Andrea Camilleri's Montalbano with Recipe for Spaghetti with Eggplant and Tomato Sauce (Pasta alla Norma) (Μακαρόνια με Μελιτζάνες και Ντομάτες)

Andrea Camilleri, photograph by Pensiero

(From Greece)

English language books are hard to find on the island.

I carefully select those to bring with us, focusing on books we’ll both enjoy and want to reread. After several years, most books recede far enough into memory that rediscovering them is a pleasure. Since airlines have cracked down on weight limits, prudent book selection is more important than ever.

Two years ago my parents sent us the first six volumes of Andrea Camilleri’s wondrously good Inspector Montalbano series, set in Sicily and skillfully translated by poet Stephen Sartarelli. A few pages into the first book, I realized the series was perfect for the island. I quit reading and put the Camilleri books in my “bring to the island” corner.

Then my head exploded and I was off reading for longer than I’d planned. Shortly before we left for Greece this year, to my great joy, I finally was able to read books again. I dug out the Montalbano series and packed them for the trip.

I began getting to know Inspector Montalbano our first day on the island. One week later, thoroughly captivated by the cantankerous, world-weary, enigmatic inspector, I finished the last of the six books. I’m already looking forward to rereading them, but first I’ll track down and devour the rest of the series.

Here’s Camilleri/Sartarelli describing the inspector in the opening scene of The Terra-Cotta Dog (book 2):

To judge from the entrance the dawn was making, it promised to be a very iffy day – that is, blasts of angry sunlight one minute, fits of freezing rain the next, all of it seasoned with sudden gusts of wind – one of those days when someone who is sensitive to abrupt shifts in weather and suffers them in his blood and brain is likely to change opinion and direction continuously, like those sheets of tin, cut in the shape of banners and roosters, that spin every which way on rooftops with each new puff of wind. Inspector Salvo Montalbano had always belonged to this unhappy category of humanity.

Camilleri’s prose brings Sicily’s people, and its highways and byways, vividly to life. In the original Italian, Camilleri uses Sicilian dialect to create colorful characterizations and bring humor to stories that might otherwise be overly dark. Sartarelli effectively captures the dialect’s essence in his creative translation.

Inspector Montalbano loves to eat, and insists on doing so silently, the better to appreciate every nuance in the dishes set before him. He thinks poorly of those who cook badly, and when forced to eat bad food (“… shamefully overcooked pasta, a beef stew conceived by an obviously deranged mind, and dishwater coffee of a sort that even airline crews wouldn’t foist on anyone…”), he heads out for a meal good enough to lift him out of the gloom into which bad food plunges him.

In the course of investigating a disappearance in The Snack Thief (Book 3), Inspector Montalbano interviews a “well-dressed seventy-year-old lady … in a wheelchair.” When the interview is over, the woman invites the inspector to lunch:

“Well, signora, thank you so much …,” the inspector began, standing up.
“Why don’t you stay and eat with me?”
Montalbano felt his stomach blanch. Signora Clementina was sweet and nice, but she probably lived on semolina and boiled potatoes.
“Actually, I have so much to –“

“Pina, the housekeeper, is an excellent cook, believe me. For today she’s made pasta alla Norma, you know, with fried eggplant and ricotta Salata.”
“Jesus!” said Montalbano, sitting back down.
“And braised beef for the second course.”
“Jesus!” repeated Montalbano.
“Why are you so surprised?”
“Aren’t those dishes a little heavy for you?”
“Why? I’ve got a stronger stomach than any of these twenty-year-old girls who can happily go a whole day on half an apple and some carrot juice. Or perhaps you’re of the same opinion as my son Giulio?”
“I don’t have the pleasure of knowing what that is.”
“He says it’s undignified to eat such things at my age. He considers me a bit shameless. He thinks I should live on porridges. So what will it be? Are you staying?”

“I’m staying,” the inspector replied decisively.

Although food plays only a supporting role in the Montalbano books, Camilleri’s descriptions of traditional Sicilian dishes are inspirational. I read the above passage just before lunch and, coincidentally, had the ingredients on hand to make Pasta alla Norma. So I did.

