The Pedestrian Palate: Like a Bad Penny

It has been a long time since I posted. It has actually been close to two years since I made my last entry to this blog. It isn't because I have lost my interest in writing or cooking. Quite the opposite, actually. I have been writing like crazy, trying to catalogue all of our family's recipes for a family cookbook. Our family has been through some significant losses over the past few years and the need to chronicle and preserve the family legacy seems more pressing to me these days.

My goal for the cookbook is to have it ready to distribute to family and friends by Christmas of this year. I don't know if I will look to distribute it beyond the immediate family, but if not, I think that a good deal of the content will end up here. And for that reason, I think it's time to come back to this forum and catch up.

When I put up my last post "Channeling my Inner Nonna", in December 2016, I was fresh off a trip to Sicily, Italy and London. We have since gone back to all three, as the pull of Sicily is strong, due to our family heritage and we can't be in the region and not go to Rome. London, a relatively new discovery for us is just great fun. I have to say, it is the most spectacularly drunk town that I have ever been to and it has THE WORST traffic. I would say that the traffic problem in London is far worse than New York City, which is pretty rotten in its own right.

Our most recent trip to Sicily centered around Palermo, a city that was surprising to me on many levels. I think I was expecting it to be gritty and dirty and tough, like Naples, but moreso. I could not have been more incorrect. Palermo is beautiful and elegant and full of history. With side trips to Erice, Trapani and Mondello, the beauty of north eastern Sicily unfolded like a flower, revealing layer after beautiful layer.

So without much fanfare, I return to the place where I began the journey of chronicling my adventures in cooking and travel. I have new things to share and many reflections on the past that are currently bubbling under the surface. I never considered myself a writer, more of a kibitzer. Someone who makes snarky comments from the sidelines, but is never really in the game. My goal is to change that and to jump in with both feet. Let's see where this goes...