A fter booking passage on the ship from Naples, I spotted the bay of Palermo, the Conca d’Oro. My family was supposed to be meeting me at th...

I t’s wet and foggy. And some of us are scared. The long days are now a thing of memory. We are steeped in darkness. And all the while the...

"Able was I ere I saw Etna" Memory is an odd bedfellow. Even without the vicissitude of time or trauma it can be a transitory ...

W e live in a world where every word can be a polarizing one. In the past week, I have felt the sting of words, and some of my readers hav...

O ne of the intriguing aspects about winemaking in Eastern Sicily, especially around Etna and Vittoria, is how tradition has very little t...

Welcome to the New California I f you had asked me, so very long ago, when I was a student in the Bay Area, trying to figure out what th...

L est you think this will be the obligatory paean to all things Sicilian, after these last days spent on the island, many things are simme...

J ust so you don’t get the wrong idea, we didn’t drink and drive, and when we did, we always had a designated driver. But we always, alwa...

I ndulge me. Or rather, let me indulge you, dear reader, and share some of the plates we were offered on this recent trip to Sicily. While...

I’ m nothing, if not overwhelmed, when I step away from Italy and into Sicily. I am also liberated. Freed from thinking things are as they...

T he ferry is closed, rough waters in the Strait of Messina. Airplanes cannot fly in and out of Catania airport, too much ash from Etna. A...

I n trying to comprehend what Etna means, to the area, to Sicily and to the world beyond, one visit will not reveal much. There are those ...

I t’s 4:30 in the morning and I’m awake. Done with sleep. My rattled skeleton is still trying to pull itself together. Coughing is painful...

E very day during this last trip to Sicily there were wines to be tasted. Fortunately most of the wines were tasted with food, although th...

Gioacchino Campanella ~ Buon “quarumaru” - photo by Manuela Laiacona T his last trip, first through France and then Italy, was one of t...

T he drive from Etna to Chiaramonte Gulfi was one for the books. After saying goodbye to Salvo Foti and his family I headed out. He had re...

I was running late to the town of Passopisciaro on Sunday. Somewhere between Palermo and Catania when I tried to get onto the highway, th...

H ow many times have I opened a bottle of wine from this estate in the last 25 years, never knowing this place? How often has a newer, bri...

Parental Advisory: Some of these images might make you hungry We're far from the dog days of summer but that was no consolation for...

Il Genio di Palermo I f you are reading this then you know I made it to Sicily from France . From the dark, rainy cold of Bordeaux to the...