Montalbano was right to stay for lunch with Signora Clementina. Eggplant and Tomato Sauce with Spaghetti is absolutely delicious.

Spaghetti with Eggplant and Tomato Sauce (Pasta alla Norma) (Μακαρόνια με Μελιτζάνες και Ντομάτες)
Serves 4 - 6
Pasta all Norma comes from Catania, a city in eastern Sicily, and is named after Catania native Vincenzo Bellini's famous opera, Norma. Traditionally, eggplant for Pasta all Norma is fried, as described by Signora Clementina. Because fried eggplant absorbs a lot of oil, I oven-roast it instead. If you want to fry the eggplant, sprinkle the eggplant slices with a lot of salt and let drain for an hour or so (salt collapses eggplant’s cell structure and helps reduce its oil absorption). Rinse off the salt, pat the eggplant dry, fry in olive oil until the slices are golden brown, and drain on paper towels.

Tomato Sauce:
2 pounds ripe tomatoes or 2 15-ounce cans whole tomatoes, roughly chopped
1 cup roughly chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil or mint
Salt
1/4 olive oil
1 tsp. sugar
1 tsp. Aleppo pepper or 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes (optional)

Eggplant:
2 globe eggplants
Olive oil
Salt
Freshly ground black pepper

Pasta:
1 pound spaghetti
2 Tbsp. olive oil
1 - 2 garlic cloves, grated or finely minced (optional)
Freshly ground black pepper
1/2 – 1 cup grated or crumbled ricotta salata or myzithra

Make the Tomato Sauce: Put the tomatoes, onions, basil and salt in a large pot and cook over medium heat for 15 minutes, stirring regularly. Put the tomato mixture through a food mill to remove the skins and seeds. Return the tomato mixture to the pot with the olive oil and sugar. Bring to a boil, turn down the heat, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring regularly. Taste and add salt, as needed.

Make the Eggplant: Preheat the oven to 450°F. Slice the eggplant into 1/2” cross-wise slices. Brush the slices on both sides with olive oil and season with salt and freshly ground black pepper. Bake the eggplant for 15 minutes or until the eggplant slices are golden brown, remove from the oven, and let cool. Cut into 1” wide slices. Add the eggplant to the tomato sauce and stir gently, being careful not to break up the eggplant slices.

Make Pasta alla Norma: Cook the pasta in boiling, salted water until it is al dente. Drain the pasta, reserving 1/2 cup of the pasta water. Return the pasta to the pot and stir in the reserved pasta water, olive oil, garlic, and freshly ground black pepper. Add all but 1 cup of the Tomato and Eggplant Sauce and toss with the pasta. Pour the sauced pasta into a large bowl and top with the remaining sauce and crumbled cheese. Serve immediately.
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This is my entry for Novel Food #5, hosted and created by Simona of Briciole and Lisa of Champaign Taste, both of whom love Inspector Montalbano. You can find the Novel Food #5 round-ups here and here.

Questions on the Brain: An Unforgettable Year

“What were you doing a year ago?”

This is the meme’s first question. A “meme” is a questionnaire that floats from blogger to blogger, teasing out precious personal details to help forge bonds between writers from different generations, continents, and cultures. Last month, I was sent multiple memes to answer. Many of them started with the same query.

“What were you doing a year ago?”

The question is simple. Answering has been difficult.

A year ago today was March 10, 2007. I lived in the same house and had the same friends as I do now. I’d left my demanding lawyer job several years before. After many years of working long hours, I appreciated having time to read, to cook, to go for walks, and to help make a pleasant world for my family. My marriage was strong. Life was good.

A year ago today, I made Pan-Fried Scallops with Celery Root and Bacon for dinner. It was a hit; my calendar gives it multiple stars. I should’ve written down the recipe; I didn’t.

A year ago today, I had a horrible headache.

I’ve had a lifetime of migraines and long ago accepted headaches as an unremarkable fact of life. Modern pharmaceuticals turned my migraines into mere annoyances; pain that could be vanquished with a timely dose of medicine.

