[title type="h5"]Sunday, April 27, 2014.
Catacombs And Worn Antiquity In Palermo.
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On two previous cruises, our ship stopped on the end of Sicily closest to the mainland boot, and from there we visited Messina and the marvelous town of Taormina. But this time we called at Palermo, the where the greatest concentration of Sicilians are to be found. It's also the hometown of some of our favorite New Orleans Italian chefs--notably Joe and Sal Impastato.
Although the tone was not as alarming as yesterday's for Tunisia, advisories from the ship's information sources put us on watch. Palermo has moved beyond a dangerous period it fought in the 1990s, when crime was rampant even by the standards of the Cosa Nostra. But it's still less than perfectly safe. Our eyebrows went up particularly when we heard of a favorite Palermitano pickpocketing technique. The crooks ride motorcycles right at you and, as the machine accelerates past, they grab your wallet. (We hear of no instances of this among the other passengers.)
We make a deal with a cab driver to take The Four Sisters and me around to see the sights for three hours. He doesn't speak English well. Nor have I any more than rudimentary knowledge of Italian. But that combination is enough for us to get to where we want to go.
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Center of Palermo.[/caption]
Before we arrive at our first destination, we get a good look at the central part of Palermo, defined by an immense piazza and a large theater. While we walk around, a rally of some kind packs a few hundred people into a corner of the piazza. My first thought is that this was one of those gatherings we're supposed to stay away from. But it soon becomes clear that these are mostly young people, dressed in sports uniforms, and cheering on their team with broad smiles, songs, and parade-style marching. They ignore us and the many other tourists.
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Big theater in Palermo.[/caption]
Our cabbie winds through narrow streets to an old Capuchin monastery. A Mass is just letting out, filling this small piazza with another crowd of well-dressed people. They are obviously affluent enough to create a steady business for vendors of flowers, souvenirs, drinks, and other trade.
[caption id="attachment_42258" align="alignleft" width="155"]
Catacombs.[/caption]The attraction here is a famous catacombs, in which mummy-like people hung from the walls and ceilings. Not fake mummy, but real dead people--many of them children. They are still revered by many Sicilian families, whose long-ago ancestors may well be still on display. Very, very creepy.
To take the girls' minds off what they'd just seen, I tell the story of the Capuchin monks, and how it is that cappuccino came to be named for them. The coffee beverage is the same color as the brown robes of the monks. (The rumor that "cappuccino" means "out of order" is only a joke I've told for about thirty years.)
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Church and float.[/caption][caption id="attachment_42260" align="alignnone" width="155"]
Cannoli![/caption]
We stopped again for a look at the most majestic church in Palermo. The largest number of Mass-goers we've seen this side of Easter at the Vatican streams forth into the piazza. Where we find a parade float, ready for some upcoming celebration. Across the street we home on on a gelateria, where in our questioning the young woman running the place it comes out that they have cannoli. But of course they have cannoli! This is Sicily, the birthplace of the tubular treat. I order one about twice the size of and tiwce as sweet as the ones we know from Angelo Brocato.
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Palermo, corner 1.[/caption][caption id="attachment_42262" align="alignleft" width="149"]
Palermo Corner 2.[/caption][caption id="attachment_42263" align="alignleft" width="149"]
Palermo corner #3[/caption][caption id="attachment_42264" align="alignleft" width="150"]
Corner 4.[/caption][caption id="attachment_42266" align="alignnone" width="266"]
Fountain full of nudes.[/caption]
Our driver, unasked by us, takes us to a fascinating spot where the four quarters of Palermo converge. At the intersection of two narrow streets, the buildings on each corner are built with concave, rounded facades. The four of them form a single piece of architecture, the likes of which I've never seen before.
Less than a block away is Palermo's equivalent of the Trevi Fountain: Fontana Pretoria. It features what looks like a crowd of people and a few mythical monsters, all standing around in the nude. It caused a sensation when it was unveiled in 1555, not all of it favorable. It's still referred to as the ignudi..
