Octopus and Squid

The April cooking class was all about seafood.  There are a lot of reasons I enjoy joining in on these classes, a day out, learning the Sicilian ways to cook food, and trying food that I might like but would never take a chance on and order off a menu.  This month covered all three. 

This is the restaurant that was kind enough to host our class.

This is the spread that greets you as you walk into the door.

Our mission this month was to learn how to make octopus salad, fried calamari and fried alici, which is essenitally the anchovy fish fresh, before it is put into cans.  None of which would I ever consider ordering for dinner.  I am not sure I would have paid for the class if I didn't know that in addition to what we make, we get a ton of other food.  I knew I would eat well if I liked the new seafood or not!

Up close and personal with the raw octopus

The squid....

and the alici

I don't have a lot of experience with cooking fish which is already cleaned and fileted, and I have no experience with prepping any kind of fish!  It was definitely a new experience....



We started with the octopus.  In case you are planning on cooking one, there is such a thing as too fresh.  These guys need to be really dead before you cook them or they will be tough and chewy.  To cook, you throw into some seasoned boiling water and let boil for 45 minutes.  When the come out, they look like this......

The good thing about the octopus, is that you eat everything, except the eyes and the beak

for the salad you chop it all up into cubes

then you add some lemon juice, olive oil and some seasoning.  That's it, octopus salad.  It was good, but definitely an acquired taste, mostly due to the texture.

 After we made our salad, we got a demonstration of cleaning the squid.

Our chef demonstrating how you snap the head.....

then yank out the insides.....

then pull out the bone....

peel the skin off....

then cut it into rings

We had the option to try this with a squid on our table.  I chose not to, but we had a couple people who did.  The main thing with squid is to not pop the ink sac while cleaning it.......

This is what it looks like if you pop the ink sac.  The good thing is that, while low quality, the ink is edible.











Finally we got to prep the alici.

The chef showed us how to snap off the head and pull out the guts, then run our finger down the center to get the bones out, or you can leave them in and just munch these tiny fish like corn on the cob around the bones.  To the right is the raw alici salad that they season with lemon and olive oil, allowing the acid in the lemon to cook it up.  We didn't eat this because it is illegal to sell in Italy due to some bacteria or something that  might be in in that can kill you.  Restaurants can serve this way if they flash freeze the fish first then thaw, but many choose just to not make the salad.




Finally we got to bread the squid and alici.......

 At last, it was time to eat!

grilled alici, OK, but too many bones, not enough meat.

pasta with mussels, clams, and tiny shrimp, YUM!

pasta with swordfish

fried alici, I didn't try....too much work and I didn't like it that much.

I think they said this was sorbet, but it tasted like granite to me.  It was mandarin orange and lemon, delicious!

 *BTW, all the dishes you see here are different patterns of Caleca.  I thought it was really neat that they had a variety of patterns.  I might have done that if I had thought of it, but I like my rainbow of colors.

Piazza Armerina and Madonna della Rocca

The past week or so I have gone on a couple of day trips.  Over the kids spring break, I went with a couple of friends (the kids had no desire) to a place called Piazza Armerina where there is the ruins of an old Roman villa know for its intricate mosaics.

The villa was covered in mud due to a flood, and it is believed that the mud helped to preserve the mosaics.

This is part of the villa with some of the remaining columns.

All of the floors are covered in different mosaics made up of the smallest tiles, and each one tells a different story.

This pattern included 4 different animals, here you can see the tiger and horse.  This design when entirely around the central garden.  Although there were only the 4 animals, they were not all identical.

This one was supposed to represent the different seasons.  There are 4 pictures of a man and he is dressed slightly different in each picture.  There was a description of which picture was which season, but it made no sense to me.  The dress didn't look that different, but the seasons here really aren't that different, so you wouldn't expect the dress to change too dramatically.

These are the "bikini girls".  They are actually telling a story about the long jump and the discus throw.

It was a really interesting villa to walk through.  The tiles were so small that even in the areas where the ground had buckled due to the mud covering it, every tile was still in place and the pictures were clear.  It is amazing to think of all the work that must have gone into planning and executing all the mosaics.


This past week the new guy in Mike's  office arrived, and we are his sponsors.  Since he is single, he will be living out in town, so there isn't a lot we can do to help with that.  However, we did take him out for the day Saturday so he could see Sicily as well as get a sense of where the various towns so he has some sense of the geography as he is looking at real estate.  The main focus of the day was a trip to Taormina.  It is the big tourist area around here, and we love going there.  There is a castle up on top of a hill there that we have not been able to figure out how to get to.  So before we went,  I googled and got some basic directions.

This picture is taken from the main square in Taormina.  If you look closely, you will see the church to the left (there is a small white cross on the left) and then the remains of the castle to the right.  That is where we were determined to go!

From what I had read, there were around 500 steps to get up there.  I didn't count, and I am not sure at what point the count would start, because we had to go up a bunch of steps just to get to the street where the steps started!

The steps don't look so bad here.  As we got further up the mountain, the quality of the steps deteriorated and the side rail disappeared altogether.

Along the steps are the stations of the cross.  This is much more effective at having you imagine the struggle Christ had carrying the cross then just walking the stations in a church!

I don't think we were even halfway up at this point, and that is Taormina down there.

Getting closer!  If you look just right of center, you can see the guardrail for the steps.

That is the castle, still a ways away!

So close here you can see the door and the windows!

The church was closed, but I was able to put my ipad right up against the glass door and get a picture.

This was a great resting point, as there were still more stairs to climb to get to the castle.  I must have been really tired, because I didn't get any pix beyond this point.  That might also have something to do with the fact that we climbed the rest of the way to the castle, only to have the castle closed and the gate locked!  It was quite a workout!  My calves were shaking after that climb and it took a couple days for them to recover!  Not sure If I would be willing to do it again, but if we do, I will be sure the castle is open first!

My Birthday

 Castelmola

This past weekend, was my birthday.  Both kids were gone for school sports, but due back in the middle of the night Saturday night.  That gave me and Mike the opportunity to see some more of Sicily without anyone whining about all the walking.  Fortunately, the weather cooperated and it was a beautiful day.  We decided to drive up some pretty crazy roads to a town above Taoromina called Castelmola.

This is an example of the crazy curves we drove up.

Thank God we didn't drive on that road!  Crazy!

 After driving up the mountain and parking, we still had a bunch of stairs to get into and around town.

 The town and the views were definitely worth the drive and the stairs.

After a nice day out, we had pizza at a friend's house, and Mike surprised me with a gelato birthday cake.  Then I went to sleep and Mike awaited texts from the kids saying they made it back and he needed to go get them from the school.  They were both in Naples for the weekend, but they traveled on separate buses.  Sam got back around midnight, but Tommy didn't get in until closer to 3.  The best part is that Tommy's bus was not able to get onto base because of a steering issue, so Mike just picked him up outside the gates.  But a steering issue, really!  Not exactly what you want to hear about the bus that your kid was on for 10 hours!  I guess it broke down on the way up to Naples as well, and they were stuck at an autogrill for an hour.  I am just so excited for their next bus trips, NOT!

I thought I would share a sample of Italian driving with you.  I believe I am going to have to start keeping some non-drowsy Dramamine in the car for trips like this!  It's not an exciting video, but it gives yo a feel for the driving around here.