"Giuseppina Azzolina wins the 'Entrepreneurship and Management' Award 2025" 🏆
A deserved recognition that the 25-year-old from Castel di Lucio dedicates to her family and to the Territory
Halaesa Nebrodi 05/10/2025 0
Recognition for Youth Entrepreneurship to an Operator of Halaesa Nebrodi
The current year continues to hold pleasant surprises for the Territory, for GMT™ Halaesa Nebrodi, and for the Operators who are part of it.
After recently telling the story of Elisa Cerrito and the Il Melograno Farm in Motta d'Affermo, which won a prestigious award in the field of beekeeping ([link to the article]), on October 4th, another young entrepreneur from Halaesa Nebrodi received an important recognition. She is Giuseppina Azzolina from Castel di Lucio, who was awarded in the context of the fourth edition of the "Una di tante" (One of Many) competition, organized by the Pro Loco of Nicosia.
Giuseppina Azzolina and her kiosk, "Al passo di Eolo" (At the pace of Aeolus), won the award in the Entrepreneurship and Management section. This important recognition was assigned following the suggestion of the Mayor of Castel di Lucio, Giuseppe Giordano, who in this way wanted to give due and deserved credit to the very young 25-year-old entrepreneur from Castel di Lucio. We recall that in the previous edition, another entrepreneur from Castel di Lucio, Franca Sacco, was awarded for her activity in the dairy sector, and in the same year, the Entrepreneurship and Management award was assigned to the entrepreneur from Mistretta, Maria Grazia Insana.
A Choice of Heart and Courage
Like many young people her age, at a certain point in her life, Giuseppina found herself at a crossroads: leave or stay? The love for her land, for her family, and for her town became determining factors in her difficult choice. Her decision was firm: Castel di Lucio, a mountain town of just over 1200 inhabitants perched on the Nebrodi Mountains, has been and will continue to be her home.
"A courageous choice, far from obvious, that has had an important impact on the entire community," underlined the Mayor during the award ceremony, "because with her gesture, she has restored dignity to the town."
The Birth of "Al passo di Eolo"
Giuseppina's family owns land a few minutes from the famous land art installation, The Labyrinth of Ariadne (Il Labirinto di Arianna), a highly frequented destination that is part of Fiumara d'Arte, Europe's most extensive open-air contemporary art park. On this land, located on a knoll exposed to the four winds with a breathtaking view, Al passo di Eolo was born in 2021, a small family-run kiosk where Giuseppina and Mimma, her dynamic mother, manage the kitchen and welcome guests.
From its beginning, Al passo di Eolo has stood out for its menus, a triumph of Sicilian cuisine: from cutting boards of fresh cured meats and cheeses to more substantial dishes like sandwiches with sausage and ricotta. There is no shortage of sweet delicacies, such as fresh cannoli, all served with refreshing drinks or a good coffee. The dishes are often presented on unique wooden cutting boards, hand-carved in the shape of a labyrinth, adding a special touch to the experience. Even on the cutting boards, there is, in a way, the family's mark, as they are handcrafted by her carpenter father who, obviously, also created all the wooden structures.
From that moment on, Al passo di Eolo became a genuine reference point for the territory and for the town of Castel di Lucio because, as the Mayor recalls, "it creates Value by uniting Art, Territory, and high-quality gastronomic Products, but it is also an important information point serving travelers."
"My award comes from a long way, the result of great sacrifices and supported by the closeness of my whole family," an emotional Giuseppina recounts. "I decided to stay and invest in the Territory, and it is to the Territory that I dedicate this award."
Beautiful words full of meaning, which aim to be an example for those who want to make their Territory their Home.
You may also like...
Riccardo Zingone 26/10/2024
The GMT Halaesa-Nebrodi: Ten Months On – Let's Take Stock-Sicily
The Instagram and Facebook pages of GMT Halaesa-Nebrodi are growing steadily, a sign of continued interest in this pioneering territorial tourism development project. Its aim is to transform our area, our municipalities, and our people into a tourism destination.
Encouraging Data and Organic Growth
In parallel, very encouraging data is coming from the halaesanebrodi.it website, both in terms of access numbers and national and international distribution. I'd like to emphasize that these figures haven't been influenced by specific promotional campaigns, which are still planned. Instead, they are purely the result of spontaneous access, fueled by word-of-mouth and the quality and quantity of the published content.
