Last weekend a new scenary came at our premises and left us speachless. Spring is not something you can check on your calendar. Spring is neither coming on the equinox nor after Carneval and before Easter. Spring come when our landscape change colours, when our honey bees fly hecticly above our head to feed their baby with fresh flower juice. Spring is what we see, not what we count. And Spring is in the air… so many pictures we could possibly use to describe these and more will come. For now, for the ones of you who have been following this blog across the month we selected this picture… the same pictures used at the article ‘Christmas at Primo Passo premises’. What was brown by then is now dark green. The Etna vulcano still benevolent protecting the harvest and the hives. From these very unspoiled hives our bees will stock enough orange blossom honey for our pleasure across the next year. We could tell you that since we stopped using sugar (chemically bleached, in case you do not know) and used honey on our cappuccino’, we never soffer of winter cold or worst fever. But instead we just tell you this simple anecdote: a friend of us came enthusiastically proclaming the wonders of the lastest parfum, A***** C**E, she said it is made of orange blossom and cost €35 per 250ml. We sympathetically smiled and invited her to come back in few months… for free.
Author: Gipi
Cracking the dawn part II
And there is a different way to crack the dawn that happens once a year on the 4th of February in the City of Catania. It deserves no comments and for once, only the italian lyrics of the song that carries this three day long mystic experience between our Beloved and Her citizens, while shouting till no voice is left: Cittadini, tutti devoti tutti? And we waive back “cettu, cettu”.
“Inneggiamo alla, martire invitta Rifulgente di luce divina Inneggiamo alla grande Eroina Presso l’ara cosparsa di fior Anelante di palpiti sacri Si diffonda la gioia nel cielo Ed all’ombra del mistico velo Sorga l’inno festoso dei cuor.
Rit. Tu che splendi in Paradiso
Coronata di vittoria
o Sant’Agata la gloria
Per noi prega di lassu’.
Esultante nei duri tormenti
Luminosa nel carcere oscuro
Ella affronta con animo puro
Le minacce d’un uomo crudel.
Non ascolta le vane lusinghe
Le promesse d’un sogno radioso
Vince il fuoco e del cielo armonioso
L’innamora l’eterno splendor. Rit.
Per i secoli vola il suo nome
E risuona pei monti e sul mare
Circonfuso di sole l’altare
Il Suo Corpo conserva fedel.
Sul leviam cittadini l’evviva
Al valor centenario, possente
Di colei che pregava morente
Il Signor della vita immortal. Rit.
Cracking the dawn
There are several ways to experience the dawn. It can be a long nightout ending too late, an early shift at work, the time to catch an airplane for your next destinations… This is our personal experience of the dawn. Both the one we love the most and the hardest to swallow. Winter is made for this vision to come everymorning from the terrace of our premises. Stars leading the way to the new day. Moon turning shy and disappearing at the presence of Sun. And colours everywhere to appear again discovering the presence of the fishermen’s boats that will download their net over our barbeques in just few hours.
< And the the hard bit is when you anticipate the Sun to catch the return fly. Moving to the buzz of metropolitan life has the glamour without having the gentle touch of a sunlight sliding over the Sea to warm up your sleeping face with its kiss. Yet the Etna mountain, our Mongibello, as you have leanrt it by now, is there with its white hat and smoking pipe, to witness both our repeated farewell and arrivederci!
January Amateur’s photos
Winter is never dull and dark in Sicily. Even when the horizontal masterwheel of Primo Passo is sleeping, Nature shows her benevolent face to the people who can see. I post here for the first time a couple of pictures, unusually taken by some new friends of this venture. All the pictures in this website are accountable and shot directly. Those friends of us have captured the very unique moments of the striking signals of Mother Nature presence. The first is courtesy of Enrico, who captured Casa Primo Passo sorrounded by a fleet of migrating birds.
The second is the picture of a short eruption from our vulcano Etna last 12th Jan, a picture taken from our location in Capo Santa Croce. You will appreciate how close the lava strips seem to the lights of Catania, as if the city itself was in danger. It was not. The contrasting colours of city life, dark sea, white snow let us breathless. But do not be worry and enjoy this as you would enjoy the fireworks at New Year’s Eve. The Etna vulcano, the highest active vulcano in Europe (more than 3,000 meters), is called by natives ‘Mongibello’, which means ‘beautiful mountain’, a tender parental word of love from its inhabitants who have been receiving the benefits of highly fertile vulcanic soil for centuries and centuries.
Christmas time at our Premises
Christmas is a slow moving joy that builds up over the previous days. Nature is offering colours all suddently. Orange and tangerine trees turns full of orange and red balls. Lemon trees turn their green lemons into bright bleached yellow. Christmas flowers start spontaniously paint themselves in red dressing code. We mow the land for the new season while the Etna vulcano starres at us with its pale white hat. Sky is blue and the earth is still fresh and soft as we just cracked the dawn. It is colours all over and we feel alive and happy. We cannot keep all this joy within us, so we grab few tangerines, and we wrap them into tiny bags and send it out to our friends in Milan. The best we can do to wish our friends a merry natural Cristmas is to let as many of you share those gifts that Mother Nature has given us again this year. Merry, simple, mindful Christmas to all of you who passed by and donated some of your precious time to read this through.
