Key To Sicily

A Day in Belice, my program for sheep’s dairy, oil, breads, greens, fruit, mushrooms and truffles. Inquire with [email protected]

Springtime (mid-March to mid-May) is touring season for anyone who really wishes to visit Sicily, alone or in a group, and see, taste, forage, etc most of the island’s bounties and beauties. Cheeses, sheep’s ricotta, freshly milled heirloom wheats and flours, breads and rusks, truffles and mushrooms, herbs, heirloom indigenous fruit… to name some foods we experience in the wild and on our palates.

In late May, it gets too hot, till early October, when it’s perfect again through mid-November to also witness and partake in the olive harvest, Castelvetrano olives curing, olive oil milling, with freshpressed olio, green and zingy, the end of the grape harvest in the vineyards and new wines.

Wild edible plants foraging is best October through April.

Here, my explaining and translating from an Italian-speaking expert to an English-speaking crowd, in the woods, on a big hill, somewhere near Sambuca di Sicilia. Aglio ursino anyone? We learned that it is much more digestible and leaves less of a redolent aftermath than regular garlic. Bulb, greens, flower and all. We only picked one plant for educational purposes as it grows with another plant whose roots are much beloved by budding truffles and we could show the mycorrhiza developing.

Here in this area of Sicily they make an antipasto omelette, a thin fried frittata, with ransom, as with many other wild foraged vegetables.

Gathering press clippings, articles, mentions in travel- and cookbook chapters, notes and letters from clients, sifting through 15 years of emails, comments, chat messages, sms, whatsapp, instagram. In process.

In Sicily you can rent a handful or less of real beach houses. Contact [email protected] to purchase your Find-me-a-Sicilian-rental-villa service for €100 for 3 customized selections. Send us your preferred dates, locations, needs, wishes, tastes, non-negotiables, values, number of guests, and budget range.

Sicilian Jewish tourist-friendly events for

If you have ancestry and are planning a trip to , you'll find this information useful:

If you ever visit Sicily, here are some pieces of information on Jewish Sicily, history and current, and some of my professional tour guide contacts specializing in Jewish Sicily (I work in tourism and in translation mostly out of & in Sicily).

A tour of Syracuse with guide Valeria:
http://www.sicilytourguides.net/Jewish_Siracusa_tour.htm

A tour of Jewish Sicily (including Syracuse) with Moshe Ben Simon (Hebrew, English, Spanish, Italian):
https://jhtravel.org/moshe-ben-simon/

Moshe is the Sicily reference tour guide for the Holocaust Museum in New York. A few of Moshe's academic publications:
http://www.editorialeagora.it/rw/articoli/95.pdf
(the website is currently down it seems, so find a quick summary of the paper in the notes of this study here:
https://www.academia.edu/19872681/Archeologia_della_Sicilia_Islamica_il_caso_di_Jato (SEARCH KEYWORD "EBR" for a handful of interesting results about Jewish Sicily)

Names around which Jewish communities / studies are centered in Sicily:

SIRACUSA - Rabbi Di Mauro, Gabriele Spagna (the "recent" Jewish community revival in Syracuse)

PALERMO - the late Evelyne Aouate (passed away in 2022, Google searching her name adding "founder of" will bring up articles in English), founder of the Sicilian Institute for Jewish Studies in Palermo:
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/24/world/europe/italy-jews-sicily-expulsion.html

Between Israel and Palermo: Angelo Leone
https://ripost.it/2017/10/28/caltabellotta-50-ebrei-europei-in-visita-alla-ricerca-della-sinagoga-e-delle-scuole-ebraiche/

A (rather random) list of texts:
https://www.ilviaggioinsicilia.it/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/lebraismo-della-sicilia-giovanni-di-giovanni.pdf

https://www.istitutoeuroarabo.it/DM/contributo-ebraico-al-sistema-alimentare-in-sicilia-approccio-al-problema/

https://www.academia.edu/34155542/Notes_of_expulsion_of_the_Jews_from_Palermo_and_Messina
(Author: Giuseppe Campagna)

https://www.haaretz.com/archaeology/2014-06-15/ty-article/.premium/oldest-mikveh-in-europe-discovered/0000017f-db29-d3ff-a7ff-fba947620000

http://centrosefardicosiciliano.blogspot.com/2012/11/home-page.html?m=1

https://www.joimag.it/storia-degli-ebrei-di-sicilia-fino-al-xvi-secolo/

https://www.istitutoeuroarabo.it/DM/la-iudeca-di-la-terra-di-castello-vitrano/

https://www.tourofsicily.com/?s=Jewish+

https://www.isolabella.it/sicily-luxury-tours/cultural-tours/jewish-itineraries-in-sicily-2/

Jacqueline Alio mentioned in the following History of Jewish Sicily recap http://www.bestofsicily.com/mag/art201.htm

https://qds.it/filo-rosso-antisemitismo

https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storia_della_Sicilia_ebraica

and generally doing a sweeping Google search for "Sicilia ebraica" will bring up academic studies and bibliographies (also look in academia.edu), articles, and tourism itineraries. Each town has its own detailed set of historical studies usually based on whether someone took an interest and researched the locations and archives.

Booked solid through Fall 2023! Hello dear , my availability to answer and work on your needs will resume in November when my schedule frees up again to meet your hospitality requests, which may include: trip planning, travel advice, any type of recommendation such as where to stay/eat and what to do (I have recently been focusing on accommodation-transportation-child-friendly and LGBTQ-friendly activities), booking a truffle and wild edible plants foraging excursions, nature and history hikes, edible plants identifying and cooking course, meals, catering, private-chef dinners, picnics, cooking classes and workshops, events, day-in-belice experience, property purchase support, villa management, millers & bakers tour, themed itineraries (food, wine, nature and foraging, history and monuments, WWII & Operation Huskey, farming, dairy & cattle, etc), sports and sailing, arts & crafts, among other guided discovery and booking services I offer through .

Thank you for your patronage!
Enjoy your summer and fall and do get in touch in November to plan your upcoming together.

Gabriella

A little traditional Sicilian folklore, with color decorations on a horse-drawn cart and a joyous street band?

https://fb.watch/lr5RQeSmPX/

Happy Birthday Alfred Zappalà! Enjoy this performance from Taormina. #sicily🇮🇹 #sicilytravel #taorminasicily #visitsicily

In Sicily? Why miss experiencing truffles and learning about them while enjoying nature, Lagotti dogs, and the company of your guide mycologist and local expert?

Contact [email protected] for inquiries.

A day foraging truffles with Mario @susanatrilling @divinacucina