The Adventures of Joe Trap

November 10, 2008


We went to the Trapani salt making facility located right on the coast. They pump in the sea water via windmills, and evaporate it and gather the remaining salt into huge mounds. It was a beautiful day to be outside. We went to Patro and Rosa’s (Rosa is Maria’s sister) to eat lunch, we had pasta, and chicken. The pasta/chicken soup they made was chicken, pasta, and broth was amazing .

At 8:00, we went to dinner at Dino Lombardo’s house. The dinner was okay …It didn’t help that I wasn’t even hungry when we ate, but oh well. I got to use the internet at their place, which was good…it gave me something to do while Dad and Dino talked. The party consisted of Me, Mom, Dad, Dino, Rosaria, Antonio (31; their son), and Aridanna (26, fiancé of Antonio). Both of the engaged couple are hairdressers, so Mom had a bit to for Dad to translate to them.

November 11, 2008

We started off by going to an old rock quary, where the family goes to buy their regatta and other chesses. We got a quick tour, and outside they even had j3 donkeys, 2 goats, and a number of sheep. Sadly, they did not have any regatta prepared, so we didn’t buy anything. After this, we went to a grave of a person (who has been canonized). The story is that they found the (head of the?) body in the rock quarry, and they brought it to the church and locked it up. In the morning it was gone, and it was back in the quarry. They even did this three times, and each time it was back at the quarry. They built a small chapel around it, and they figured the ancient person must have been blessed. Apparently, several miracles of sicknesses being healed had taken place at this small chapel. I got a few good pictures, but the glass hid the face of the statue inside the chapel.

After this we went to Samperi, where we toured through a cute restaurant (something you would imagine from the 1800’s), and walked through it’s gardens. They even had ducks, and other birds in giant kennels in the back for butchering :(. I wanted to free the ducks, since they were very friendly. We also saw where an old hotel in the tiny village. Each guest got their own tiny cottage, and there was a courtyard in the center. It was very beautiful with all the green trees, vines, and colorful flowers.

Today we went back to my dad’s mother’s dad’s (great-grandfather’s) house where he was born and raised in a farming field in Marsala. During the daylight, it looked as bad as it did at night, being completely collapsed.

After this we came back and had lunch; pasta, salad, lamb (w/ lemon), and fruit. I am getting used to the cooking procedures. I found out that they normally use the plastic cups with the little holder during every meal. They do not recycle these cups, but they throw them away after each use, since they are inexpensive. Every family that we have visited had used these cups and cup holders, pretty Italian I guess.

We went over to the In-Law’s place because the father had constructed a machine that turns a giant pale. With it, they were already kneading bread dough when I arrived. One thing I found out was that they use beer yeast. The two mothers (Maria and the in-law) were preparing the bread and they were putting it in bed sheets, then covering blankets on top. Meanwhile, they were burning sticks, and then small wooden stakes in the oven outside. I fell asleep on the couch because making the bread took a long time, but they told us that in the summer, the entire process only takes an hour. After the bread had risen and the oven was hot enough, we piled the 27 looves of bread in the oven…about 10 minutes later we have fresh homemade bread! We returned back home to Nino’s house and a bunch of relatives came over for dinner. We had panni con sarde (using the fresh bread, tomatoes, oregano, sardines, olive oil, red pepper, prima sala cheese (salty), and fresh basil. We even had two desserts, tiramisu, and a fruit topped cake (2 layers of white cake with a rum taste). The rest of the night, we looked at photo albums of people’s weddings, their time in the US in 1989, etc…