At the end of summer, wide ceramic dishes would suddenly appear in the refrigerator of our family home at Spisone, on the bay below Taormina. They were filled almost to the rim. Under the refrigerator light, the surface shone the red of ripe watermelon, scattered with dark chocolate and green pistachios. Before anyone served me a spoonful, I could stand there simply looking.
The dishes came from zia Ero, my grandfather’s sister. She was tall, slender and very elegant. She brought them without ceremony, spent half a day with us by the sea, and left. That house was my grandfather’s idea. He had bought it so that nearly 25 of us could live there together each summer, at the edge of the sea.
