Posted: 20 Jun 2014
Well, that was quite a day! After a
much-delayed plane ride to Pantelleria,
an island off the coast of Sicily (it’s technically Sicily, but — let’s hold
off on that discussion for another day…), I was told to be prepared to be
seduced by the place. But it didn’t hit me until day #4.
We’d spent yesterday morning
watching people harvest capers (…more on that in a later post), and tasting
wine. Then had a below-average lunch, which was barely mitigated by the
restaurant’s setting, just on the edge of the ocean. After a heaping plate of
wan pasta, all I wanted to do was head back at the home where I’m staying,
where there was a hammock waiting for me.
But my friend Giovanni said to me, “Daveed – it’s
going to be very special.” And when a Sicilian talks with such gravity it’s
best to listen.
So we found ourselves after lunch,
driving on a winding street, high above a spectacular blue lake with the ocean
in the background, with rows of grapes and oregano baking in the hot Sicilian
(or Pantellerian) sun.
The welcome we had from Giancarlo
and Cristian Lo Pinto, the two brothers who own the farm, was as warm as the
sun.
With the wind in our hair — well, in
one of my traveling companion’s
hair —
— we found ourselves in a field
surrounded by massive bunches of oregano, offering an aroma as strong as the
fields of za’atar in
Lebanon: a powerful, astringent scent that bordered on
medicinal. Although lots of oregano grows in Sicily, locals tend to use it
dried. And here was where the best of it came from.
Continue Reading Konza Kiffi:
Sicilian Agricultural Estate...
