Sicilian Diary

What were we greeted with upon our return from holidays but a coca cola fridge, with its red neon writing gleaming behind the counter and chrome finishing. This was not part of the original deal, I pointed out. Mio marito’s frind works for coca cola and I knew it was only a matter of time before he brought his multinational wheeler dealings into our restaurant. The deal was we would use coca cola bottles instead of cans and in return they would cover the costs of our black shirts with the Pachamana logo written on them, and of course a small coke emblem on the left hand side. But apparently the bosses had come to see our locale to gauge the potential coca cola exposure and had deemed the bar a perfect spot for their new mini-bar style fridge. But it upsets the symmetry of the white shelves and the neatness of the area behind the bar. Mio marito, strongly supported by the barman, think the bar area is still too bare. Nothing better than a coke fridge to fill the gap. The friend came in...

While I was having a coffee at the bar down the road a woman stopped at the next table, hand outstretched for money. To my surprise the three women immediately, though reluctantly, opened their purses, and the woman started praising them and blessing them for their generosity. She was a gypsy woman, but dressed in normal enough clothes for here, so I wouldn’t have known. You could tell from the way she spoke, pointed out mio marito. They gave her money because they will have been afraid she would put the mall’occhio on them (evil eye)! The most outstanding kind of news gets into the Giornale di Sicilia and the Gazetta del Sud. Both kind of tabloidy though they are the main papers of the region. The former today was delighted that the German woman has been elected as prime minister for Germany, she is rightwing and from former east Germany. 35000 road accidents since January as registered by police, and 900 fatalities, not to mention those seriously wounded. A third under 30. A terribl...

7.10pm and it is dark. The lights are winking at me across the water to the Refinery side and beyond. The old yellow church opposite our house is lit up. and separation. The only thing keeping me sane is the voice of Seamus Heaney I hear when I read his Stepping stones interviews about his life and poems. He is talking about where I come from and that keep me sane and lucid in this forgotten land. ‘Non ti esporre mai cosi’. That is what mio marito said: ‘never expose yourself’. I didn’t get it at first. I thought he meant only that I, the owner, shouldn’t get annoyed with the customers smoking. But he actually meant more than that: that I shouldn’t deal with the customers at all because they were Mafiosi. ‘That guy was in prison, for money laundering and arms trading,’ he said. I had been over once to the girl in the sideroom and said in surprise, ‘But you can’t smoke here.’ She had said sneakily, finding the excuse, as usual – that since there were ashtrays on the table she thought sh...

We interviewed a potential cook today. He was recommended by a friend of the family who said he had a good reputation. He made comments about how he worked in a restaurant all summer on Salina and served many insalatone (big salads) there. We wondered if this was a little dig (because we had gone to check him out a few weeks before, and had eaten insalatone!) I hardly recognized him. Tiny little Sicilian man, about 60. Sicilian men all seem to shrink as they get older, apart from those whose gut expands. He had managed the kitchen by himself all summer every day. So he has the energy. He assured us that he feels a strong sense of responsibility. Maybe when you are a cook and have a reputation you feel differently than our two aiuto cuochi. But he became reluctant when I explained the tapas etc.; he withdrew a bit and said he didn’t know the dishes and that it would be like starting a whole different technique at his age. That he had a career and his dishes. Which is the problem with co...

Last night it rained a lot around 10pm and so everyone came in to sit down rather than get a drink at the bar and go outside. I really don't see the point of table services for mere drinkers and think like in an Irish pub, get your drink at the bar and then go and sit down. We don't have cover or service charge for drinks, and there is always the risk that the table will leave without paying. Plus they never take more than one drink, and often have one drink between two on average. They came piling in looking for seats. One group of 13 I had to arrange and clean the table for questioned the bill of 50€. They had a few cocktails, something to eat and bottles of water. A group like that in Ireland would have generated double, if not triple the price. I heard them and went down with la cameriera to mio suocero on the till. He said he added on €4 for the service, since they ate salads and desserts and got drinks brought up to them. Mio marito was over like a flash, and said no, we ...

