Left in Tucson

Soul of Sicily - Cooking Tour, April 27-May 5,  2012 I chose to memorialize my 60th Birthday with a trip to Sicily, a gastronomical adventure through Sicily and the surrounding area. My NJ friends, Mary and Patty made the experience all the more memorable.  Escorted by our very knowledgeable and extremely patient guide, Renee, along with famed chef, sommelier and restauranteur, Pino,we gained entre into the operations of some of the best artisanal purveyors of Sicilian wines, cheese, meats, fish, breads, pastries, pastas; and sea salt, too. When not eating or cooking, we also took in some of the most interesting sites in the local area. On our second day in Sicily, with Pino as our guide and Renee as our translator, our first stop was, to see one of the most intact Greek temples to be found in Sicily in its classical surroundings.  In the 5th Century BC, Sicily passed from the Greeks, then to the Romans, with lots of...

Went to listen to Dr. Weil speak to a group of mostly over 60-year olds about debunked medical treatments. I think Dr. Weil is such a sensible guy and a facinating speaker.  I have been trying to get Jim to make an appointment at his renouned Integrative Medicine Center here in Tucson.  It was back in 1996 when I was developing business opportunities for AT&T's newly launched Internet consumer service, WorldNet, that I first discovered Dr. Weil and his online site. I would never have imagined that some day I would be living in Tucson where Dr. Weil has his headquarters.  Very cool.  This was my first time hearing him speak, in person.  Dr. Weil gave a number of examples of medical treatments from the past that were thought to be therapeutic at the time and later discovered to be useless or in other cases, dangerous.  He listed using uranium stones pressed against your kidneys to improve kidney function, X-rays for everything,includi...

If you haven't been to the Wine Depot , in Tucson at Grant and Alvernon, you owe it to yourself to visit the place for one of their weekend wine tastings.  They recenlty extended their wine tastings to include afternoons on Fridays and Sundays as well as Saturdays!  What a real treat to taste and enjoy the best of German wines from some very judiciously selected boutique wineries representing all the very best wine regions of Germany.  Frank, the proprietor, and Cyler who overseas the retail end of things are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to wine and German wines in particular.  Try a few of their recommendations.  I promise you that your taste buds will be well rewarded.   Cheers!

The days are warming up and daylight is sticking around longer, so Figaro our backyard fig tree is starting to sprout new leaves and tiny bumps are starting to appear as a new crop of figs begins to form on its branches. I gave Figaro a bit of a haircut back in February, which now I think I should have done a few weeks earlier in late January.   I hope I have not  compromised this year's fig crop. I also sprinkled a cup of a locally concocted special soil fertilizer mixture specifically for our desert soil composition.  Then top dressed the area under the tree with a one inch layer of fresh garden soil.   The fertilizer is something I learned about from a local fellow Master Gardener.  The owner of a small garden center/nursery on Pima Ave. used to make this stuff and bag it up for customers.  I think I might have gotten my first and last bag of the secret mix.  A few weeks ago, a drove by and found the place cleaned out of all plants and...

Spring has sprung here in the Tucson desert!  Birds are chirping, wildflowers are blooming.   This is my favorite time of year in Tucson.   Wherever you walk, drive or bike you can smell the sweet fragrances of acacia tree blooms, creosote bushes in full flower, and the blooming grapefruit, orange and lemons trees that almost everyone has in their backyards.   View from Catalina State Park to Oro Valley Check out that peanut balanced on a rock.  There is a bee hiding in that thistle flower.  Can you find it?  Ocotillo in bloom  Yellow desert poppies, blue desert lupines More yellow desert poppies.

e Food Network competition show "Chopped" - in which four chefs cook mystery ingredients into dishes - stopped by Tucson earlier this month, filming mostly at Old Tucson Studios and closing the business to the public during filming. Food Network spokesperson Lauren Mueller said the show shot multiple episodes that will air sometime this summer. "The publicity value for Tucson and Old Tucson will be great when it airs," said Shelli Hall, director of the Tucson Film Office, via email. Read more: http://azstarnet.com/news/local/the-scoop-food-network-s-chopped-films-at-old-tucson/article_fc563c6d-c654-594d-a705-affb11515929.html#ixzz1qMV4nhNG

As I begin to prepare for my upcoming trip to Sicily, here's a recipe for making that most delightful of Italian beverages:  Limoncello!   If you live in Tucson and are lucky enough to own a home with a large old lemon tree in your yard, why not try a new approach to preserving all that lemon juice?