Introducing: Wandernesters
To Sicily, with The Cheeky Chef
“Sicily has taught me to treasure the little wonderful things as you face them, they add up to more than you might notice.” - Linda Sarris, the Cheeky Chef
As travelers, the ultimate dream for many of us is to move to a foreign country and slip into a new life to try on for a change. I’m excited to introduce today a brand new series for this newsletter: interviews featuring those who have done so with passion, creativity, and success!
Wandernesters are intrepid souls who have bravely built brand new lives, communities, and entrepreneurial businesses, thriving in lands far from their countries of origin.
My first interview is with Linda Sarris, aka The Cheeky Chef, who I met in Sicily last September when she gave me a tour of Palermo’s lively Ballarò street market. The famous Sicilian market, with its wide variety of foods and flavors, presented amongst an entertaining cacophony of shouting vendors and singing fruit salesmen, is a must-see in Palermo. In the midst of it all is Linda, offering her guests the experience of having a taste of Sicily in color, with full surround-sound!
Take a moment to sit back, dream of travel to Sicily, and learn more about Linda’s inspirational story.
Can you tell us a bit of when, how, and why you landed up in Sicily?
I am a Greek-American born and raised in Pennsylvania. I headed to upstate New York for college at the Rochester Institute of Technology, then after university I moved to New York City to work in book publishing and then as as private chef. In 2017 I moved to Palermo and have been living full-time here since then.
Sicily chose me. Actually, it was my mentor Fabrizia Lanza who chose me. In 2011, following culinary school in NYC, Fabrizia granted me a scholarship at her mother’s world-renowned Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school in Sicily, one year after Anna passed away. I landed in the middle of nowhere, on the most breathtaking farm-to-table countryside cooking school and winery, and that’s where it all began. I learned the language by full-on immersion, I dove straight into local life, learned family recipes and seasonal cooking practices. I spent several years going back and forth between New York and Sicily until I took the leap and moved to Palermo. Best series of events to ever happen to me.
What was the deciding factor that made you stay?
I wanted a change of lifestyle. I had my own private cheffing business in New York that was going quite well. This wasn’t an Eat, Pray, Love situation where everything went to shit and I needed to pivot. Just like I moved from working in book publishing to enrolling in culinary school, then from catering to food/wine travel — my hobbies became a passion and grew over time until I had no choice but to take a leap. I fell in love with an island, then a community, and then a local. I chose Sicily and she just keeps on choosing me back and reminding me why I love it here so much.
How did the idea of your business The Cheeky Chef come about? How did you start?
It’s actually the original name of a food blog I started in 2006, right in the early days of blogging. I was working on the biggest cruise ship in the world at the time and writing about all of the foods I was trying while travelling. I can’t believe I’ve kept the name so long, it just kind of stuck. When I moved from working as a private chef to living full-time in Palermo, I shifted towards food/wine travel and now my business spans anywhere from planning custom trips for guests, organizing weeklong adventures, leading market tours, and curating my own programs to show-off the best Sicily has to offer, always through a culinary lens.
How did you find and build your “nest,” your community within Palermo?
I had spent time in Palermo off and on from 2011-2017 and when I decided to move permanently to Sicily, I knew I had to be in a big city. Leaving New York and landing in Palermo, I chose the Ballarò neighborhood to set up my home for its cultural diversity, the world-famous outdoor market, and everything I needed within walking distance. I had already made friends here over the years and the city completely charmed me. At first my “nest” revolved around people who worked in food and wine. My family away from home has been and will always be the extended Tasca winemaking family and the lifelong team members at the Anna Tasca Lanza cooking school where I first fell in love with this island. I have also spent almost 15 years developing and nurturing relationships with producers I admire from winemakers to millers, chefs, farmers, artisan sea salt harvesters, home cooks, and travel experts. I have some international friends in Sicily and find a common ground with those also living abroad. It’s nice to have the comfort of speaking English every now and then.