Today on way back from the Nebrodi mountains we stopped at a salumeria to get typical deli stuff. We were there about an hour as mio marito sampled and listened to the non stop talking man. Sicilians don’t market themselves as well as Tuscans, he said. He made us smell the oil he has freshly pressed. But I like the Tuscan oil better, the green spicy fragrance. ‘Oh, you just like Tuscan oil but experts say that that isn’t even the way good oil should smell!’ said my husband. Honestly I can’t say anything at all. Hmmm, but Tuscan oil must surely have something, as it is the most prized and exported in Italy. And he was thinking the same thing I’ll bet. There was a brochure about the local wheat festival with a guy driving an old Sicilian style horse and cart, the big yellow gypsy wheels and the old style dress, stripy shirt, waistcoat, neckerchief. In the inside page there was a rugged man, head leant back while he guzzled some wine. Things hadn’t changed much in that town, San Fratello,...

13 September 2009 Torrential rain and thunder and lightning. That is how the autumn introduces itself in Sicily. It started suddenly last night and guests were on the terrazza. I was downstairs and didn’t even notice. I always seem to miss the drama! The cameriere and mio marito moved the chairs and tables and the cameriera dealt with getting people inside while I was on the till and dealing with people downstairs. Il barman annoyed just about everybody last night. He has no social manners. All he is good for is simpering and kissing around the girls who come. He is probably trying to make us feel that he is indispensable because they come for him …. Mio marito says he always hears him telling people, no, fortunately this is not my real job, I work in the marina (he gets to wear a uniform). He loves saying that. When the torrential rain came down he was off in the bar next door with our glass of wine and the pasta cooked by the lady cook there who is now flirting with him … He doesn’...

The director of the English School asked me half joking if I would teach at the Oil Refinery. I’m thinking about it as I think it would give me another reality. An English pair of trainee architects doing stages here said it depended very much on the circumstances in which you meet Sicilians, because they were always treated really well when their boss took them to parties and introduced them to friends, but they noticed a kind of suspicion or disdain in general when in shops or cafes etc. I would meet lots of new people there – well, lots of men, as only men work there - an insight into the Sicilian male’s mind. Get me out of this borgo, get clients for the restaurant, a life of my own. You get free lunch, she said! We had blues music last night – the singer actually had a nice voice and nice way about him, not the usual big ego. The waiters were complaining that they couldn’t hear a thing, and the kitchen staff were laughing at how ridiculously loud it was. So I asked Gaetano, the ...

We went this morning for a coffee and granita etc at our local cafe. It is so hot didn’t even feel like the coffee really. While mio marito was outside under the awning a guy started chatting me up at the bar. Ciccio, my favourite café barista asked me how to say umbrella in Spanish because there were two Spanish girls outside and they were decorating the drink with cocktail umbrellas. So the guy goes, ‘sei spagnola?’ and I said yeah, not bothered to explain, it was too hot … He said his parents had just been to Barcelona and asked where was I from etc. So how long are you staying here? I said I lived here. For work, he asked? Yeah, I run a restaurant in the borgo. ‘But I’ve never seen you, are you in the kitchen?’ I said no, I run it. There you go again, the Sicilian male putting the woman in the kitchen! He didn’t seem too convinced, even when I said I ran it with my husband. Haha, Ciccio was laughing to himself taking it all in. Over our coffees we read that the mayor now wants to ...

We got away for a couple of days to Salina, thank God, after the mayhem of the last non-stop month. It is the third Aeolian island you get to on the boat, behind Vulcano and Lipari,distinctive because of its two huge volcano humps, like a camel. Salina was full of space and colourful beautiful flowers, mountain smells and shade from the two mountains, wonderful to drive round them on the scooter. Also cooler here, there was even a bit of cloud when we walked up the fern mountain, ‘monte dei Felci’. Winding awkward cliff paths down to the rocky beaches – you had to rent out big lilos to sit on over the volcanic rock, but the sea was so calm you could just lie on them in the sea. Stromboli is still more magical for me. But Salina is lovely for the space and colour and the amount of greenery and sprays of bougainvillea and jasmin and other bright Mediterranean flowers. We had the fabulous Sicilian speciality at the famous restaurant by the sea - da Alfreddo - the pane cunzato (condito in ...

