Slow, Simple and Superb
I know I spend a lot of time on this newsletter (and in person) calling attention to the many screwed up schemes the principal architects of policy, those shapers of society, these Masters of Mankind, use to conspire, engineer and bully us into believing and accepting the crappy way in which they want the world to operate.
But, today, I’m not going to give voice to their, or any other, bullshit (feel free yourselves to ignore this and all those other links I just dropped, we all deserve a rest from hearing about those fucking shenanigans).
Today, we’re going to talk about something fresher, something pleasant (A months free paid subscription to The Revelate to anyone who can identify from where I pulled that line—just message me directly, not in the comments).
To start, this is our vegetable stand.
It's located at the foot of the hill from our house, which is here:
The stand is operated by a couple who own a farm outside of town. Everyday but Sundays and Saturday afternoons, they are open for a couple of hours in the morning, then returning after the siesta—or more likely, in their case, re-loading the truck—for a couple more hours in the afternoon and evening.
Markets such as this are one of the best things about living in Italy. The food is fresh, in season—often organically produced, and you are able to get to know the farmers personally. We had something similar with our CSA in America, but there we still had to supplement our weekly menu with trips to a grocery store. As you can tell by the load in Franca's arm some habits are hard to break, as if we don't pass in front of this stand 4-5 times a week.
Also at the bottom of the hill you'll find this 3 times a week, delivered fresh from Siracusa and the southern coast of Sicily:
In fact, all of Sicily is like this, with growers, fisherman, farmers, wine, cheese, meat producers, all fostering, growing, nurturing provisions to feed themselves and others in their community. It is a way of life I am sure most Masters of Mankind would find fault with as no corporation is getting rich off the labor.
Indeed, caring for the land is one of the hallmarks of Sicilians. When you own land, like the couple featured below, you do everything you can to nurture it because of the great bounty it offers.
Last November we shared our experience harvesting olives in La raccolta delle olive, and now we bring you a short film of how Sicilians take care to keep that bounty coming, when every other winter, after the harvest, they prune the trees and burn the trimmings.
Even with age, even despite the labor involved, olive growers, such as these octogenarians+ shown here, don’t let either deter them from the hard work at hand. They set their minds to it and their lovely hearts follow, which is precisely the kind of engineering our world really needs.
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