Blog Archives

a walking lunch

I don’t know what this gentleman was eating for lunch. But I am positive that it was delicious. I mean…this was in Sicily, where everything was delicious.

La Vucciria
Palermo, Sicily
photographed 8.30.2022

market needlework

My mom made all of my clothes (except for my Girl Scout uniforms and swim suits). And while I absolutely did not get her abilities for or interest in sewing, I appreciate the art involved.

And maybe that’s why these clothes (which were hanging from a metal panel that had a bit of a makeshift look to it) at a Sicilian market caught my attention. But, really, though, why would anyone overlook that delicate pink and white edging on that sleeve?

La Vucciria Market
Palermo, Sicily
photographed 8.30.2022

cleaned fish

Just the night before, these fish had been swimming around in the Mediterranean. And when I saw them, they were being cleaned (quickly, by someone with a lot of practice) before maybe heading across the market to the man wearing a red apron frying up platters of fish.

La Vucciria Market
Palermo, Sicily
photographed 8.30.2022

mixed use street

We’d found this market during one of our daytime meanderings. It was bustling, full of activities like the one guy who was cleaning the night’s catch of sardines or the other guy who’d set up a kitchen beside an arcade and was frying up plates of fish or the people using the public fountain to wash dishes or the people enjoying lunch.

But then we heard the place takes on a whole new feel after dark – it was described to us “as like a disco” – so of course, on our last night in Palermo, we had to go see. It was different. It was a lot different. The fish cleaners and fish fryers were gone. No one was doing the dishes. And of course it was too late for lunch. But there were even more people than we’d seen in the daytime. There was a little place selling aperol spritzes. There were tiny cafes all over the place. There were diners. There were pedestrians. (There were four American photographers.) There were motorbikes threading their way through it all.

It was hard to leave.

La Vucciria Market
Palermo, Sicily
photographed 8.31.2022