My real community here is right in the heart of the Ballarò market where I am greeted daily with a big smile and a “Ciao Linda!” I’m no longer just “la americana”. I chose this neighborhood and made my daily chef-led market tours a real focus of my Sicilian travel business. I will always be a new addition, the adopted one, but I am proudly a real part of my local neighborhood.
What is the most magical part of your new home, and how do you feel you best inspire your clients to fall in love with it too?
The slow living pace of southern Italy is what I try to share. My Instagram account (@thecheekychef) promotes the programs I am organizing but what it’s really there for is to give you a glimpse into daily life here. Embracing the rhythm in Sicily (and even more so in the minor islands) is something travelers aim to take back with them when they return home. Give yourself time to savor it and try not to overbook yourselves.
What was the thing you were most surprised by in your move, what did you least expect?
Living in Sicily is hard. It is also incredibly worth it. Italian bureaucracy is infamously complicated. Even going to the post office can end up ruining my mood for the rest of the day. But I didn’t expect to feel as at home as I do. My Greek background helps a bit with that, I blend in. When I first moved to Palermo and chose a rough-around-the-edges neighborhood as my homebase, the advice I was given as a single, foreign, female was to make friends with the shop owners around your house. They keep an eye out for me, this made me feel safe and looked after. The pandemic was rough as the travel/hospitality industries suffered like many others did, and it was hard to be isolated. I just had to keep telling myself and relearning that “you cannot control all of what happens to you, but you can control your attitude.” There’s always a bright side to look on. Sicily has taught me to treasure the little wonderful things as you face them, they add up to more than you might notice.
What piece of advice would you give to creative entrepreneurs who would like to move and build a business abroad?
Be patient with the process because it’s not as easy as it sounds. I can only speak for my experience in Sicily, but this is a place where learning the language is absolutely paramount. If you fall in love with a place, test it out by giving it more time. Try staying for a month or two and see what you learn. The vacation / honeymoon phase might end up being more realistic than uprooting your life and moving away but there’s only one way to know if it works for you.
I also love the idea of bringing fresh, new, entrepreneurial energy abroad. If you have the flexibility to work remotely, stick with your current job (and international salary), where you could have the opportunity to choose to live somewhere warmer, cheaper, and more inspiring. The newly released “Digital Nomad Visa” might help in this case or speak to an expert like Thea Duncan Prando (@doingitaly).
Just because you move abroad doesn’t make you a travel expert. The same way chefs earn respect and credibility over time and doctors need experience before treating you, I’ve learned that the businesses I admire most are those that have put in the work and earned the right to provide the services and charge the prices they do.
Lastly— how should a first-time visitor make the most of a trip to Sicily?
The best way to get a feel for the immense biodiversity, regional cuisine, and layers of history is to design your trip with a bit of city life and some nature. If you MUST go to Taormina, then make sure to see Mount Etna or the Aeolian Islands as well. From Palermo, take a day or two to head west to see the salt pans, the coastal nature reserves, or out to the farm-to-table cooking school in Regaleali. Or with a base in Noto, you can visit wineries in the southeast, archaeological sites or the most complex collection of Roman mosaics in the world.
Grazie Linda!
Linda is available as a private chef, for retreats in luxury villas, cooking on sailboats, and curating food & wine experiences. She also leads gorgeous sailing trips through the Aeolian Islands! She is a two-time author of the Southern Italy and Sicily MOON Travel Guides, with a third book on the way. To learn more about The Cheeky Chef, visit her website or follow her updates from Sicily on Instagram at @thecheekychef.
Ready to travel to Sicily and/or other parts of Italy? Italy is the country I know best, having previously lived in Florence and returning every year to explore. Contact Wandernest to book your travel to Italy, and for a full itinerary design for your stay.
What an inspiration. The Greeks and the Sicilians share a culture - actually Sicily owes more to Greece than to Northern Italy.
Let’s go!!!! xo