Sicily

Pasta Three Ways:

Housemade Tomato & Sausage

Caponata Style

Alfredo Style

Ciambotta Con Carciofi (Spring Artichoke Stew)

Torte Di Ricotta with Strawberries & Pickled Rhubarb Garnish

This could have been the last week we travel across the world with food, because of the many end of school year activities already looming.  Sicily has a pretty amazing food history and, set on a latitude very close to our own,  it has a lot of recognizable ingredients that grow both there and here.  Spring was just peeking out between rainstorms, so we grabbed the opportunity to also feature spring ingredients such as baby artichokes, spring peas and rhubarb.

The most enthralling day was Thursday. We had already made our tomato sauce and caponata base, now was the time to make the sausage and pasta.  To hand crank dense dough through a pasta machine into fettucine and grind "lesser" cuts of meat into familiar looking fresh sausage (we used chicken meat, herbs, apple & liver) was spellbinding.  And very tasty on Friday.  No leftovers!

A visit to the Yucatan

The Yucatan.  Close to the equator, luscious, lively flavors:

Sopa Di Lima With Lime & Chili

Pollo Ticuleno (wrapped in banana leaf using our own achiote paste)

Housemade Tortillas or Quesadillas

Sikil Pak (Pumpkin Seed dip)

Pastel Tres Leches (Three Milks Cake)

Kitchen Notes:  This seems pretty adventurous.  I mean check out the single banana leaf!  We have been traveling around the world over recent weeks using culinary geography to connect to weather, available ingredients, technique, even history.  Oh yes, and all with a working mentality.

Results? I would make the soup and the chicken dish again, Sikil Pak is a little more unusual - on its own it might make you wonder "why?" but as soon as it goes into condiment action (with eggs or ranchero sauce) it adds an amazing depth.  In our desire to really get the job done, we over-pureed the Sikil-Pak though and ended up with pumpkin butter. Next time, no blender, we will stick to the mortar & pestle (a key Yucatecan tool) and use all the spice.

Three Milks Cake?  Yes, sweet.  Why? Condensed milk, evaporated milk and half & half soak into the cake while it is chilling. On a hot day in a part of the world where milk goes bad quickly, this becomes a refreshingly luscious dessert.  A nice banter developed between the two classes, comparing each other's efforts as the cakes were soaking:  "Yours is too wet!"  to " No, yours is too dry."  In the end, both cakes looked the same on the plate and tasted delicious!