While I take photos of all this, the girls get lost in the adjacent, immense church. (Is there any other size around here?) Searching for them, I find a little café with a rest room--which I am actually seeking. I paid them back by ordering an espresso. One euro. Knocking it back, I reaffirm my feeling (haven't I mentioned this recently?) that Italians drink the best coffee on earth.
So far, Palermo was much more fascinating than I expected, with no sign of malefactors. I did notice, however, is the state of disrepair here compared with other Italian cities. It's not blight--the Renaissance-era buildings and other remnants of Palermo's many golden ages look too good for that. But one can't miss the slight shabbiness about it. (On the other hand, New Orleanians don't have much room to complain about shabbiness.)
Mary Ann began to agitate for a visit to the open-air food market that she was sure was around here somewhere. That feeling is based on pure hunch. The cabbie said there was no such place, except perhaps far on the other side of town. Meanwhile, he pointed out, the traffic was getting intolerable, and our time with him was running out.
Mary Ann pressed on, and the taxi took us to a market clogged with cars and people. The merchandise was flea-market stuff. Old records, lamps, superannuated electronics, kitschy art, that kind of thing. No, MA said, this isn't it. Where is the food market. The driver kept telling here it was impossible.
An impasse reached, we pay him off and big him good-bye. Not for the first time, from his reaction I get the feeling I tipped him too generously. MA, in the meantime, learns that the market she seeks is just a few blocks away. We started walking, but soon find ourselves in a dark alley that curves and gets darker and more deserted as it does. Another place we were told to avoid.
We ask someone selling more flea market goods where the food market was. He gave us lengthy directions, and marked it on our map. Then, as MA began to strut forward in leadership, our source adds, "But they are closed on Sunday."
At last, this lets the air out of MA's balloon. At least for now. I'm sure we'll go out in search of another little fresh market tomorrow in Naples. She tells me I have weird obsessions.
We are some ten blocks away from the ship dock. MA declares that this is far too much time to squander on the ship--even though we are all tired, goalless, and feeling rain sprinkles.
Fortunately comes a sensible idea. Let's stop for a late lunch! The one we have not yet made time for in our rush around Palermo in search of. . . whatever it was.
There are not many restaurants along the main street in the area. It feels like the central business district, with everything closed on Sunday. But we come to a group of tables covering the good-looking, modern pedestrian malls. This is Principe Ristorante Pizzeria, with a menu that suits our tastes.
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Eggplant caponata.[/caption]
[caption id="attachment_42268" align="alignleft" width="266"]
Pizza in Palermo.[/caption]
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Rigatoni alla Norma.[/caption]
The meal is the familiar one the sisters have stuck with throughout the trip. We begin with bruschetta with tomatoes, and a pile of caponata. Then more eggplant in a tomato sauce over rigatoni--pasta alla Norma. All very Sicilian so far. Then a pizza with artichokes and olives, and the American dish spaghetti carbonara, in an uninteresting preparation using cheap ham.
It begins to rain. Our tables were under umbrellas, but it's a few blocks to the ship. We finish eating and get on our way.
As we approach the guard at the gate, I discover that my ship card is missing. I must have it to board the ship. I guess I must have an honest face, because both sets of gatekeepers, on the dock and on the ship, let me through. All I had to show them is my drink card--the one that entitles me to fifteen cocktails a day. I stop at the front desk and tell my story. They hand me a new card, with a smile. On any other ship, I think I would either be in an interrogation room, or still on the dock in the rain. Holland America's vaunted service wins again.
It later comes out that an Eat Clubber--touring on his own with friends--found my card jammed into a post along the boulevard. He plucked it and brought it to the ship. How strange that the New Orleans Incest Factor--it makes friends, relatives, and acquaintances pop up in your life in unlikely situations--would be at work here in Sicily! But wait! The Sicilian-New Orleans connection is very strong for over a century.
