How to Pick Olives & Food

(The whole story is being posted to http://mygenx.wordpress.com/mygenx-travel/

How to Pick Olives. A few things you need… Hand rake
Fast hands
Net or reta
Box/milk crate—a cassetta
A truck
Ability to stand for 10 hours and zone out to the rhythm of grabbing, pulling, plucking, dumping, and shuffling around a tree. It’s like a dance of sorts and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there is an old Sicilian peasant dance based on the olive harvest.
Oh yeah, good tunes on the MP3 helps, too.

Food. Sicilian meals on a farm during the harvest are simple. Some evenings it’s soup, other evenings pasta. Rarely is there meat.

“We eat what we have,” says Ellie.

They don’t have a freezer, no microwave, no oven like we have in America. Their oven is a toaster oven. Their stove is gas fueled by a small propane tank like we use for our outdoor grills. There is no counter space—just the table which is set after the food is prepared. …Water to drink or herbal tea, espresso, or table wine. We stick to the water, which eventually brings up the topic of religion when we explain why we don’t partake of the espresso and the fruit of the vine. They would do very well with a crock-pot but they haven’t discovered those yet in Sicily. Cat’s out of the bag now!

Our favorite dishes with the family are Caponata, Pasta con Sarde (sardines), Pasta al Forno, and of course pizza made in the 70 year old pizza oven, which is the purpose of the little house where we sleep.

Some of my other favorite things during the harvest are anchovies, canola, Bomba—which is like a donut stuffed with ricotta. Pecorino cheese is very traditional for Sicily and it is very good. Parmigiano-Reggiano with a Coca-Cola in the glass bottle is also one of my simple pleasures.
And last but not least—the Di Salvo table olives are simply wonderful!