Pranzo con Maria Grammatico
Traveling in our luxury motorcoach up steep, winding roads, we stopped in the hill-top town of Erice for our pranzo and cooking demos with Maria Grammatico and her team of translators and helpers. The lunch consisted of caponata, fresh ricotta, caciocavale cheese, couscous, stuffed peppers, stuffed sun-dried tomatoes, eggplant parmigiana, frittata, olives, arancini, and copious vino.
We co-prepared our dessert with Maria Grammatico, who has run her own pastry shop in Erice since the 1960s. She learned how to make various almond cookies, marzipan shapes, and pastries from the nuns of the San Lorenzo convent where she grew up. We made almond cookies called belli ma brutti and tetti delle monache, and of course, cannoli.
Tuesday, June 21 continued
After Segesta, we headed to the hill-top Erice—our amazing driver Massimo handled lots of hairpin turns with aplomb while we all enjoyed spectacular views of the coast throughout the winding ascent. Lunch was an incredible buffet of Sicilian specialties, served in what used to be a butcher’s shop (now converted to an even space). There were olives, fresh ricotta, two types of arancini, sun-dried tomatoes, caponata, sweet and sour zucchini, frittata, roasted potatoes, couscous (a specialty of Erice/Trapani), mozzarella, and eggplant parm. Everything was absolutely amazing.
After that very deluxe lunch, we were treated to a pastry demonstration by Maria Grammatico, who learned how to bake and make sweets from the nuns, specializing in almond-based treats. First, she showed how to make the almond dough (with lots of sugar!) and shape two types of cookies: belli ma brutti (good but ugly) and tetti delle monache (nun’s boobies!). Kaitlyn was very good at shaping the dough. Cannoli came next: each was carefully filled with cassata cream and topped with candied orange peel and lots of powdered sugar (whereas Catania’s cannoli would be topped with pistachio). The cannoli shells had been shaped around a piece of a broomstick handle.
At this point the cookies were already done and smelled amazing. After the demo, Kaitlyn got a signed copy of Maria Grammatico’s book, Bitter Almonds. We then got to eat everything from our pastry lesson, with a cappuccino and a taste of sweet almond Marsala wine. It was all incredibly delicious, and the cookies were still warm!
After this superb lunch and dessert, we got back on the bus and were dropped off in the town of Erice to walk around. We walked up the main street and stopped at Maria Grammatico’s shop – filled with beautiful things (marzipan fruits and lambs, cassata pastries, cakes). We then got some amazing (but a bit hazy) views of the coast and countryside from the Torridel Balio and Castello Normanno/Tempio di Venere (Venus Temple). We could see down to Trapani and the salt flats nearby.
From Erice, we took a gondola down to Trapani (this was an addition to the tour from our guide, Virginia, and it was definitely a great add-on!)—it was a pretty long ride down!
Hays in Sicily 