Modica and environs - May 24 - 27

After spending four carless (such bliss!) days in Siracusa, we picked up another car (Fiat 500) to continue our exploration of Sicily.  The next stop was Modica, one of the several "baroque towns" in southeastern Sicily that were completely rebuilt at the height of the baroque period following an earthquake that devastated the region in 1693.

Ristorante Scala

Rather than take the direct route, we headed to the southern Mediterranean coast and drove through the nature preserves and fishing villages on the coast to end up at an exceptional ristorante in most unlikely wonderful spot. PORTOPALO DI CAPO PASSERO, still in the SIRACUSA region. A tiny town, modest, low profile with a gentle slope to beaches on three sides. Most of the buildings are yellow, purple, blue or green, 1950's two-story apartment buildings. Not a resort, but if you want beautiful water, lots of it, zero crowds, no glitz and one great restaurant and probably low room rates, this is your town. 

The restaurant, Scala, is Slow Food recommended. By Slow Food, I mean the international food policy organization based in Bra, northern Italy. Slow Food encourages production of the highest, purest, finest quality ingredients for use in preparations with ancient histories. Scala uses ingredients, seafood, just hours or minutes out of the pristine local water. We started with an appetizer plate of cuttlefish, urchins, sea bream, large sweet pink shrimp. I then had a spaghetti with cuttlefish, it's ink, and with, as the waiter said in English, fresh ricotta "upstairs".  It is a dish best eaten with eyes closed and a black clothes. It is a mass of spaghetti saturated with black. It was wildly good. I was delirious, maybe it is literally intoxicating.  

Dessert was two bowls of fresh ricotta cheese. Both were strewn with diced pears.  Then one had marsala syrup and the other had chocolate sauce, finally, dusted with crushed green pistachios from BRONTE. They have rooms upstairs. The beach is idyllic. Paradise. The town is eh. But for seafood lovers, I could imagine checking in for a few days of beach lolling and taking all meals at Scala.

Back in the car. Back on the road. Let's go to NOTO. On the way, we drove through fields engulfed in raging flames. They do that here. It is a seasonal thing. Torch the fields. Is it a way to quickly clear them? Does the black ash residue add nutrients  to the soil? It is somewhat alarming to see at first, but we got used to it. There were fields of cultivated cactus, the variety with large flat paddles and lovely yellow flowers. And there are millions of solar panels. And trucks piled beyound high with watermelons. Along the way, also, were tomato fields as far as the eyes could see, most of them under cover of white plastic or mesh screen. Literally, all the way to the southern most tip of Sicily. Oh, by the way, the ristorante, Scala in PORTOPALO DI CAPO PASSERO is one of the southernmost towns in Sicily. 

We have just inarrived into NOTO. It is on a hill. The Ionian Sea is visible, though it is about dieci chilometri lontano, ten kilometers distant. On every corner is a veggie stand with tomatoes, eggplant, watermelon and citrus which all grow just down the hill. in town, we have found a good parking spot. Wes is on a hunt for an Edicola (newstand) or Tabaccheria (tobacco, salt store) to buy parking time. Then we will set the paper clock dial on the dash to the current time and display our parking receipt and we will be good to go.

NOTO was destroyed in the earthquake of Sixteen ninety-three. Instead of rebuilding from the rubble, the city was entirely relocated six miles away. A new urban planning scheme was designed on a neat and tidy grid and construction began. Because of the thoughtful reconstruction it is a pleasure to wander. Fine examples of Sicilian baroque buildings are a side by side. Remember, this trip is partially intended to experience a broad variety of southern Italian cities we are stopping in some for as little as ninety minutes. NOTO is a short but satisfying visit. 

