Favorite Memory from Sicily

Hello there friendly blog readers!  Sorry I've been so absent.... but I've been unmotivated to write when the weather has been turning and getting gorgeous for spring, and we've been on the road, traveling!

In the last 5 weeks, we've traveled to the Northeastern most point of Spain (in Galicia) on a 4 day road trip, had 2 visitors from Nebraska stay with us in Madrid, Brian traveled to 3 states and 4 cities in the US in 9 days, I went to France and learned how to surf with wonderful old friends, and we flew to Sicily for a week during the Easter holidays.

Whew!  Time to take a breath...

I'm going to ease back into the blog, and remember our favorite thing from the week in Sicily.  Generally, we had great weather for the week we were there, but there was one day that things weren't looking so great, so we rented a car and decided to drive to Mount Etna.  Ideally, it wouldn't have been raining and foggy, so we could go see the top of the volcano as well, but lady luck decided to still surprise us another way.

As we plowed through a mountain road in the midst of these clouds, we saw a tiny sign, hidden in the fog, for a winery... and we pulled off, expecting it to be closed on a Tuesday afternoon.  But maybe you can guess where this is going...

We walked in to learn they had a full tasting menu with tastings of 2 of their white and 2 of their red wines.  We could help ourselves to as much of the wine as we wanted... and the food just kept coming.

It all started out quite properly...

The whites were paired with sun dried tomatoes, sun dried cherry tomatoes, olives & mushrooms, and homemade almond bread.  The reds came out accompanied by mild cheese, sicilian sausage, smoked ricatta, peppered parmesan, and sheep cheese with pistachios.

As the food kept coming, and the wine flowing, I really started to enjoy myself.  Brian mostly just laughed at me and rolled his eyes.  I didn't care.

Some steamed mushrooms and homemade pork sausages with ground pistachios, orange & balsamic showed up at some point too...

With our table full, we find ourselves giddy with joy over what we'd stumbled upon, the deliciousness of the food, and the can-i-just-have-a-little-more? amazingness of the wine.

Brian even starts to get a little goofy too... Look at that grin :)

After a lot of savoring and sighs of contentment, we finally sent away the last scraps of food.  To finish the meal, we devoured their homemade fluffy, nutty, rich pastry and a little shot of expresso.  I even asked for a second dessert, but I know that doesn't surprise any of you.

 It was perfection!

We walked out of there with a huge wooden box of wine - one of each of the four we tried during the tasting.  We didn't really have any trouble finishing those during the rest of the time we were in Sicily... though I would have loved to have brought some home with us.

I think we're still amazed that we stumbled upon such an incredible place... if you're ever near the slopes of Mount Etna on Sicily, I would recommend doing whatever you could to go visit Agricola Gambino!