I know I am home when

I must admit, the sights and sounds of Sicily help me to remember that I am back home again. Sometimes it is seeing the familiar coastline as the plane turns to line up with the runway. Sometimes it is feeling the light and the heat of the sun as I get off the airplane into the waiting bus to take me to the terminal. Sometimes it is the total lack of a line the way I think of line when it is time to line up for ANYTHING, baggage, a restroom, or a document check. Sometimes it is the styles I see on the street. And then again, and then again.

When Angelo picked me up at the airport, he said that the timing was perfect, as we could go to his house, where he and Franci were preparing a special seafood pranzo for me. Now they know that I have a dreadful fear of fish, but Angelo assured me it was all fish without bones.

Oh my, how to find out I am back in Sicily. Start out with shrimp cocktail in Russian Dressing sort of stuff. Eat this along with olives, perhaps a little salami, a little wine. Oh my.

But wait, there is more. Fresh pulpo. Angelo went down and bought it alive in the morning, and cooked it in boiling water until it was perfect. And perfect is sweet, tender, a little chewy, and really funny looking. They followed this with pasta in oil, garlic and clams, and then on to gamberoni, which are big, I mean really big, shrimp, which had been grilled. It was heavan, almost, except I was alive, and the freshness of everything reminded me I was in Sicily.