Monica from our porch

Breakfast at Casa Talia

Front yard at Casa Talia

The drive to MODICA is scenic drive through terraced groves of gnarled, enormous trunked olives. This inn represents another bullseye for Wes. Case Talia is spectacular. MODICA is a canyon with steep walls. At the bottom, there used to be two rivers. After one flood too many, people moved up the slopes. However, up the slopes, natural caves have existed, just as in MATERA, for thousands of years. And people have inhabited them all that time. I am speculating, but whereas MATERA's poor living conditions without running water, electricity and gas, created sub-human conditions. MODICA, maybe, installed those utilities and the conditions never became sub-human. So MODICA has caves that have little stone cottages in front of the openings. Here and there is a palazzo. Mostly, the structures are small. Dry stone walls—meaning built without mortar—and stairs zig zag up, down and over the slopes. The gaps in the walls are perfect for wild caper berry plants to take hold. Our Inn consists of a cluster, perhaps one-dozen, of the small structures. They have been converted into a paradise of lush gardens—olive, pomegranate, rose, lavender, agapanthus, jasmine—and comfortable cottages. The owner is an architect from Milan.

We are having breakfast on a lawn, in a garden, half-way up the slope, looking across to the cathedral which also is mid-slope. The sun is shining. Other couples are at their lawn breakfast tables, too. We are twice their age and glad to see the "youngsters" enjoying the world.   Directly across the canyon from us and midway up the slope is a large cathedral placed like the jewel in the crown. It has three hundred stairs leading up to it from the canyon floor. So many stairs that roads cross over them. The sides of the stairs are thick with bougainvillea. It is very attractive. 

The breakfast, brought to our table, is sprawling, but not overwhelming. A small white plate with two slices of local cheese, two of cured meat and a small pile of eggs—with bright orange yolks—scrambled. A slender thin glass beaker of Sicilian orange juice, fresh squeezed. Two tiny bowls, in one is tomato jam, in the other apricot, both made in-house. Fresh yogurt over sliced kiwis. Of course, there is coffee. And there is chocolate.

Casa Talia was one of our favorite lodgings on the trip.  Primarily due to the outstanding views and very peaceful ambiance (the wifi password was "slowliving").

Mention the name, Modica, and the second word is chocolate. Here, they say, they do it the Aztec way. They grind the cocoa beans on a stone slab then mix the bitter pulp with cold water. Because the water is cold, the added sugar remains grainy. I remember eating such chocolate in Mexico. Sicily was ruled by Spain for a few centuries and it was during that era—when Spain was conquering the Aztecs—that the Mexican chocolate procedures arrived in Sicily. in MODICA, they have made it that way since.  One shop is particularly popular because of their quality and because the have samples on the counter, which they encourage you to try lots of. We did. We liked. We bought. Their products are light on cocoa butter, therefore they do not have the seductive melting quality, but neither do they have a cloying aspect. It is simply cocoa and sugar. It crumbles. They offer a hot chocolate. That is made with water, cocoa, sugar and cinnamon. Also not cloying. The shop is Antico Dolceria Bonajuto.

Sampieri

MODICA is well situated for day trips. It is not far from the shore. We drove to the beach. Sicily's southeastern coast is the southern most part of Italy and is even further south than the northern coast of Africa.  It is called SAMPIERI. It is a pristine crescent of white sand with gemstone water. I am aware I have described the water here in colors of gemstones, but it is the way it is. There are so many beautiful beaches here and their water is idyllic. SAMPIERI has abundant beauty. And SAMPIERI has almost no hotels or restaurants. In a way, that is good. It limits the clientele. Some people will only visit a place if it has all the bells and whistles. SAMPIERI has only what is important, the water, which remains shallow for hundreds of feet and is fronted with lovely dunes and native vegetation. In the shallow parts, minnows flit around our ankles and fist sized crabs scurry from our feet. 

 The climate today is neither cold nor warm. It is just right. After a walk and lounging on the sand and a quick dip in the shallow clear water we went for lunch which we found inland about ten miles in the town of SCICLI.

