IM8 The Patience of the Spider (2007) Read online

  205 giuggiulena: Sicilian for sesame.

  205 Trapanese pesto: Pesto alla trapanese, like its cousin, pesto alla genovese, is a sauce for pasta with ground or finely chopped basil as its foundation. The Trapanese version (from the Sicilian city of Trapani), however, uses finely chopped and toasted blanched almonds instead of pine nuts, as well as several finely chopped, uncooked tomatoes, which are ground into the blend with garlic, olive oil, and black pepper. Finally, after it served on the pasta one adds a sprinkling of toasted bread crumbs in the place of cheese.

  231 But I heard, without understanding at first, the sound a phone makes when a receiver on an extension is picked up:

  In Italy, a phone will give an ever so slight ring when the receiver or an extension is either picked up or hung up.

  Notes by Stephen Sartarelli