Last night mio marito had a night off, so I was alone with a trial barman who just wants some experience. Ethnic Andrea came in; he runs an ethnic furniture store where we bought a lot of the lamps for the restaurant. He confided that he and his wife were basically finished and she wasn’t coming back from Argentina, where she had supposedly gone for the August holidays with their young son. He said he was flying out to Buenos Aires the next day with his other son from a previous marriage, to visit and try and come to an arrangement. She’ll probably have heart failure when she sees me, he said, she has no idea I’m coming! He had some saying, which he excused himself with me first (I think for being foreign, as opposed to the chauvinistic tone): ‘donne e buoi di paesi tuoi’ – get your women and your oxen from your own country. I smiled and said, don’t worry that can be easily adapted to ‘uomini’ instead of ‘donne’ (‘men’ instead of ‘women’). He was with Lurch from the Adams family, an ex...

Our friend Cristiano phoned in great excitement to tell us he had seen UFOs. Mio marito was jealous he didn’t see them. There have been a series of sightings along the peninsula and in a nearby small town over the last few years there have been many inexplicable occurrences, like sofas going on fire and mobile phones flying through the air for no apparent reason. Scientists suggest they are attracted by the volcanic energy here, and are probably coming in for closer observation of life on our planet. Recent sightings have been near open air restaurants along the coast, where groups of people have all witnessed the phenomenon thus giving credence to the whole thing. Not that much persuasion is necessary in this highly superstitious country. Our friend claims to have seen what other witnesses have experienced. A set of lights rising out of the sea at great speed, hurtling through the air towards him and making fast neat circles in the air and then retreating again, all in the space of 30...

One of our elderly mad neighbours came over for a chat while I was setting out the table on the terrace. He told me he and his family were from Rome and they were down here just for the summer. This is the man who threatened my father-in-law and told him he would ruin him! Because he didn’t like the fact that my in-laws had opened the first trattoria in the old part of town. But a few years later he cashed in on the new affluence that the burgeoning of new restaurants and bars brought to the borgo and now he rents out the bar next door to ours! He is trying to make amends I think, through me, the foreign daughter-in-law. ‘It’s not you who play the loud music, it’s that bar down the road that keeps us all awake,’ he said, nodding his head in that direction. I said yes, apparently the police have been calling in on them and telling them to stop around 2am. The other neighbour complains about them too, I said, Malvasia, who appears in his white string vest and raises his fists in the air ...

Finally September but the heat is still drastic. Everyone is tired of it. Everyone is exasperated. They keep talking about how August usually brings storms and the weather breaks but so far none of that has happened. Our house is still a greenhouse at night, the restaurant is still a sauna, the kitchen a furnace. I don’t know how the cooks bear it. Yesterday la cuoca was off with me because I left a note on various things to be done among which to clean under the cookers as requested – they left the stuff there even though I had asked them to clean, the clams and the bits of beans were still there. So unhygienic. You can’t even ask them to do their job but they take the huff. The problem is now la mamma is no longer there to do all the dirty work. The mousses were off on Sunday; I tasted a few and they were acidic with little condensation balls on top. How do they not see this? What does the Italian state do for Sicily? Nothing, said the group of espanoles from Valencia. They were marv...

This afternoon we said goodbye to the mamma (mia suocera), each of us sweating in the heat, the baby sweating in his nappy. My sister-in-law had the four year old by the hand, bags all packed, car stacked up for the migration to the north where she has found a teaching job. Emotional moment. Get a cook, said la mamma. Because those two chancers in the kitchen are going to try it on now. They know you need someone and will ask for more money. My younger sister-in-law (mia cognata) heard them saying this as she was going down to the kitchen yesterday; they were complaining about how they would have to come in earlier the next day and so would they get paid more. Well, if you want to get paid less for the days you show up at 6pm! Last night we opened a bottle of prosecco and got an icecream cake in her honour and there they all were, our Fawlty Towers crew, drinking to her health, the kitchen thinking how to turn to their advantage the new state of affairs and my husband and I wondering...

The last few days have been too hot to even go to the beach. I can’t stand being cooped up in the house any more with the limited aircon on, breathing in artificial air. The Sicilians get browner and I am getting whiter as I can’t even go out in the blazing sunlight it hurts my eyes even through the super strong sunglasses. There is nowhere to go. It is too hot to even go for a coffee under the blinding glare of the sun. And if I do go anywhere I will be spotted; by neighbours, clients, family, friends. If I go for a walk at the fisherman’s port, a swim at the levante beach or a coffee, mio marito generally knows about it before I am even home. Talk about neighbourhood watch! It is wearing me out. So today I went to the island of Vulcano, beyond the regard of the locals. I was safely there, browsing the touristy shops, enjoying a panino at the beach café and sweltering on the hot volcanic sand – the black sand burnt my feet – but got a quiet spot under some bushes away from the crowds ...

