Bourdain’s Field Notes
Failure has a smell. Of burnt synapses, of dick jokes, and wet ashes.
Why, why, why can’t I get Sicily right?
I love Sicily. It’s beautiful. It’s old. It’s Italy, but it’s not. I like the people—proudly mixed up, preyed upon by generations of invaders and a nearly ubiquitous fraternal organization that makes even the simplest transaction—like getting fruit to market—complicated. Sicilian food is exactly everything I love: the cuttlefish-stained pasta, street meat, inky wines, oily fishes. And for some reason, though I don’t speak Italian, I understand nearly every word in Sicily.