Left in Tucson

  Image of Sicily   This is my paraphrase from something I discovered while reading "Midnight in Sicily," by Peter Robb. When visiting southern Italy and Naples in particular, the author came to the conclusion that coffee is a "Neapolitan drug."  The sugar that Neapolitans put into their coffee with such care may in fact be tied to the "cult of coffee" throughout southern Italy. Naples was one of Europe's first and biggest importers of sugar.  According to Fernand Breudel in his book, "The Mediterranean,"  in the single year of 1625, when sugar was barely known in the rest of Europe, Naples imported "the "unbelievable quantity" of 15 hundred tons of sugar.  In the same year, Naples also imported 15 hundred tons of honey.  This huge consumption was recorded 50 years after coffee first arrived form the East.  The Venetians first imported coffee in 1580 from Constantinople, where it had arrived 30 years earlier from

Life’s lessons come in strange forms. As cognizant, sentient beings, we, unlike probably all other creatures, have the ability to define our lives through our experiences.   I believe that when we avoid unpleasant things, and seek personal comfort in experiences which only represent pleasure and safety, that we envelop ourselves with a cocoon of numbness, reducing our lives to an ever-diminishing zone of comfort that ultimately imprisons, and collapses upon us, as we continuously tip-toe almost up to, but never quite over, the boundary of that comfort zone.   Sometimes those lessons appear in the form of helpless little birds flopping in the road. None of us can escape our ultimate destinations.   If we stay cognizant of that fact, it can give value and meaning to our lives.   As we race against the clock to meet deadlines, be first at the opening of the Christmas sales, muscle our way through rush hour traffic, and put our name on the list at the deli counter, cognizanc

Sparrow Rehab Thursday, 7/12/2012, as I was heading out to get our mail from our curbside mailbox, a noticed a little sparrow fluttering on the ground by the front wheel of my car, which was parked a few feet away from the mailbox in the shade of our two olive trees.  I called, Jim, a.k.a Doc Doolittle, to check out this little guy who seemed to be having difficulty staying in flight.  Every time he tried to fly, he fell over on his side and crash landed on the ground.  After several attempts, Jim was able to scoop him up and bring him into our tiny Tucson backyard and patio to take a closer look at this adolescent English Sparrow.  You see, over the course of 5 years, Jim has succeeded into turning our tiny backyard into a bonafiable wildlife habitat.  Along with a family of hummingbirds who frequent two hummingbird feeders, there are also sparrows, doves, thrashers, woodpeckers, and a resident hawk who keeps a watchful eye, from a nearby Ponderosa Pine, of all the comings and g

It's mid-July, and Figaro has started to produce a whopping crop of figs.  I have got to keep one step ahead of the birds in order to get the sweetest, ripest figs.  Time to pull out my collection of the best Fig recipes. Check out the link below for my favorite.  Th Bayou Woman has the best recipe for Fig Preserves.  It's simple, easy, and everyone will love it!  There are a few more recipes on this site for July 2011. Delightful! Fig Preserves Recipe

I finally got around to creating an album from all the wonderful photos collected from my Sicilian Adventure.  Click below for a peak. My Soul of Sicily Tour Photo Album of Faves

America in 1776 Good to remember our roots. Cheers!