A Sicilian Summer Lunch: A Cure for April Winter Blues

This morning, I woke up fantasizing about the glorious January day in New York City a few years ago when it was 70 degrees and out came the open-toed heels.

I know one isn’t supposed to be so gauche as to go bonkers over wintry days that are insanely warm, given that worrisome bit about “global warming” and all that. But it’s mid-April in New York, guys. And it’s 40-something degrees out today. It just will not get warm.

This started me thinking about a perfect summer lunch I had last year in Sicily. It all began with a morning trip to the historic La Vucciria market in Palermo, where for hundreds of years, fishermen and farmers have brought their freshest produce and catches of the day.

The place was a seafood-lover’s heaven. Massive pesce spada (swordfish) aside, vendors sold squid, slender, silvery fish, oysters the size of your fist.

Some of these items — massive oysters, for example — you could buy and eat on the spot, which we did…

I fell in love with this man — and not just because he had a big … knife. His bottarga, dried, cured tuna roe, was to die for. We bought salty slabs of it to grate over spaghetti.

Along the winding cobblestoned streets, vendors set out vegetables, cannoli, panne and several kinds of salted capers of varying sizes.

We loved the big tubs of small, live snails, which we learned make a great appetizer or
afternoon poolside snack when pan-fried with olive oil, basil and a
touch of salt.

An interesting aside — could “Shangai Trattoria” be a Chinese restaurant in old Palermo? Turns out it’s a little family-run restaurant serving Italian standards (spaghetti con bottarga etc.) that just happens to have an “exotic” name.

Finally, for lunch: a refreshing, summer salad topped with bits of crispy pancetta.

And the rest, set out in a garden with a view of Palermo: arancini (Sicilian fried balls of rice and cheese) appetizers, spaghetti con bottarga, squid baked in balsamic vinegar, a salad of cherry tomatoes, onions and basil, pan-fried whole fish.

La fine.