Family traditions & culinary secrets: a scenic balcony feast

When grandmother Stella, a painter and refined woman, cooked, she always wanted the best ingredients that had to be purchased only in those specific shops; the coffee ice could only be made when the coffee was freshly roasted and ground; her dishes were always perfect, a right mix of scents and colors. When her mother, just married, joined her father as an artillery officer in Bracciano, her grandmother prepared her a notebook, which still exists, black with red borders, entitled “the recipes for Bracciano use”. So I started to get passionate about cooking, taking inspiration from that notebook, for the realization of my recipes.The family grew and that was the moment when dad finally managed to get into the kitchen and the contamination, with the traditional recipes of grandmother Maria, added a riot of flavors to our dishes. Another important moment for my kitchen was when I changed cities and moved to Catania. Here I acquired the tradition of Catania cuisine that I mixed with that of my family. My cuisine is this: a mixture of family traditions of joy in cooking, each dish always tells a story "u cuntu" "Grandma tell me the story of this recipe?’ ... "and there the magic began !! My house welcomes guests with a breathtaking view of the Gulf of Catania, it is not in the center but it is easily accessible and inside it contains the history of the two families, Palermo and Catania, and the culinary tradition of these two cities contains in its recipes all of Sicily.