Wildflowers & Food
Wildflowers & Olives
The yellow flowers are rapeseed—used in the USA for canola oil. The blue flowers are very much like lupines found on the East Coast of the US and bluebonnets found in Texas. Olive trees grow wild.
Lemons, capers, limes, avocadoes, olives, almonds, and grapes all grow abundantly.
Outdoor Markets
It was our splendid pleasure to visit several outdoor markets, perhaps the most famous being the Balleró Market. It’s a delicious setting to have a farm-to-market lunch, too!
Special Sweets
Graffa—dessert of the gods, and our guide Nina! It’s sweet whipped ricotta with chocolate chips in a warm brioche bun.
Maria Grammatico
Founder of a line of cookies and treats. She treated us to a demonstration of making her famous almond cookies, and several of us helped shape the “boobies” as she called them!
At Maria Grammatico’s making her specialty, almond cookies.
The Benanti Winery
Where we had an overview of the generations-old vineyards, a taste of the product, and a perfect afternoon.
Owner of the generations’ old Benanti Winery where we sampled the wine with a lovely lunch of carpaccio and cheese.
Once in a lifetime—Don Camello’s
A gourmet dinner for those willing to splurge…
Don Camello’s prix fixe dinner included sea urchin, lobster ravioli, langostino with aromatic sauces, and a refreshing dessert of ginger crema with sorbet! Oh, my!
Taormina’s Tischi Toshi
A lovely, unassuming restaurant!
At Tischi Toshi in Taormina we were entertained by the owner of the delicious tucked away restaurant on a hillside.
Salt…the key to life
Saline della Laguna continues to produce some of the most valuable sea salt in the world. Its magnesium content is so strong you can taste it long after the salt has melted in your mouth.
And More Food
We were entertained by the winner of Pizza Chef of the year, ate arancini (made with white wine and risotto with a gooey mozzarella center) as any self-respecting Sicilian does, and had meal after scrumptious meal! My sister Mary remarked that she had not lost weight during this trip, even though we had been walking 3-8 miles a day. We should have walked more!