Ah, to eat Italian food
During my visit to Lisbon, Natalia visited Berlin and Milan, both to hang out with old friends. We met up in Milan, from where we flew to Palermo, on Sicily.
I had a very long stopover in Milan, but not long enough to actually visit the city, and headed to the nearby town of Busto Arsizio. In Lisbon, airport security had now also taken my stubby screwdriver, so to progres with my project, I first had to get myself a new screwdriver. This turned out to be difficult, but, after visiting 5 shops, and several misdirections, not impossible.
Onwards to Palermo, home of canoli and arancini, Natalia and I had a great week of good food, and lovely sights.
One of Sicily’s World Heritage Sites is Arab-Normal Palermo, specifically because of its fascinating mix of ‘western’ and ‘eastern’ architecture. This includes the main church in Palermo where, on one of the outside pillars, a verse from the Qur’an is inscribed.
We ventured little outside of Palermo, but did head out to the popular tourist town of Cefalù, where, amongst others, parts of Cinema Paradiso were filmed.
As we were enjoying the beach at Cefalù, we clashed with a semi-clandestine film crew who told us we couldn’t walk around certain parts of the beach. We considered mooning them from a distance, planting easter eggs for a future release of the film, but forgot about that when we walked along the rocky shores of the town, initially to sneak up on the film shoot from behind.
One food, common in Sicily, was ice cream sandwiches, with the bread being brioche. It’s actually this which sidetracked us from the mooning.
I first was made aware of this delicacy decades ago, and, occasionally manage to construct one, both in Brazil or on my travels. The bread typical of Santos, the cará, is exceptionally well suited for this.
But, every time I’ve tried to put together an ice cream sandwich, Natalia considers me insane, even if she refrains from outright saying so.
I would like to say she no longer does, one can dream, but at least I’m reasonably certain she no longer believes that ice cream sandwiches are contributing to my insanity.