A BASKET OF GOODNESS

This is the hottest summer I can remember in Sicily and it seems to be wearing us all down because the extreme heat started early, in May, and I believe it has only rained for about ten minutes since. There are, of course, compensations, such as granita, anguria (watermelon) and myriad ice cream flavours and I certainly perked up when a friend brought me this traditional Sicilian basket of goodies from his garden on Friday. 

There are aubergines, datterini (tiny, date-shaped tomatoes), salad tomatoes, tomatoes for sauce and occhi di bue (bull's-eye) tomatoes, long peppers and a kind of pepper that I had never seen before.These are called friggitelli (from friggere - to fry) and, although they are related to chilli peppers, they are not hot. (I understand they are known in the US.) My friend told me to fry them in olive oil and garlic until browned and to add coarse salt only at the end of cooking. That is exactly what I did and wow, they were good!