arancia roses with dusting of canella garnished with mint

the crostate de marmellata - lattice created by a tourista - hence the primitive lattice - still tastes good

 

finally - mangia - mangia

Surprisingly, there was much more to dinner than our neophyte sous chefs prepared. Our hostess had some food prepared off site and added to the glorious dinner that our little group helped to prepare. All in all, this experience was the star of the show.

 

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Sicily ~ Part IV ~ Churches

My visit to Sicily did not major on churches but more upon the history, archeology, conquerors, etc. of the island. However, the island is dotted with churches. Indeed, the wealthy landowners of old had chapels in their homes along with a resident priest and possibly a few nuns to do the praying for the family.

This tiny little chapel was right next door to the Hotel Centarium in Castellamare Del Golfo

 

 

 

 

 

                      Discovered this "Holy Family" sculpture in a little church in Erice




 

 

The 4 pictures above were taken in the Church of Saint Francis

(San Francisco)

 

 

This church is getting a "face lift"

 

 

Millions on uneven stone steps here. This church is in Palma de Montechiaro, includes the  Benedictine Monastery.

 

 

Worshippers lining up in front of this church in preparation for a procession

 

That was quite an interesting sight and one which one would only see in Italy. A religious procession in the center of Palermo.

 

Monks

 

Priests

 

Banners

 

The church buildings in Italy are awe inspiring because they are so ornate, full of amazing art treasures, many erected when building construction was in its infancy (no cranes, no electricity, no modern construction materials.) The care, talent,  expense, time and labor that it took must have been monumental. I feel so blessed to have been able to experience it.

 

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Sicily ~ Part III ~ Greek Temples

One of the highlights of my visit to Sicily was seeing so much history. The island of Sicily was first inhabited by the Greeks who wanted to make the island a Greek colony, thus gaining more land on which to farm to feed their burgeoning population. Sicily was thought of as the "Garden of Eden". The soil was so fertile, being made up of mostly volcanic ash. It was also situated favorably for sea trade with the surrounding nations.

However, Sicily has a thorny history of many nations all wanting to conquer whoever was the ruling party of the day. The Phoenicians, Carthagenians, Moors, Spaniards, the French, the Normans, the Tunisians.....................

My tour of western Sicily was led by the head of the Italian Department of a local college. She did her PhD dissertation on the life of Luigi Pirrandello, a native of Sicily, who was awarded the 1934 Nobel Prize for literature. It is my belief that she (the Professore) knows everything there is to know about Sicily (the history, the language, the geography, the religions, the weather patterns, the sea surrounding it, and then some. This set of circumstances led to a very history oriented tour. We did not just walk upon paved streets, and nice, even sidewalks, visiting churches and museums, eating at quaint bistros and sipping latte machiatos, although we did that as well. We also climbed mountains in 80 degree heat with sandals on! We scaled hills consisting of sand, rocks, pebbles, stones and tree roots.

Valle Dei Templi is where we're headed

Temples were erected on the highest spot of land available, in order to give proper honor to the deity plus a birds eye view of his/her loyal subjects all spread out at his/her overseeing/ruling feet.

The Greeks had many gods, and built many temples. Among those we visited were temples of Zeus, Hercules, Hera, Demeter, Persephone and the Acropolis.

One thing about temples is: they all look the same. It seems there's a prescribed architectural plan. The temples the Greeks built in Sicily were built from 800 to 500 years before Christ. Many of  them are showing signs of age but not all. I understand that it took approximately 20 years to build a temple at a time when the life expectancy was 40 years!

You can see the steps down from the temple. On the lower level was the altar.

I was amazed at the design of the temples. They had an inner room, completely dark, in which the god dwelt plus much treasure. Around this inner room, there were open and sunlit corridors, with pillars surrounding on the outer walls. Then steps down to the lower level where the ordinary people gathered to make sacrifices to the god. Our guide described this as a "Barbeque" because, usually, an animal was sacrificed on the altar which was situated outside of the temple, on the ground level. Some of this sacrifice was offered to the god. Then the worshippers enjoyed the barbeque.

This all sounded familiar to me because of what I read in my Bible of the directions that Jehovah God gave to Moses regarding how to build a residence for Him. He gave specific instructions about every detail. I find it amazing that His specifications for worship were followed by later generations. He was the originator of the temple building architectural plans.

It is my understanding that the Hebrew nation is now living in the year 5776. If the Greeks built the Sicilian temples 800-500 years before Christ, they were built approximately 2800 years ago, (3000 years ago, give or take).  That means about 2700 years before the Greeks built the Sicilian temples, the children of Israel built a temple to their one and only God, Yaweh, erecting it according to the precise specifications that the Lord gave to Moses.

I am amazed by this..........