I am astounded by Wes's skills at travel planning. As we flit from here to there and I am under the impression we are finding things together and improvising, making it up as we go along, it is actually all thought out in advance by Wes. He has discovered all these places online. They are on his target list. And we have not stumbled onto them by accident. It is part of his wonderful plan. His is a virtuoso performance. All the effort of planning is hidden. All I see is the end result. The wonder, the beauty, the diversity. Things natural and things manmade, all laid out for my appreciation. All the labor hidden from view. We arrived in SCICLI—pronounced Sheek-lee—minutes before La Grotta closed for lunch. The name, La Grotta, sounds like a cave. It is a cave. The front door is in a large boulder. But unlike the grotto ristorante a few weeks ago at the sea where Domenico Modugno wrote Volare, this cave is inland and here, the cave is not the big deal, it is just where we are eating.

The chef has an interesting story. He was born in SCICLI. When he was five years old, his parents moved to Germany. There, he married a woman from Madrid and they had two children. Ten years ago, he returned to SCICLI to open a ristorante. He loves his work. We asked him questions. How do you make this? How do you make that? The more we asked, the more he revealed. Most important about him is he appears to love cooking and food and ingredients more than anything in the world. It was a joy And an inspiration to be in his presence. Here are some random notes jotted as the lunch was under way:  

The walls are irregular cave walls. The chef came to the table to describe what is good today.  It all sounded good.  We ordered a mixed seafood appetizer. The plate was an eye dazzler.  Many colors, shapes, textures.  There were seven components on the round plate.  In the center, simple octopus coins mixed with vinegared tiny vegetable dice.  There was a pair of three-inch long octopus tentacles, crisply grilled with salt.  A small tuffet of a crab cake with a pile of crab meat on top.  A piece of fresh and untoasted bread, topped with white beans, again tiny vegetable dice and a silvery, marinated, fresh anchovy reclined from edge to edge.  In an oval metal dish, sardine tin size, was roasted tiny baby octopus in tomato sauce. But what tomato sauce! Intensely flavored. I thought they had been flame roasted. No, the chef said the tomatoes were dried in the sun, then slow cooked to evaporate moisture and concentrate the flavor. The flavor made me very happy.  The other items were equally good.  Next up, there was a pasta: Ravioli.  And there was Roasted Amberjack on a bed of onions with capers.  I have to take a moment to honor the onions.  I wanted to hear from the chef how he achieved them.  He brought out for us to see a white onion.  It was flattened like a donut peach.  He cut it open for us.  It smelled sweet and mild.  It was young.  

Next, his daughter brought from the kitchen a soup pot filled with the seductive, melt-in-your mouth onions.  He described his process: the chopped onions are piled in a pan with a little water and a tiny flame then allowed to slowly heat till they begin to melt.  Then a drizzle of olive oil goes in, the flame goes up enough to evaporate a splash of white wine vinegar.  A pinch of sugar and ecco: cipolle agrodolce.  In Sicily, agrodolce is agru e doci.  For desert: two semifreddos.  One of almond.  One of chocolate.  Then to aid digestion, two slugs of Amaro made with bitter herbs and the local Sicilian oranges.  Throughout the lunch, the chef and his daughter took care of us.  He to us in Italian, English and Spanish.  

The chef was born in Scicli, but when he was a little boy his parents relocated to Germany.  Twelve years ago, after a thirty year absence, he moved back to Scicli with his wife, who is Madrid-born, and his son and daughter who are German born.  Of the four family members, we only interacted with two.  They were outstanding in every way.  The love, passion and pride for their ingredients, food and feeding people makes it an privilege for us to sit at their table.  As we ate, we thought of each of our family members and friends and wished they could be with us.  It was a food fest, but it was a lovefest, too.  Wes read about the ristorante using his Slow Food app.  I was unaware of where we were headed to eat.  It was an important meal and worth the drive.

Wes and Marlow
Modica & Sampieri & Scicli
Tuesday, May 24, 2016