When they say UP country...

Saturday, September 17, 2005

Granite con Brioche (Gra-nee-ta con Bree-osh)
   Granite is a frozen confection made with lemon juice and sugar. We might call it a lemon ice, however no lemon ice you've ever tasted approaches Granite for pure yumminess. The Brioche is a light, sweet, egg bread roll that you eat with the Granite. By themselves, each is delicious. Together they are a taste sensation that is beyond description. Really, you've seen all the pictures of the Eiffel Tower already anyway. Did mention that was breakfast?

   Today we went to the countryside, a campagna (cam-pan-ya), to visit the farm, il cuzza, owned by my wife's family. I thought the narrow winding road up to the village was precarious. At least it was paved. The glorified cart path leading up the mountain to where my wife's great grandfather first farmed the land was twice as steep, and a third as wide. And I had to drive it.
   Ciccio's Mitsubishi truck would never be able to negotiate the narrow switchbacks, and his other truck, a Suzuki Sidekick, had the rear seat folded up in order to make room for all the good stuff we would be bringing back down. Besides, Matthew wanted a ride in the Ape.


Matthew, Pat's Zio (uncle) Mario, and several cats pose in front of the Ape.

   An Ape (ah-bay) is a hybrid of a three wheeled motorcycle, and a pick-up truck. It is the rural vehicle of choice in Sicily. Newer ones have car-like controls, but most of them have a set of motorcycle handlebars for driving.
   So Matthew and Pat squeezed into the Ape with Ciccio, while I followed in the 'jeep.' Ciccio's mother, Pat's Aunt Carmella, was my passenger, and the 80-odd year old bird was calmer than I was as we assayed the climb. It really was no problem at all, as long as I didn't look down over the edge of the road to the dry river bed five hundred feet below.


Looking down.

   The cuzza is a series of stone walled terraces extending up and down the mountain for hundreds of feet of elevation. The terraces are a mixture of fruit trees, grape vines, olive trees, fig trees, prickly pear cacti, and traditional garden plants like tomatoes, beans, and lettuce. We came back down the mountain with the truck filled to overflowing with prickly pears, peaches, plums, pears, lemons, grapes, tomatoes, and Sicilian zucchini. As well, we walked up the mountainside an additional several hundred feet or so, along a treacherous, winding path to fill every empty bottle we could scare up at the farm's natural spring. The most delicious water I have ever tasted.

   ~~A side note that will be of interest only to a select few...~~

   The toilets in Europe are, well, deeper than what we are used to in North America. The standing water level is also considerably lower. Given the somewhat, uh, amphitheater-like shape of said toilet bowls, this leads to some, shall we say, impressive acoustic phenomena during certain, uh, activities performed behind closed doors. I'm just sayin'.


What, are you mad? I didn't take any pictures of the toilet bowls, OK?