We have an evening as busy as the day has been. One of the perks of having a group the size of the Eat Club is that the ship will throw in some amenities. Every such extra we are accorded is been beyond what we expected.
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A wine tasting aboard the Eurodam.[/caption]
The wine tasting, for example. We often have a tasting on our cruises, but the wines are rarely of much note, and the presentations are elementary and boring. Not on the Eurodam. The ship's director of wine and spirits gives the tasting himself. I know it was going to be good when we begin with Moet & Chandon Champagne. The five wines that follow are all fascinating, including Italian, Spanish, and Oregon wines, most of which are unfamiliar. The platter of food--a mini antipasto plate--also is much better than typical.
I make sure to tell Marco Van Belleghem what a first-class event his wine guy (whose card I have mislaid) staged for us. Marco is the Eurodam's hotel director--the top man in the ship's hierarchy, outside the captain and his immediate circle. A pleasant, civilized man, he was exactly the kind of person I'd expect to find on this ship. Among the other matters we discuss are an invitation to join him for dinner in the Pinnacles Restaurant, Eurodam's gourmet room.
Eat Clubbers have been telling me how much they like the Pinnacles. But tonight the gourmet dining room has further enhancement. Among Holland America's culinary consultants is Chef Johnnie Boer, who has a Michelin-starred restaurant in the Netherlands called De Librije. One evening of every cruise, the Pinnacles serves a menu of dishes from De Librije. Tonight is the night.
Joining me and Marco are Mary Ann, Becke Collins (the Queen of the Eat Club, she has been with us on over a dozen trips), and Jerry and Melanie Lewis (who won a contest to attend this dinner). Good mix, with our host having a lot to tell about his background, the cruise experience, Holland, and other matters.
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Pinnacles dinner: faux oyster shells, real oysters.[/caption]
By this time my impressions are formed about the main dining room and the pan-Asian Tamarind. This night took many culinary steps upward. The food is highly original and well turned out. It is also unabashedly aimed at the more adventuresome palate.
Things begin for me with raw scallops, sliced thin and wet down with a subtle, mellow sauce. I get two tastings of this: MA doesn't touch scallops in any form.
Now we go to a dish in which the chef plays with food. Most such efforts aren't especially tasty, but this is. The top of an oyster shell (the European kind) is reproduced in foie gras, with the actual oyster underneath. A foam is over there, and a scattering a fried micro-greens is over here. Far out, but very tasty.
[caption id="attachment_42272" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Unique salad in Pinnacles.[/caption]
So is an eye-arresting scatter of cucumber spirals in a brilliant green sauce, with mini-wedges and balls of various white cheeses. It is then outdone by a plate billed as gazpacho, made with tomato water, mousses of black olive and of celeriac mousse. Mary Ann finds this absurd, but I love it.
[caption id="attachment_42273" align="alignnone" width="480"]
A study in lamb.[/caption]
The entrees all sound great to me. I choose takes the prize for best shipboard dish of this voyage. A lamb loin and lamb neck (like lamb chops, but much smaller) with lentils and barley is a deft blending of flavors and textures.
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Halibut at Pinnacles.[/caption]
Elsewhere around the table, a couple of steaks (the standard entree of the Pinnacles on most nights) and two different and beautiful slabs of fish (one was halibut) are enjoyed by those who had them.
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Deconstructed apple pie.[/caption]
The dessert in front of me spoke for itself: deconstructed apple pie with vanilla gelato and chantilly cream (see photo).
The price for dining on De Librije night on Eurodam is $69, with wine pairings going for an additions $20. Which strikes me as a good deal. Unlike most of the other food we had on this ship, there was no dilution of the recipes, ingredients or presentations in any of what we had tonight.
On the other hand, it's not for everybody. Not for Mary Ann, that's for sure. But what else is new?
Written by Tom Fitzmorris May 16, 2014 14:51 in
