One morning, during my extended summer stay in Sicily this year, I left Palazzo Notar Nicchi in Polizzi to cook Sicilian food for a few hours in one of Sicily’s most contemporary shared cultural spaces, Farm Cultural Park: a space of small white washed houses opening to seven courtyards in the village of Favara, not far from Agrigento.

Farm Cultural Park's Seven courtyards: Sette Cortili, is where people meet, trade, share ideas, create, listen, engage and discover. Courtyards in Sicilian towns and cities “Cortili” – so Arabic in their intimate blind alley layout -  have traditionally been a meeting point for gossip and sharing: they are a legacy from Sicily's Arab interlude. Today, the revitalised use of these seven courtyards in Favara, echoes this traditional cultural habit with a vibrant modernity.

As I cooked that morning I learnt that this really is  “a place that makes people happy”. The creation of the lovely Florinda Saieva, a lawyer and her culturally spirited notary husband Andrea Bartoli it is all about supporting  the rebirth of their beloved town; a place for people to come together, to share and to leave a little inspired.

And it  was the Sicilian word “Nzemmula”, written on a glazed panel over the small house where I cooked that morning that my curiosity was really stirred. I asked the meaning of this exotic word and found that  “Nzemmula” means “together” in Sicilian. I like the word “Nzemmula”; to me it expresses the soul of Farm Cultural Park.

Salve,

Suzanne