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Lizzy Dent Biography

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“Our holidays began here in Catania, this loud, bustling city pulsing with memories. I know these scenes, like a movie once adored and now almost forgotten. I know the large square lava-stone pavers that line the footpaths. I can smell salty, fishy air coming from the fish market I think is just down the far end of the square. I remember this intense heat, the sea breeze flowing like water between the buildings, down the alleyways, never quite cooling enough.”

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“Taormina sits on a natural platform above the coast, its small streets and tiny staircases climbing to the summit of Mount Tauro, where an ancient Greek theater looks out across the sea. Stunning views aside, its coral-colored stone houses with wrought-iron balconies climb above elegant piazzas lined with cafés and filled with people. Deep green bushes with their bright pink flowers seem to grow everywhere, straight from the baking-hot stone. The town is beautiful, the pearl of the Ionian Sea, recently made famous by the show The White Lotus.”

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“Although Sicily in July can be a furnace, there can be cool nights by the sea, and up in the hills of Mount Etna. I allow myself to feel a tantalizing hope we might head up there. There is something thrilling about the pull of the volcano towering over the Sicilian coastline, constantly puffing steam and fiery red ash like a sleeping dragon, while farmers and villagers quietly live and work, aware that she can wake at any moment.”

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“My first encounter with the bittersweet taste of the Moro, a Sicilian blood orange, was sitting outside under a gnarled olive tree, during the height of a June heat wave. Small puffs of cloud the only blemish in the otherwise perfect blue sky, the bloodred flesh yielding a juice so refreshing it felt as close to perfect as I've ever come. The second encounter came at a fish market in Catania, where a group of men in flat caps spooned red-orange mounds of Moro granita into their mouths between games of cards. I was back in my dad's world, and the memories of oranges were everywhere.”

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“Sicily--- Oranges, pistachios, and/or aubergine. Sicilian food a product of immense, diverse history. Have sardines! Try the orange cake. You'll find it all over, but there used to be a good one in Taormina. I shake my head in amazement. Somehow, it feels like Dad had been quietly guiding me. Tuscany--- Wild boar is good but tomatoes are better. Nothing else! Please say something with Chiara's tomatoes. I want to help her. Farm is a century old and sells some obscure varieties. Tomato salads, tomato bread soup, panzanella. And here too, Leo and I had organically found the path my father laid out for us. The notes on Liguria are less specific, but when I read his scrawled handwriting, I smile to myself. Liguria--- Was thinking about beans, but basil a good opinion. Oh boy, I cannot wait to show that note to Leo. Basil a good option! Leo. I sit and write with an open heart, not shying away from treacly memories of cut oranges shared in the sea. Pushing my cynicism to the side and allowing the love I have for food, for Italy, for my father, to run from my heart down my veins to my fingers and onto the page.”

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“I am completely stunned by the beauty of it. The villa, which will be our home for the next ten days, is nestled on the side of a hill, down a short gravel drive flanked by poplars, grapefruit trees, apricot trees, and a huge cherry tree, already showing plump black fruit. We stand for a moment taking it in, the sounds of a warm breeze rustling the leaves, the chirp of crickets, the cooing of a pair of turtledoves.”

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“And this is Isabella's nonna's, made with the whole Moro orange from her grove--- pulped into the mix and no dusting, no glaze. Plain." "You mean perfect," says Isabella, scolding Luca. There was no doubting Isabella's would win. The pulp added something even softer and more luscious to the crumb. If the cake we had yesterday, warm from the oven, was divine, this was magic. "I told you," says Luca. "The orange."”

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“It is, without a doubt, the most delicious orange I've ever eaten. Notes of raspberry give it a tartness and complexity that leave the classic supermarket navel orange in the dust. "It's sunshine. It's bittersweet. It's perfect. My god," I say, gasping. "I think I just fell in love. I'm going to have a civil partnership with an orange." Leo, who has been fairly quiet for the last half hour, leans forward onto his elbows. "They're not for everyone," he says, taking a segment. "Very fleshy, delicately juicy, and not obscenely sweet." "Fleshy?" Luca says, tipping his glass toward us, playing with his mustache. "Delicately juicy?" I say, raising an eyebrow. I expect Leo to feel embarrassed, but instead he shoots Luca a cheeky grin, eyes buzzing with mischief. "Seriously, Olive," Luca says. "For me, the orange is so special to Sicily. We juice it, we ice it, we bake it, we zest it. It's an aperitif, a pasta dish, a dessert. It's the color of sunset on the outside, and a bleeding heart inside.”

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