Cooking in Sicily

Today we were in Taormina Sicily. Jim, Kathy and John decided to stay on the ship rather than take the 30 minutes shuttle ride to Taormina and the day looked like it was going to be cloudy and decided not to go to Mt. Etna. My tour was a small group accompanied by the ship’s Executive Chef to the home of Eleonora Consoli in the small village of Viagrande. It was clear enough on the way to get a great view of Mt. Etna. Eleonora is an expert Sicilian cook and gave us a private lesson in her home on some Sicilian specialties. First we shopped along with her assistants in the local market for some of the ingredients (also bought some pasta to take home). We made about 6 different dishes – some demonstration and some hands-on. We then got to enjoy the dishes in her beautiful garden along with some local wines. I loved it! Only problem was a storm came through by the time we got back to the ship and this was a port where we used tenders to get to the ship. It was quite a rocky trip from shore to the ship. Tomorrow is Malta and we are hoping the rain does not follow us.