Sicily… for millennia, this island at the crossroads of the world has been drawing peoples from across the globe to its shores, and in this very special two-part episode, we’re sitting down with Melissa Muller, author of “Sicily: Recipes Rooted in Tradition,” published by Rizzoli, as she shares how she too surrendered to the siren call of this unique island.

We’ll discover how this Italian American anthropologist, chef and journalist became “Sicilian by choice,” as she became ever-more drawn to the island each summer in her grandmother’s Sicilian village. She’ll share how her early experiences there led her to a career as an anthropologist and journalist studying the gastronomy of the Mediterranean regions, focusing on how Sicily is a unique crossroads of civilizations and how its history is visible and tangible in the island’s cuisine, allowing her to create a culinary time machine to discover the island’s storied past.