When I was a child, behind my house there were almond trees as far as the eye could see. I used to eat tons of green almonds from the trees, the hull was soft like butter and the kernel still transparent and pulpy. We used almonds as bullets for our battles of children too. Once mature, we opened the drupes by beating the woody shell between two stones. At the end of the summer, the noise of the beaters, early in the morning, used to wake me up. With long bamboo poles, the head covered with a white tied handkerchief, all day long they would shake the branches of the trees to make the almonds fall on huge white tarps laid out on the ground. As a student, every spring I would return to Sicily from Milan by train. A 22 hours journey. The first thing I used to do as soon as I arrived at the Siracusa station was to go to the bar of the station and order a glass of cold almond milk. Spiced with a little cinnamon and half a piece of lemon peel, please! Grown up, who knows why... I have imagined an almond perfume.