Thanks to the meticulous work of promoting operators, events of tourist interest proposed by the municipalities, and highlighting our "ambassadors" – people who share our territory's story in Italy and worldwide – our website, with 35,000 accesses recorded in just a few months, has become the main showcase for Halaesa-Nebrodi's vitality.
Key Dates
I'd like to highlight some key dates:
- January 26, 2024: Project presentation in Mistretta during the conference "The Culture of Hospitality in Inland Areas."
- April 29, 2024: Presentation of the website and initial operators in Castel di Tusa.
- May 21, 2024: Project presentation to local Proloco associations in Motta d'Affermo.
- September 21, 2024: Presentation of the Action Plan to the Mayors of the territory in Castel di Lucio, along with the first numerical and statistical data from the halaesanebrodi.it website.
The Path Forward: Vision, Sharing, and Perseverance
Over these ten months, we've launched and developed an innovative, exciting, forward-thinking, yet complex and challenging journey. After all, presenting oneself as a tourism destination is no simple matter: it requires vision and sharing, professionalism and perseverance, trust and patience, humility and courage. And love for one's territory and community.
Andrea Succi often says that the Culture of Hospitality doesn't equate to tourism, but it is its prerequisite. Therefore, it becomes crucial for each of us—whether an economic operator or a mayor—to change our approach to the world of tourism.
It's clear that our territory, our people, our tangible and intangible assets, and our culture deserve a chance for tourist, and thus economic, regeneration. This needs to come through a proposal that is relevant to our times, looks towards national and international markets, and is professionally structured and governed. These are topics that have been discussed for years, and now we can make them happen, but we must do it together.
The challenge is to replace the adversative conjunction "but" with the simpler and more reassuring copulative conjunction "and." This is neither easy nor guaranteed. The same goes for the adverb "together."
How You Can Contribute
- To those who patiently read to the end: I ask you to contribute to the project's growth, even through simply subscribing to the social media channels where GMT Halaesa-Nebrodi is present and sharing its content.
- To existing operators: I want to convey a message full of confidence and enthusiasm to continue; we are on the right path.
- To other operators reading this who want to learn more about the project: Please contact us, because the doors of GMT are and will continue to be always open.
- To administrators: Please continue to watch us, follow us, and support us with the same enthusiasm I've seen in your eyes and attitudes over these past ten months.
🔗 Right synergies always lead to beautiful things.
Riccardo Zingone 20/09/2025
Nino Mallaci, the Capramal Project, and his Messina goat salami
The Story of Nino's Goat Salami
To tell the story of the goat salami produced by Antonino Mallaci Bocchio—or Nino, as he's known to everyone—we need to take a big step back and listen to his history, which is rooted in an old family business dedicated to agriculture and animal husbandry.
"I come from a family of farmers and ranchers," Nino says. "I've always been fascinated by this world, which is rich in values and feelings, but also requires huge sacrifices."
As a boy, Nino split his time between school and the family business. After earning his surveyor's diploma, he decided to leave his studies to dedicate himself fully to the work, which at the time was primarily raising cows. "Our grazing lands were located between Mistretta, Cerami, and Agira, which required a lot of organizational and financial energy," he explains. In the late nineties, in his twenties, he and his father decided to build a barn on their land in the Calogno district, in Cerami but adjacent to Mistretta. Since then, all of his work has been focused there.
Like many livestock farms, Nino's also had goats and pigs. "I remember as a child," Nino continues emotionally, "I would often watch the preparation of various cured meats, including goat salami, which was made by mixing goat meat, naturally lean, with the leftover scraps from processing pork. I never forgot those flavors, those smells, and those healthy traditions. For a long time, I set a goal for myself to keep them alive through my business and my retail shop."
La Dispensa del Massaro and a Found Dream
Fast forward to today, Nino opened a store in Santo Stefano di Camastra, where he started La Dispensa del Massaro. The goal was to promote and sell cured meats from the Nebrodi Black Pig, a product of local excellence, along with select beef. However, the thought of the goats continued to "graze" in his mind, along with the project of bringing their related culinary traditions to everyone's tables.
At one point, Nino had the opportunity to buy a number of certified Messina goats, an indigenous breed with roots between the Nebrodi and Peloritani mountains, prized for the quality of its milk and the goodness of its meat.
