Chili's Bar and Grill, Tempe, Arizona, United States (or: My Sicilian Heart)

Four orders of chicken crispers on my left, four orders of chicken crispers on my right, Enough sodium and calories on each plate to last its eater a full week. In front of me, a tall glass of water. Two months later, this is the first time “La Nostra Famiglia Italiana” has reconvened, but it would appear that “Italiana” is in short supply. As each in turn dives into the pool of grease on the plate before them I begin to feel nauseous from the fumes alone; for respite I can only fantasize about that great Sicilian feast I never enjoyed.

 

Two months before I finally bring myself to scratch with pitiful words the splendor of that tiny isle, that tiny town of my father’s father’s father, where “La Nostra Famiglia Italiana” strangely communed with my Italian family, where I sprawled with Sicilian Nero in hand, on sand so smooth the blue sky danced upon its white ridges, drinking desperately the cool sea air. Salty air which meanders lazily through sun-baked streets mingling with the sweet perfume of flowers overflowing on every curb.

 

Truth is beauty, beauty truth, and here I didn’t need metaphor to feel at home; The prickly-pear cacti, prolific agave, soaring jagged mountains demanded reminisces of the Arizona landscape I know so well. That sea I had unknowingly carried reflected in my eyes for 20 years, she told me.

 

I had come eagerly anticipating the taste of Sicily’s famous cuisine, but ignorance of the great siesta forced us to leave for our flight, this wish still unfulfilled. Clearly Sicily, that mother island, was slapping me on the wrist for visiting only for a few short hours. And, in the airport, as my backpack was snatched from the x-ray machine to be searched, I knew that the stern mother would confiscate the forbidden sweets I had sneaked off the kitchen counter in the form of a jar of olives with far more liquid than the carry-on limit and a wine bottle that could quickly serve to beat the pilot into submission. However, when the officer removed them from my bag, looked, shrugged, and put them back, I knew. This was no punishment from my mother island. She was merely beckoning my Sicilian heart back home.