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Visit to Sicily ~ Part II ~ Sweets

Ever since I returned from my visit to Sicily, I have been online looking for recipes for all the wonderfully delicious sweets I had while there. There were familiar desserts, like the cannoli. But even the ones I'd heard of were deliciously different in Sicily. One of those is the cassata. Unfortunately I did not take a picture of a cassata even though it was on the breakfast buffet every morning. Yes, the Sicilians have sweets for breakfast. That fact makes me feel a lot less guilty for having a couple homemade biscotti with my morning coffee.

Breakfast array - including cannoli, cookies, filled croissants

The cookies were works of art. Do these people stay up nights trying to imagine more and more decadent desserts. And the coffee they wash them down with almost defies description. Even a latte macchiato, in the home of it's origin, is delectable. And...........I found a new one. It's called a "crema d caffe". It's cold, served in a small glass and kind of like "heaven on earth". I saw instructions online how to make it. I tried one. Dismal failure #1. I am going to keep on trying, though.

pistachio gelato and a latte

I have already attempted to make cassatelli. It looks deceptively like a ravioli. It is fried dough, filled with a sweet ricotta and dusted with powdered sugar. It was served to me on a plate, sitting atop a squiggle of chocolate syrup. My attempt to make these was dismal failure #2. I threw the whole batch in the trash can. However I will give it another try. I am not giving up.   

 

there she is: Miss Casatelli

 



Here's a few more examples of the Sicilian art of Patisserie

saw lots of these small cones filled with various sweet concoctions

Pistachio Pie - How do they do that?

Marzipan


Marzipan is ground almonds plus simple syrup. Almonds trees are plentiful. In a cooking class we took while there, we took small portions of freshly made marzipan and rolled it into tiny "polpetti", which were then rolled in cocoa and some into a sugar/cinnamon. Voila! truffles

Trip to Sicily - Part 1

Wow, I haven't blogged in over a month. I've been BUSY. I've been planning a trip to Sicily which is history now but I am going to tell you all about it. Almost as soon as I returned back home, I've had houseguests. But, I'm about back to "normal" now and able to resume my normal habits.

I live in the northeast where Summers (June, July, August and 2 weeks of September) are hot and furious and as quick as you blink your eye. So all Summer activities (weddings, Summer vacations, garden tours, farmers markets, beaches, food truck rodeos, Jazz Festivals, Fairport Canal Days, Cottages, Abbotts ice cream, etc.) have to get crowded into 15 weekends (out of 52 - not a lot - about 29% of the year). Hence, when I returned from overseas, Summer already made her annual appearance and the normal, regular Summertime activities had begun, even though I wasn't quite ready for that to happen.

For me, this trip to Sicily was the trip of a life time, something I've always wanted to do. I did travel to Italy one other time. That was a visit to mainland Italy. This recent trip was to the island of Sicily, the place my grandparents emigrated from in 1894. I was hoping to discover some remnant of their life there. I'll tell you about that in another post.

For right now, I'll tell you what I was so entranced by. The way Italians hang their laundry in the hot Sicilian sun was totally enchanting to me. I still do that, in as much Summer sunshine as we get here on the shores of Lake Ontario.

Enjoy these photos of Laundry Day in Sicily:

 

 

I am assuming that inside the apartments, there is a washing machine but not a dryer. But who needs one? Sicilian weather is spectacular. 

 

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Nitrate Film Festival and Dinner

Last weekend, the George Eastman Museum presented the  nitrate-picture-show, a festival of Film Conservation. The movies were presented in the Dryden Theater at the Museum. I don't have the figures for this year but last year people from 16 countries around the world gathered in Rochester, NY for the event.

If you're interested, this link will take you to an explanation of why nitrate film is so volatile yet so valuable a piece of the history of film.  Nitrate film

I wish I could've seen more of the festival's offerings. I did see "The Bicycle Thief" (Ladri Di Biciclette", a 1948 Italian film directed by Vittorio De Sica and "The Roadhouse", an American movie, also filmed in 1948. Starring Ida Lupino, Celeste Holm, Cornell Wilde and Richard Widmark.  This film is stored at the UCLA Film and Television Archive.

Following such an delightful experience, it was fitting that we dine at a totally awesome place. We had dinner at the The Cheesecake Factory. We went in there with a plan: eat light so you'll have room for dessert. This plan was developed after eating there several times and never able to fit in a piece of their famous cheesecake. We both had a lovely salad so we could manage to also have dessert. We made a valiant effort. We both still had to take home a "doggie bag" of leftover cheesecake. I had no trouble eating it the next day.

I do think this has to be my favorite one. I had the S'mores cheesecake. My friend had the carrot cake. The S'mores cake came with dripping down the sides melted marshmallow, a half a graham cracker perched on top and lots of whipped cream (which I removed).

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