Hi there! Welcome to my fancy new blog, Sicily Anywhere (actually not that fancy).

I’m Joe – I’m Sicilian by ethnicity, Philadelphian by birth, Californian by adoption and I currently live in Germany. I have moved a lot in my life; I will probably move again. I’m married, and I have a dog, Lexi, who is my kitchen sidekick.

I’m neither a professional writer nor a professional cook though I have been both. I’ve taught cooking classes and even done a little consulting on Italian food & wine. I travel to Sicily frequently and sometimes I’m lucky enough to be invited to people’s homes to see their food traditions in action.

I had a blog once before, in the internet Stone Age (2004-2007). It was called Omnivorous Fish and it was pretty popular. I wrote about cooking and restaurants and sustainable agriculture and did a lot of musing about adulthood (and my resistance to it).

In other words, I have no real credentials whatsoever.

Guides for “first blog posts” usually advise saying something about my intended audience. But the truth is, I don’t have one.

I write about things that interest me, with Sicily as a center of gravity. I’m as accurate as I can be and I’m honest about the limits of my knowledge. I try to write about Sicily – its cooking, culture and language – as it is today, without the wispy veneer of romance that blankets so much writing about the island. Sicily is not a period drama.

I write about cooking, both the study of it and the act of doing it. I don’t live in Sicily and it’s not likely I ever will, so part of the experience I have to share is adapting Sicilian cooking to other places I’ve lived.

I love to cook and I’m undaunted by a complicated recipe, but I still need to get dinner on the table most nights after working a full day. While I won’t claim to be a quick-and-easy recipes blogger, many of the dishes I cook are simple and fast.

And while I certainly won’t claim to be a healthy cooking blogger, nearly everything I cook is from scratch. I’m not vegetarian but we don’t eat much meat compared to most people and Sicilian cooking is a reflection of its incredible fruits and vegetables and its being surrounded by three distinct seas. Many Sicilian recipes are already vegan and many more are easily adapted.

So, if you find any of these things interesting, then my target audience is you!

Thanks for taking a step with me on this journey.