Happy "Tacchino" Day

When we last left you, we were on Ortigia island, a part of the city of Siracusa, Sicily. Other than Ortigia, we really didn’t do much in Siracusa, which is an okay town but kind of just semi-modern apartment buildings on one side of the street with older buildings on the other side.

Ortigia, on the other hand, has the windy streets with tiny shops and restaurants that are typical of many older Italian towns. Plus, Ortigia was quite the tourist stop for cruise ships. Every few days a ship would dock about 200 yards from our apartment and hordes of day tourists would disembark and fill the streets of the outdoor markets. Luckily for us the places we frequented were off the tourist’s itinerary.

One day, Nancy trekked to the archeological park in Siracusa- about 2 km away (while John stayed home and read). It amazes us constantly the artifacts that still remain everywhere you look.

Look carefully at the center picture. It's a pretty scary sculpture…we have not found the story behind it yet.

Maybe it’s the global economy or how the internet has made the world so small, but traveling around Ortigia, we noticed that stores and restaurants were already decorating for Christmas. We thought that was something done only in America!

The entrance to a restaurant - a church - a restaurant decorated for Christmas (also, everything in this restaurant seemed to be purchased from IKEA). Wherever John is in Italy, he’s always aware of the sight of his name, Zuchero or "Zucchero" as it was originally spelled before a priest at St. Anns in Bristol, Pennsylvania decided there were too many “c’s” in the family surname. Here’s just a few he’s seen so far this trip.

This past Monday we said goodbye to our place in Ortigia and traveled to the seaside town of Marina di Ragusa. On the way here, we stopped at a mall with a large mega supermarket to see if we could find a turkey, or tacchino (tack-key-no in Italian) for Thanksgiving. There were no whole turkeys to be had, so we went with a turkey breast. Probably better since it’s only the two of us.

Marina di Ragusa is a lovely town, very reminiscent of a Southern California beach town. It’s not too large and the beachfront has a wide walkway stretching all along the shore. We’re right across from a large marina with hundreds of sailboats and other crafts. It’s pretty quiet this time of year, but it must be hopping during the summer. The winter population is 3,500, but in the summer it averages about 60,000. We're happy we are here now!

Since the beginning of October, it’s been relatively dry in the parts of Italy where we’ve been, but about an hour after we arrived in Marina di Ragusa on Monday it began to rain and didn’t stop for three days. The wind was unbelievably strong and the waves on the Mediterranean were crashing over the marina’s barriers. Finally, on Thursday, Thanksgiving, the sun came out and was a warm 67 degrees. A beautiful day to celebrate American Thanksgiving. Speaking of that, John spent Wednesday making all day turkey gravy, homemade cinnamon rolls, and a fruit compote (since cranberries seem to be unheard of in Sicily).

All day gravy - Cinnamon Rolls - Mixed fruit compote On Thursday morning we took a walk around town (since the weather was so beautiful) and went to a local bakery to buy Thanksgiving desserts. Later, John made his late mother-in-law’s Pennsylvania Dutch potato filling, fennel sausage bread stuffing, and the turkey breast. Since John is lactose intolerant, he used almond milk in the potatoes. Little did we know, almond milk in Italy tastes more strongly of almonds than brands in the USA. The potato filling turned out excellent with a hint of almond flavor...give it a try, it's tasty.

Potato Filling - Fennel sausage stuffing - the bird precooking As you on the east coast of the US were getting ready for your lunch time Thanksgiving meal and those of you on the west coast were eating breakfast, we were sitting down to a fantastic Thanksgiving dinner outside on the deck of our apartment. The food was accompanied by a beautiful candle, floral and herb arrangement created by Nancy. We missed having Thanksgiving with our families, but it was a once in a lifetime type of thing.

We hope all of you had a very happy and safe thanksgiving and hope you’re all as grateful as we are for health and family.

Caio bella,

Nancy and john