ITALY | Sunday, 13 January 2013 | Views [248] | View Smaller Image
La Cucina: The second thing of I think of, when I remember Sicily. Food glorious food, wonderful food. Oh the food, so simple, yet so delicious and so fresh. This photo was taken at Mortizzi, another small village, up another extremely windy goat track, on the side of a hill. This is the village where my Dad was born and before my dad left Italy, the village consisted of two houses (a white house and a pink house). Since then, the owners of the land (still the same family that owned the land when Dad lived there) have built a restaurant (Villa Rica) and converted the pink and white houses into a Bed & Breakfast. The restaurant was closed when we visited, but the owner (the son of the original owner) invited us in for some food, and a vino and a chat. The guy was probably at least 80 years old and remembers my Nonno and Dad. He told stories of how my family used to cultivate the land for his father- oranges, olives, stone fruit, wheat - and in return my family would get to live in the white house for free and keep half of the produce to sell. Nonno used to also manually press the olives with the olive press to make oil. The press is now a feature in the restuarant. This photo is taken from inside the restaurant overlooking the fertile volcanic soil, that is used to grow most of the produce that is used in Villa Rica, and other restaurants around town. In the foreground you can see a table set, ready for evening visitors to the restaurant. I love how the window frames the 'bella vista' of the fertile land and the Aeolian Islands in the distant background.
