Return to Lapari Islands in the Mediterranean

Susan Spano's search for ancestral roots leads back to the Lapari Islands in Italy, a place of deserted coves, pebbled beaches and massive cliffs. Article from the LA Times.

That's it, I thought, emptying a plastic bag of capers, the last of the little hoard I'd brought home last summer from the Italian island of Lipari. I've eaten capers many times without really knowing what they are: the immature buds of a shrub that loves heat and bright sun and grows in rocky crevices around the Mediterranean. I put one in my mouth and rolled it around. Its flavor was earthier and more intense than an olive, and its essence took me back to the island flung into the middle of the Tyrrhenian Sea, where the parched, volcanic soil yields little but capers and where my Italian grandfather was born.