Sicily | Mostly Bright Ideas

Browsing All posts tagged under »Sicily«

Our Cats Ate Spaghetti

February 28, 2012

I grew up in an Italian household. I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, but I also had no choice in the matter. Everyone in the family was Italian. Even the pets. When I was very little, my grandmother had two parakeets that would fly from their open cage to perch on her fingers […]

Sarcasm: It’s in the Blood

July 7, 2010

I see articles in magazines and newspapers that speculate about the existence of genes for certain traits. Is there a gene for religious belief? Homosexuality? Intelligence? Alcoholism? These are mildly interesting questions, and I usually read the articles at least halfway through before going off to fold my socks. But what about the sarcasm gene? […]

“Zabaglione”

June 15, 2010

This is a long essay, more than two thousand words, about an experience I had in Sicily. I created it as a page, rather than a post, because of its length. I hope you’ll read it when you have some time.

Sicily: The People

June 11, 2010

In 2003, on our first trip to Sicily, we spent three nights in an apartment in Palermo, then rented a two-door Alfa Romeo and went exploring. Somewhere between Siracusa on the southeast coast and Piazza Armerina in the mountains, we came around a bend in the road and had to stop as a herd of […]

Can We Afford to Travel?

May 20, 2010

Amiable Amiable’s post about having the financial resources to someday take that trip has inspired still another thought in my brain. (I believe this is my third thought this year, and it’s still only May!) My wife and I don’t really have the money to travel. If one of those financial advisers from television ever […]

Sicily: The Food

May 19, 2010

We’ve been to Sicily three times now, so it seems unnecessary to say we love it. The landscape is overwhelmingly beautiful, the people are friendly and welcoming, and there’s history everywhere you look. I’ll be writing more about this wonderful island, but for now I just wanted to talk a bit about the food. I […]

Whining about Grapes

May 18, 2010

The Greeks introduced grapes to Sicily around 600 BC. That’s a lot of time to figure out how to do something, and ever since, Sicilians have been pretty successful at cultivating and processing those grapes for various uses. All four of my grandparents were from Sicily and my mother was born there, so it was […]