Scuola

Today I took the kids to their second day of school and again, they seemed to really enjoy themselves. Beginning on Thursday, they will go every Tuesday and Thursday for 2.5 hours. I am psyched because during this time I am working on getting some tennis in!

Ellen took me to the vet, the dog food place, the tennis place, a studio where I might be able to do some yoga or pilates, and then back to her place for a chino on the rooftop. It poured rain all afternoon.

The food today was excellent.

In the middle of the table was a plate with soybean bread (delicious) and breadsticks "grissini."

The first course was pasta pomodorini only this time Giuseppe added some garlic - the first time since we've been here. This surprised me as I just assumed garlic was a prerequisite for every dish. It was delicious. Oscar had two BIG bowls. He was thrilled to learn that the second course was chicken. He gobbled down his second helping of the bird and then moaned, "I am going to miss the food here." Next came the green beans which had soaked all day in water, lemon and salt and Giuseppe's favourite, a dish of eggs that he collected this morning, red Sicilian onions which are sweet red onions, oil and balsamic. It was delicious. At the end, Oscar said, "Giuseppe, more cipolla por favore." I kid you not. The kid is learning Italian. They all are - even Coco-Madeleine.

Tomorrow, I am going to watch the master in la cuccina. Oh, and speaking of Giuseppe, I should add a couple of things. Today he showed up in a black and yellow leather motorcycle jacket. He wore all black with a black leather belt with a silver oval belt buckle. It wasn't solid, it was like a squished letter "o." He also wore yellow glasses. Friday they were bright orange. As it turns out, he has a collection of antique Sicilian glasses. I think he has worn a different pair everyday. On top of this ensemble, he had a navy apron with a navy chef hat. When I said he looked stylish, Giuseppe shrugged it off and as near as we can tell, said, "what do you expect?"

We had salted chocolate, and no sugar, fruit sweetened chocolate from Modica for dessert. It is is a local specialty not unlike Ontario icewine.

Modica's chocolate has been made the same way for almost six hundred years. The beans are roasted and smashed over a fire and sugar is added. The fire doesn't get hot enough to melt the sugar so the texture of this chocolate is grainy. There is a shop in Modica that has produced cioccolato modicano since 1881. It is owned by the Bonajuto family. It turns out that Mr. Bonajuto is like a father to Giuseppe and when Giuseppe saw me doling out the cioccolato made by Mr. Bonajuto, he immediately called up Mr. Bonajuto and handed me the cell phone. We had a chat. (Basically I said grazie mille a few times, along with a bueno cioccolato. It was a bit embarrassing. I would have learned something more elegant had I any preparation time. Oh well.).

More domani. (I am picking up a few key words here and there)!

Oh, and a picture of a church I saw from Ellen's friend's party (that I went to after hers) ..