Today is Sunday in mid June, and it is time to harvest the wheat… golden wheat field of different varieties are now colouring Primo Passo’s estates. I attach the different pictures of two different varieties. One is ‘Simeto’, selected to be rich in glutine and yield, it is easily recognized for being short thick and straight. The other is ‘Tumminia’, an old authoctone variety which is nowadays rare to find because less productive and not suitable for making pasta. Tumminia wheat has however a strong flavour, and it is more digestible than Simeto.

It is a great gift for me to experience with my own eyes and mouth that wheat is not a commodity to trade on the Chicago stock exchange and I am pleased to share it with you. And let us pray ‘Give us this day our daily bread’

Last weekend I was shooting capers. Shooting capers, word-by-word translation from Sicilian way of say ‘spararsi la chiappera’ would better translate as ‘showing off with capers’. In the old good days, capers were a limited flavour enhancement in the kitchen. Collected once a year, it was stoved with salt in ceramic jars. If you had dining guests and wanted to impress, you would have taken out the jar and use the capers.
Shooting capers
So last weekend I collected the not-yet blossomed caper flowers one by one including some delicious fruits, washed and taken to dry up in the sunlight with plenty of salt.

Two weeks and they will be ready for more guests to come and to impress across the whole year. Shooting capers takes its time but it’s lots of fun.