A riddle wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a vest

After lunch on Saturday we spent the rest of the day walking around Palermo. Sometimes when I'm walking the streets there it's very easy to forget where I am and think for a second that I might be on a movie set. There have been times when I'll think to myself that all of these people (the old lady wearing an apron outside of a rundown apartment building sitting on a really old wooden chair gripping rosary beads, the guy in a dirty butcher's apron standing under a dismembered cow's head, the young boys kicking around a tin can in lieu of a soccer ball) are actors hired by the Italian government just to display what we think of as typical Sicilian culture.
And then I remember that they do almost nothing in Sicily to promote tourism on any real level. My vision couldn't possibly be true - these peeps be keepin' it real.

I always tell people that Palermo embodies EXACTLY what I imagined Sicily to be before I got here. By that I mean: clothes hanging from balconies above cobbled, dirty streets; shady old men drinking in those kind of wine bars that most people would never have the balls to go into to, even though it looks so cool from the outside and would probably make a hell of a story later on; street markets with fishmongers and butchers yelling at you (and each other) as you walk by.

Sometimes I'll have a feeling of total disgust when passing a stinky, overflowing dumpster (the trash problem has reached catastrophic levels here) only to turn a corner and be in complete awe at the sight of a ray of light dancing across a beautiful building that's centuries old. These are the feeling that cannot be topped. At times Palermo can be both sacred and profane, both hideous and gorgeous, both ancient and new. I love a good puzzle. I assume that's why I keep going back there and I can't seem to get enough of that insane, chaotic city.

On a food related note, we finally bought a treccia di aglio or garlic braid. I have been known to have a heavy hand when it comes to garlic and recently I've taken to barely touching it with my knife. I like to keep the chunks big because I really want to taste it, so I'll usually peel and cut 4 or 5 cloves in half and sauté them with whatever veggies I'm using that night. On other occassions I'll mince it and throw it into the pot towards the end of cooking, so that it's still really pungent and only slightly cooked.

I would also like to take this opportunity to point out some health benefits of garlic, just because I love it oh so much. Read this to see just how good for you it is. Or just eat it because, like summertime, it's a natural aphrodesiac and it also tastes really good. What else do you need me to say?