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06/01/2008 Archived Entry: "Diary Is Here, New Sicily Guide"

In case you haven’t noticed, this web site has changed slightly. The Maven’s Diary is right here on the home page now. There’s no introduction anymore, no explanation of the word “maven.” You know that already. New visitors unfamiliar with the word will have to figure it out. Instead of all that stuff, I am launching immediately into the latest “news and views,” as we used to say sarcastically at the Daily News. (Maybe you don’t know, or don’t remember, that I’m an old newspaper man, and that after nine years at Newsday I was executive food editor of the Daily News from 1979 to 1992, and its restaurant critic from ’79 to ’96. If you want to know more, my biography and my resume remain on the site.

I am sure you know this, but … The Maven’s Diary is really my newsletter, sometimes slightly re-edited and revised, and archived for eternity – or something like that. This version has better typography because I can add bold face and italics, and create links from the Diary to other internet sites. I can’t in the newsletter. Well, to be frank, I can but I haven’t yet learned how to do it. (Oy vey. The guilt.)

Maven’s Diary entries are archived from the birth of the site, which is May 1999. At this point, there are more than 300 recipes, and who knows how many cogitations on whatever it is I cogitate about. To find entries on specific subjects – say, Sicily – just put that word, a so-called “key word,” in the “Search This Site” box at the top of every page, any page.

Speaking of Sicily, the first installment of my Restaurant Guide to Sicily (and a bit of a guide to things to see and do between meals) has now been mounted on the site. After you click on the above, scroll down past Rome and Naples and find Sicily. For now, the guide covers only Palermo and eastern Sicily – Taormina, Catania, Siracusa, and Modica. I have yet to get the rest of my Sicilian restaurant info organized well-enough to put into the guide. But it’ll happen. Eventually. (Oy vey! More guilt.) Meanwhile, if you are traveling to Trapani or Marsala, or Sciacca (who goes to Sciacca?), plug those words into the search box and take a look at the archived Diary entries on these places, written while I was there. Truly, there is so much material on this site now, after nine years, I don’t even know what’s here myself. I use the search engine all the time to see if I had anything to say about something that’s on my mind. Usually I have. I don’t know if that’s a character flaw or what.