Now the most asked question has become, ‘Quando parti?’ When are you leaving? As the immigration of Sicilians back to their jobs up north begins again. Officially the end of th summer is in sight. Some friends told me with glee they had got teaching jobs up north. The bizarre thing is that there is no work for them in Sicily at all. Most of the teaching jobs are in the Milano, Torino and Veneto area where the economy is better there is more industry, higher population growth and … more need for teachers. One of the massive imbalances in Italy. My cugnata is one of these people. To keep up her points she has had to accept a teaching job in Torino, leaving her husband back here, and taking her one year old, and four year old with her, with the mamma in tow to babysit. Thus affecting three families; her own, her mother’s – leaving behind her husband on his own, and leaving us without our star cook! As my sister-in-law said, all the business she will give to the town in Torino – the food e...

A few tables were taken inside last night because of the 40 hooligans who were partying on the terazza. So I was serving a table and noticed a guy sit at table 5 in the corner, and he was watching me. So la cameriera took the order and I checked with it to see what it was and set the table. ‘Hai preso il carpaccio di pesce spada?’ I said, ‘hai fatto bene’. (Good idea to take the swordfish carpaccio)‘Sono stato bravo?’ he said, in that coquettish male way of seeking approval. All chat about how he was an actor in Roma and what was I doing here, and languages we spoke. When he heard I was Irish he spoke in English as he had studied at acting school and his English was good. ‘I love how you speak, it is very hot,’ he tells me. I was delighted at last at someone daring to flirt and I realized he didn’t know my husband was in the vicinity. ‘Your dress is lovely too,’ he said, ‘very frufru, it matches my eyes.’ A classic Italian male vanity moment. I couldn’t help but laugh. ‘Mine too,’ I re...

The latest ‘mafia’ activity: last night the police came to us at 1.30 punctually and got out of the car to make the group we had playing outside in the square stop. Mio marito ran out frantically to tell the band to stop, in fact the band were not amused and Daniele later was giving off to Salvo. We have no choice though, the group cost 300€ and probably only played an hour and a half for God’s sake, 1.30 is still the middle of the evening. Plus, the live music continued until 2.30 at the bars on either side of us, ON THE SAME STREET. I mean, what is that about? Who is it that has it in for us? Is it the police, or is it a resident? I was upstairs on the terrace and didn’t see them; I would have asked why we had to stop and the other bars didn’t. But mio marito says these are not questions to put to the police on duty. It could get you a fine. His friend Cristiano said to go to the police HQ tomorrow and ask to talk to one of his friends about it, just to ask for equal rules for all. B...

The summer is passing and mio marito and I have hardly had time to draw breath. Unbelievable that it is nearly the end of the summer. The most beautiful month lies ahead according to many Sicilians; September is lovely with fabulous sunsets and cooler air but lovely weather still and a mirror-like sea. Yesterday there were posers at table 3 on the terazza. A tall muscular guy with a mop of white hair and big grey sideburns and a t-shirt with graffiti phrases all over it. An attractive woman in a long dress with long flowing hair, and two blond twins in a pram and a curly blond 4 year old running around in the two terraces, with some friends. I was sweet to the little girl since she was playing with the candles - I told her it was dangerous and also annoying for us if she blew them out! Then she was eating salt directly from the salt cellar and the flashy father saw and didn’t do a thing. He didn’t do much for the kids which is why I wasn’t sure they were his. At the end I asked a frien...

No one is happier than an Italian on the beach on Ferragosto (Feast of the Assumption) with the towel stuck next to them of the next person on the beach. They all moan and pretend to be annoyed that the beach is so crowded but they love it really. Like those postcards of tacky resorts on the Costa del Sol. Oiled men and women wiggling around in skimpy bikinis and tight Speedos, all eyeing each other up and down to see who has the best tan and best boobs, remade or natural. All the usual useless beach chat, I so totally cannot be bothered with it. Mio marito likes it though and seems to need these social occasions outside of work and thinks they serve to ensure people come to us. It is true we have become the place to be for the summer two weeks … packed out and exhausting. We have worked three weeks non-stop without closing even a single night, in 40 heat. It is too much. It was never part of the deal that I would work through August! But it would be hard not to come in, with his mothe...