Saint Martin’s Summer
In Sicily calendar is set by the upcoming Saint’s celebrations and November is when we celebrate Saint Martin. Typically this is the farewell time to Summer and this means more than 20 degrees and still acceptable water temperature for the last baths of the year. It went as predicted and we enjoy a long day by the beach, starting at 6,30am to enjoy the view of the dawn from our terrace and then continuing sippig cappuccino in shorts blessed by the warm sunshines. And while getting ready, suddently the bells were ringing, cows’ bell more precisely! Landscape at this time of the year is green and offer great pastures for spoiled cows enjoying the spells of sunshine by the coastline. Milk and cheese will come soon, so please stay tuned and subscribe here!
Time for olives
Nature has a time for everything. Human jobs get boring after a while, but we never get bored while starring at the Sea in Spring or the colours of leaves in Autumn. After a good harvest of golden wheat in June, we have just harvested the olives that will flavour our mouth in the year to come. This year Olive trees are taking a sabbatic, meaning we have little production. Quality is assured by the passion and respect we have for Mother Nature. If you want to share this passion and let it fill your kitchen, send us an email with the quantity and I’ll try to accommodate your request on a first come first served basis. Cheers
Find a watermill and you’ll find a friend
Yesterday I was passing by a tiny village out of Milan, when I saw this watermill. Lost in his magnificent solitude, not afraid to show his wringles to the everyday drivers. I compare it with mine, and find the same sense of pride against time and modern life. The wheel was working till the recent past, mashing corn flour most likely from a tiny river still aside. It has vertical wheel, not horizontal like mine, it is tall and made friendship with a climbing ivy, there to protect the pillars against the humidity of country winter. Not far from this place, the name of the village is Terrazzano, there is a jellow label pointing to a Sicilian food products outlet. What a coincidence… so I follow the lables and reach this place. No frills and straightforward like a sicilian peasant. Carmelo runs it together with his milanese wife, who still cannot understnd what her husband says in Sicilian. Guests ask for olives and he shouts: ‘olive punciute’! (i.e. nailed olives, stuffed with a blend of spices).
I buy some pistachios cream (try it, a better substitute for nutella) and I buy my favourite delicacy in the kitcken: dry salted swordfish eggs. It is a flavour enhancement from Marzameni, a beautiful fisherman village on that corner of sicily where Europe bath together with Africa. When I pay for it, Carmelo starts making his maths… and then tells me, just give me —- euros. Only the eggs were costing more than ——– euros, but friendship you cannot pay.
From grains to breads
Few posts ago, I showed you my hands with few grains, now I am pleased to offer you the true outcome, the Primo Passo bread from Timinia (Tumminia in Sicilian slang). Now you can appreciate the first conception of Primo Passo project. One site in Sicily where we offer different ancient autochthon varieties of grains that we use to make different breads. One site where you experience: the scents of fresh wheat harvest, the music of watermills spinning out flour, the sound of firewood oven crackling and finally the scent of fresh bread that is just like the scent you experienced on the field. This experience takes about a year, are you ready for it? What you see here is Timinia bread, it comes from this darker slimmer grain and that is why stays so dark even if it is not a whole wheat bread. The flavour is intense, and it is best appreciated on its own with just a splash of extravergin olive oil, organic, needless to say. This bread is as rich in flavour as poor in glutyne. That makes it more digestible too. It lasts for a week or even more and gets actually tastier as it settles after few days it has been baked. Can we call it just bread? For more info, where to find it, how to place an order, go on contacts page. Cheers!
Live your emotions
It is Sunday late morning and we are just up after a long Saturday of celebration of our first debut to the Milanese buzz. Everything began with Pino asking me ‘What is Glamour?’ I answered ‘Glamour is anything capable of giving emotions through the involvement of all 5 senses’. And so I said to Pino, I’ll make Glaumour with bread. He smiled. No more words we needed. And emotions were running high last night; Emotions by music, a special mention to Gatto Panceri’s unique voice and vibrating lyrics. Emotions by the flashing lights and colour of a stylish location, which I can share with you through the pictures. Emotion by touch of Kira fashion clothes, who kindly accommodate us. And eventually emotions by scents and flavours of our Primopasso buffet. The king is bread in its forms and shape, thanks to my true friend Franco, who came from Sicily with a load of our fresh unique bread expecially for the event. And our chef Federico, also came from our location in Sicily to support this venture and add his cousine touch to the place. Thanks to everyone who attented ad I hope more of you will attend. As I said to the ones present there, we are sharing with you the flavours and scents of a region, Syracuse and its people. More to come soon. For now Cheers!
Primo Passo 