Author and Artist
Invading Henry’s House
A fictional travelogue; three minute read.
Right along with overeating gelato on Siracusa’s Ortigia Island, I am an unrepentant occupier—ignoring borders, flattening nationalism, cross-culturally pollinating wherever I go. In my defense, I am just the latest nomadic intruder to arrive here.
For 3,000 years the Greeks, Arabs, Moors, Normans, Romans and Phoenicians have brought their ethnicities, their gods, their habits and their foods to Sicily. Pasta in Sicilian kitchens—a major motivator for my visit to this island—is the evolutionary perfection of an Arab import.
Lorenzo—the effervescent head waiter-owner at Vino e Candele restaurant—bustles from table to table, taking orders, chatting up diners, pouring wine, delivering happiness on a plate. He bounces around the tiny dining room in a red-and-white checkered kerchief around his neck and a United States Marine buzzcut. He’s a showman.
Stopping at my table, when he hears I am from California, he bubbles in nearly indecipherable English, “I’ve been to San Francisco. My favorite restaurant is the Mona Lisa. It’s in North Beach. Do you know it? My cousin works there.”
To his triumphant amusement, I tell him, “I eat there often, but nothing’s as good as your pasta with sardines.”
Two centuries ago, Sicilians brought fishing, farming and winemaking skills to California. They brought Italian opera—and recipes. Bank of America was once the Bank of Italy. Roman blood has flowed through three San Francisco mayors. The original ‘fisherman’s wharf’ was organized by the Alioto family—Sicilian to their core.
Now, I’m here. With my American dollars I am enthusiastically contributing to higher prices, higher rents—and less crime.
Twenty years ago, Ortigia Island was controlled by a hardened criminal underground. At night even the police feared it. Today, thanks to invasive tourism and gentrification, the area hums with pedestrians strolling on car-free streets, eating fresh-caught fish, tasting pistachio-flavored pastry after pastry, sipping espressos at sidewalk bistro tables, promenading along the seawall.
I’m encamped at a boutique hotel, Henry’s House. Two leafy banana plants stand sentry duty on either side of a plain wood door entry with small brass handles. The street itself—barely wide enough for an undersized Fiat—is unmapped. Even at close range the dark green sign announcing the place is barely visible. I have the illusion, if only for a flicker of time, of being a local.
In the Victorian-era lobby with brocade sofas and a chandelier, sitting on a sideboard is a small-framed photo. The steady gaze of Henry shows a man not afraid of the camera. He is handsome with wavy black hair, piercing eyes and delicate lips. Perhaps, he too was once a trespasser in Siracusa.
Maybe North African. Maybe from the Levant.
In the silvered mirror over the mantle, I see Lorenzo and his fellow islanders reflected. Like me, they are a layered lasagna of melting-pot intermarriages. I smile.
Even as I want today’s Sicilian culture unchanged for my touristing enjoyment, I can’t help but notice Lorenzo is wearing American jeans, American sneakers. The softly playing dining room music is American show tunes.
Thankfully, the pasta is not American spaghetti.
“My cousin, he likes your American girls,” Lorenzo volunteers as if to say colonialism cuts both ways.
I get the pasta, his cousin gets the girls.