A year ago today, I had a headache that wasn’t a migraine. It lasted for days and nothing I did made it go away.

On February 27, I’d been reading when the headache first struck. One second I was laughing at my book; the next it felt as if someone had soundly whacked me in the head with a sledgehammer.

After catching my breath and getting my bearings, I stumbled to the kitchen and took my migraine medicine. When the first dose didn’t work, I took some more. That didn’t work either. I made dinner through a haze of pain.

That night I medicated myself to sleep, and woke up with a headache the next morning. For the next couple weeks, my daily calendar carefully notes the headache, the combination of medications I took to combat it, the headache’s persistence despite everything, and what I made for dinner.

The calendar entries are weirdly incongruous, e.g. “headache intolerable, bad vertigo, imitrex useless, vicodin no impact, Sweet Potato Gnocchi with Swiss Chard and Duck Sauce.” Another day: “woke with headache, progressively worse, spent day in dark room, Squid in Tomato Sauce with Stir-Fried Chinese Broccoli.”

A year ago today, the headache had been going strong for 11 days and my husband went from suggesting I see a doctor, to insisting I do so as soon as possible. My head hurt too much to argue.

The next week was a flurry of medical appointments and tests. By March 21, I was on an operating table in Seattle having my skull sawed open.

A year ago today, I’d been living with a ruptured brain aneurysm.

I’m extraordinarily lucky. I survived the original rupture, an event which has a 50% fatality rate. My surgeon successfully clipped the aneurysm, and screwed and stitched my head back together. I emerged from the surgery mentally intact, an outcome far from certain at the outset. Today I'm healthy and enjoying blue skies and sun reflecting off the snow.

Did I mention I was lucky?

Lucky, yes definitely. But I’m not the same person I was before.

A year ago today, I was myself as I used to be: strong, bossy, confident, and capable. I was articulate and well-read, the result of a lifetime of pouring through multiple books a week. I was very happy and very sad, and everywhere in between, but was mostly able to keep my emotions (except for occasional flashes of temper) to myself.

Now. How now? I look the same and sound the same and try my best to act the same. But now, my emotions are right on the surface and I’ve turned into a weeper. I’m more than a little timid, and have a very low frustration point. Conflict is excruciating. I shy away from social interactions, and need to spend a lot of time alone. Noise and hubbub are unbearable.

Intellectually, I understand all my behavioral changes are related to the brain surgery and are common in brain injury sufferers. Emotionally, it feels like I’ve entered the Twilight Zone and some other, paler and wimpier, version of me is occupying my body. So I wait and hope the behavioral changes will resolve over time, as they often do, and I’ll regain more of my old self.

I can no longer read books. I permanently lost most of the vision in my left eye within hours of the surgery. The vision damage interferes with my ability to focus on a printed page. For a lifetime bookaholic, this has been the most dramatic life changing event of all. I haven’t yet accepted the loss.

Even with this most difficult of challenges, I’m lucky. Although books are beyond me for now, I can easily read a computer screen.

On the computer, I discovered, explored, investigated, and entered the world of food blogging, all of which has greatly enriched my life. I enjoy the regular glimpses into lives of fellow bloggers, many of whose warmth and kindness have unknowingly helped me navigate the challenges of my new life.

Without books to read, I have time to focus on writing, something I’ve long wanted to do. It's the second best thing to have come out of my experiences during the last year.

The best thing? The best thing is the love and support I’ve received from my husband, sister and brother-in-law, parents, brother and sister-in-law, far-away sister, in-laws in this country and Greece, and friends. Without all of them, I couldn’t have managed and doubt I would've survived. I’m forever grateful to a degree that is impossible to express in writing.

A year ago today, I took my happy life for granted. Today, I remember that everything can change in a minute.

So for Susan, Gretchen, Núria, Shayne, and Ivy, all of whom sent me memes, thank you for thinking of me. I hope you’ll agree that answering the meme’s first question was fully enough.

Readers don’t worry. For my next post, I’ll be back to writing about food.