"With the purchase of this flock," Nino says, "I felt I was close to realizing my dream, but I was also aware that I had to acquire more knowledge to be able to produce a quality cured meat that honored both tradition and modern standards."
He decided to attend a specific course in Alba, Piedmont, an area with a long and established tradition in raising goats and producing cured meats. After various experiments, he succeeded in producing his own goat salami, finding the right balance of compactness, resistance to slicing, preservation, flavor, and aroma.
A Product that is a Synthesis of Tradition and Innovation
Nino's long and complex journey, supported by his family, culminated on September 18th with the official presentation of the Capramal project in Santo Stefano di Camastra. The event was attended by administrators, technicians, friends, and curious onlookers, all drawn by this tasty new product.
The gastronomic experience of tasting the goat salami was enriched by specialties produced by other local businesses: the Spina Santa company from Nicosia, which specializes in producing goat cheese, and the Casaleni company, which has long offered excellent gastronomic products. Thanks to these synergies, it was discovered how the Messina goat salami is particularly enhanced when paired, for example, with sweet provola cheese and fig jam.
A perfect synthesis of the values expressed by the Messina goat salami is captured in the words of Dr. Serena Nigrelli, the agronomist who followed Nino during the bureaucratic process: "Nino's salami is one that should be savored with your eyes closed, because that's how we can grasp unique sensations that take us back in time."
All that's left is to wish Nino and his dream-come-true sincere good luck. The territory needs this energy, vision, and enthusiasm so that our beautiful traditions can transform from memories into concrete realities.
Contact info@halaesanebrodi fro more information.
Riccardo Zingone 16/08/2025
Mario Biffarella and Remembrances five years after his passing
I believe Mario had an absolute blast last night. He, who always maintained that the dead never truly die but observe us from the afterlife, from another dimension, I saw him sitting on the steps of his house, on a small street near the Church of Santa Caterina in Mistretta. He was watching, watching us, and watching himself.
His clever, deep, and gentle gaze, curious like the goblins he loved to paint, rested on the faces of those who, five years after his passing, had decided to accept the invitation from family and friends to attend a cool August evening dedicated not to his commemoration, but to his memory.
He had a blast, as I said. I noticed it when he was in stitches, listening to the words of his close friend, Tatà. Growing up with a person, sharing their battles, passions, bold and unconventional choices, their successes and failures, is the fertile ground where a sincere, deep, and timeless friendship germinates, grows, and matures. This is why Tatà, in talking about Mario, couldn't help but talk about himself. And vice versa. Mario, sitting on those steps, laughed and Tatà smiled, between one anecdote and another, as he spoke to us about Mario the boy, Mario the artist, Mario the philosopher, Mario the politician, Mario the "communist," Mario the writer, Mario the man.
At a certain point, however, Mario's amused expression changed, becoming more introspective. The scene was changing, and Mario was changing too. His son Alvaro took up his guitar, adjusted the microphone, and, along with Valentina, began to sing the first notes of "La canzone di Marinella," by that De André whom Mario, so long ago, had introduced to his own son.
Mario had sung De André over and over at home, during get-togethers, maybe even with his group, Gli Elfi, but now, hearing it sung by Alvaro, it moved him and, at the same time, pleased him. "Alvaro is really good," he thought to himself, as the magic of the music spread along the narrow street crowded with people. Then I saw him go down the stairs and play the last verse along with them:
"This is your song, Marinella Who flew to the sky on a star And like all the most beautiful things You lived only for a day, like the roses And like all the most beautiful things You lived only for a day, like the roses."
While Alvaro and Valentina continued their musical performance, Mario, Liria, and Ferruccio led us up the stairs into what is now a small museum. It holds paintings, sketches, writings, and various documents produced by Mario during his long artistic life, carefully preserved by his family in that treasure trove of material and immaterial culture that Tatà would like to turn into a Foundation. It is the studio-workshop where Mario unleashed his exceptional artistic sensibility, his ironic, sarcastic, irreverent, bold, and fascinating, yet also gentle, brush. The colors, the painted figures with their almost photographic appearance, the symbols and symbolisms, the gnomes, toads, open books, and faces have always struck me.
The Rimembranze exhibition will also be open today, August 16th, from 7:00 PM onwards. If you look closely, Mario will still be there watching, watching us, watching himself.
For more information: