Experiencing Authentic Sicily

Wednesday morning brought more hot, sunny skies, but this time, we had landed in Sicily to go explore! 

Emily did better each morning with a slower wake-up and a little breakfast in bed, so she was always delivered croissants, donuts, waffles, and pancakes when we got back from breakfast. It got her going though, and I'm good with whatever keeps everyone happy!

After getting off the ship, we were in the harbor town of Messina, Sicily, where we (easily) met up with our guide for the day, Mariella. I had booked an excursion with her over a year ago, and was so excited to finally be here! She is a Sicilian native, who opens her own home to travelers who want to learn to cook some authentic Italian meals! We had a booked a day with her to learn how to make 2 types of pasta and homemade tiramisu. I was so excited!

She walked us to her home, and we were a little nervous about how we were going to manage since she only spoke Italian; but with a little help from our iphones and Google Translator, it was awesome! Her home was a "bit" warm (the air conditioning can't keep up, I guess), and Emily had a hard time battling some heat exhaustion that day, but with a lot of water, some fans, & cooling towels, we got straight to work!

Ben started beating the egg yolks to use for the tiramisu and was an expert at dipping the ladyfinger cookies in espresso...

We weren't so bad ourselves!

Next on the menu was to prepare the focaccia bread with fresh mozzarella and fresh tomatoes!

We also set to making the tomato sauce for our pasta with fresh tomatoes and basil...

 

Google Translate was an easy way for her to teach us the steps to pasta making!

Although the translations were not all exactly correct, and provided a lot of laughs!

Mariella quickly found out why we think Ben is so charming, and she loved working with him!

Brian and I weren't too bad when it was our turn! We can definitely do this when we get home!

Emily was up next to roll out her dough...

When it was Abby's turn, we realized all of her cooking experience was paying off... she was a professional, and Mariella was very impressed!

Bravisima Abigail!!!

Check out all the pasta we managed to make!

After making our meal, we got to sit down and enjoy it all with some homemade wine (some not-so-amazing Aperol), and Mariella even joined us, which she doesn't normally do!

With the help of our digital translator, we were able to get Emily some fresh, plain, buttered pasta and she was thrilled!

This was our tagliatelle with fresh tomato sauce and spinach and ricotta filled ravioli with a brown butter sauce and fresh parmesan cheese. Everything was mouth-wateringly delicious!

The tiramisu was the highlight- especially for Emily! Even Mariella said we made the best that she's had in a very long time!

Thank you, Mariella, for the amazing day and the opportunity to learn about your life, your business, and for the skills you taught us that we will definitely be trying back at home! Grazie!!

After leaving our class, we walked through the streets of Sicily to see what life is like there, and to pop in a couple of shops.

Why don't our restaurants have signs like this as you walk by?????

After a wonderful day cooking in Sicily, we headed back to the boat for an evening of fun!

Brian and I headed out alone for some pre-dinner cocktails, where we found our new boat trivia friends, Sarah and Paul "following" us again! We decided we might as well be on the same team this time and see if it helped our scores (for the record, it did NOT, but we always had a great time together)!

After trivia, we enjoyed another dinner in the main dining room with Gerald, followed by another nighttime show (where we saw Sarah & Paul sitting next to us again...), and were all looking forward to sleeping in the next morning since it would be our one day at sea!

We got a few more family pictures before bed and called it a successful day full of fun memories!