Madame cameriera came back last night, but was most unpleasant. When I arrived she was busy having a smoke outside with the other waitress we were trying out, and neither of them bothered to say hello, so engrossed they were in their gossip – probably about us. La cameriera’s low serious monologue, so convincing. The other waitress – I shouldn’t even call her waitress – had tried out a couple of hours the night before just to get a feel for things, but she had arrived in clothes that would have looked good in a club in Ibiza, but were just not suitable for serving tables. So today we gave her the black t-shirts the waiters wear, but half way through the evening she came up saying she was getting ‘bollicini’ little pimples on her chest, a heat rash. I could see no such thing, but you can’t force someone to wear something, so soon she was back flaunting herself. It’s just not the right image for the restaurant, I don’t know where she thought she was going. She dragged herself slowly up ...

It is about 40 degrees. I am melting. This is not the time for work, it is the time for being on holiday. This time last year we were staying with friends in the south east of Sicily at Pachino and we went to the beautiful white sand beach. We went to the Isola delle Correnti, beautiful white sand beaches where the water splits between the Ionian and the Mediterranean sea with a rocky formation in the divide where the lighthouse used to be. Later we went to the beach of San Lorenzo for aperitivo at sunset and the falò (bonfires) for the night of San Lorenzo. The bonfires lined the whole beach with group of friends standing round them, some singing with guitars, some drinking, others just lying back watching out for shooting stars. And this year? Staff troubles at the height of the season! Our cameriera announced ten days ago that she would not be here for the weekend of 7, 8 and 9 August. We were annoyed and said so, because it is one of the busiest times of year and we had no one to ...

All mio marito’s mates are back for the August holidays. They all congregate at the trendy beach bar, just like they did when they were teenagers in fact, most people are now in their thirties there. For them it is like going out, another occasion to chat, flirt, and eye each other up, with the added bonus that you have next to nothing on. My husband’s two recently separated mates try to convince us to go there but I can’t stand it for the posers and waxed men and overtanned people with ridiculous beads and designer hats and artificial crap. The beach is four lines of towels deep and you can hardly find a path to the water and it is WAY too hot, our house is a sauna. My mind is soggy cotton wool. At night I watch these proud arrogant people through the window by the till. The tacky girls in high wedges and mini skirts, chest exposed and bums sticking out. A bit like Brazil. The girls watch me, the exs talk about me watching slyly as I pass. I smile and look good, and interesting. We h...

Drama and melodrama continues in the heat. All the talk is of the ferragosto (the August bank holiday on 15th) and the return of the Milazzese who live abroad for the August holidays. At the same time la cameriera and others lament the fact that there are less people than normal because of the pollution from the sewage treatment plant and the rubbish problem. Our cuoca has had to take time off because her mother is unwell and she has to accompany her to Milano for an operation. The aiuto cuoco and mia suocera are convinced she is just making it up as she never said anything to them before about her mother. Whatever, we are one cook down and it is the peak time so we need to fin someone else. We interviewes a gril who responded t our ad on the internet and she seemed so promising but then ddn’t show up and we had to call her number. Her distressed mother replied that she had returned to her old employment (which she had told us she left because they were exploiting her, paying her as an...

Last night Lola Montez performed with a trio of musicians on the terrace: classical guitarist, bass guitarist and longhaired drummer (who looks like the typical rock drummer but assures me he plays reggae and ska and jazz). We have been rehearsing for a few weeks, and tonight was the deadline. A lot of the rehearsal time was spent with the guitarist and the bass player disagreeing over which chords to go for, and we didn’t rehearse even once with the drummer. I was concerned he would play loudly and drown out my soft singing voice, but not at all, he just completed the group perfectly. It was his idea in the first place; he had heard me singing a few weeks ago and suggested if I wanted to sing bossanova that he would find me the right group. Rehearsals were always a breath of fresh air in the stifling summer air; the guitarist has travelled far and wide with his guitar and had plenty of stories about his experiences, while teh bass player would make funny asides if he thought he was be...