Sicilian Diary

Our Gambas PilPil are going strong at the moment. Most of our customers have realised that tapas are not Mexican (they confuse them with tortillas, since we have of course, the Spanish potato omelette on the menu), and that they are nothing to be afraid of (Sicilians are most distrustful of any food other than Sicilian). Gambas Pil Pil are really easy to make, but as you will see in the photo, we have the advantage of having the wonderful pink Mazzara prawns freshly off the boat ... Just sauté the prawns (they need to be big, as they shrink in size in the pan) in their shells with some olive oil, white wine, garlic and fresh chili pepper. Our Garbuglie di Venere are a favourite too, and have been going strong since the summer. Fresh pasta (like linguini - which is dry pasta), with vongole (clams) tossed in the pan with fresh tomato, and a handful of rocket and slivers of parmesan to serve. The combination in delicious. Another favourite of the moment which goes well with a glass of Ner...

My favourite Aeolian island is Stromboli - no street lighting, at night you wander the streets guided by the white washed walls and starry skies with night-blooming jasmine perfuming the air. By day - swimming between black sand coves with crystal clear water, spotting Strombolicchio rising up out of the water 2km off shore, with the majestic Stromboli volcano always at your back. We were on Salina island at harvest time for the malvasia grapes - delicious dessert wine. The vineyards cover the lower slopes of the extinct volcanoes in between sprays of bougainvillea, caper bushes, olive groves and lemon trees.

There are rubbish collection problems again here. Piles of stinking plastic bags on top and on either side of the skips all over town. A weeks' worth of rubbish. They are every 100 metres or so, along some of the main squares in the centre, and there is one on the other side of the square outside our restaurant. Hope we don't get rats! Just to remind us we are in Sicily, which is not exactly Europe. Last night started quiet. The only customer we had around 10pm was Gianni Moro, the harmonica player. He was laughing at how people now think it is cold (it was around 16 degrees during the day, and then at night the damp made it cold - bone cold but not snow cold.) I poured him a massive rum accidentally and was about to say something about it, but then thought oh well, it is just one and he is keeping us company. But when I was off seeing to other customers he asked mio marito for a second one, and then complained that it wasn’t as big as his first. Sneaky. I was distracted by his...

You never know what the morning might bring. Which is why it is always good to go out for a coffee in Sicily. Yesterday I went to English Bar and the sweet elderly father was sitting in his usual seat with the newspaper, meeting and greeting 'Buongiorno Dottore! Arriverderci Avvocato!' (Italians make much of professional titles, so you are referred to as Doctor, or Lawyer directly). His daughter, who was on the till, was reading out a postcard from New York so I looked up and said something, being the only customer at that moment. It was cosy there, my cappuccino perfect and the apple pastry freshly baked. She asked me was I American, in English, and I replied that I was irish. She sighed that it was so important to travel, always travel, that their cousin had gone to NY for capodanno. She said she had lived in Canada, until she was 9, then came to live in Milazzo. Her husband had lived for several years in Manchester, hence calling it English bar. He was the smiley bushy grey ...

Last night began well with several tables of returned customers who came to dine. The kitchen ran smoothly, and all the customers dined well. I was delighted to advise some vegetarian customers and see that they enjoyed my bessara Moroccan soup. Just before midnight the place started filling up; the sideroom was taken over by a table of 15 – regulars who had been in during the week and whose drinks I am beginning to know, and groups of 4 and 6 starting taking up the tables in the room upstairs and in front of the bar. But as usual, they all arrived together, and the waiters had to go into overdrive finding tables and chairs and rearranging seating as people lingered in any free space available hoping we would find them a table out of nowhere. At one point when a table of 6 was hanging on for a table, a girl asked if we had a table for 17! A stressful two hours of keeping an eye on tables in the three rooms, reserving tables as soon as they became available, lifting chair over heads ......

Last night was jam packed. We had a singer-songwriter present his new album and all his mates came from the next town. You can tell they are from the next town because they drink more, are more hippy-looking and actually dance and get a bit drunk. The locals in our town are usually too uptight to let their hair down and risk making a brutta figura by dancing or doing anything that might attract attention. They don’t drink as much either, though we sense some of them take cocaine. Loopy Lucia came up to me with her eyes burning bright and asked me for a shot of vodka for herself and her boyfriend. But they were jigging around like they needed to go to the bathroom, so I said go to the toilet first and then I’ll pour you your shots. But they said, ‘We were at Blue in town but the toilets were dirty and we couldn’t use them. So now we are desperate. But we’ll have the shot first.’ There is the strange and suspicious tendency here of going to the toilet with your partner. Couples disappear...

Yesterday I went down to the capo again where something good always happens. I took my time going down through the sunny olive groves and macchia mediterranea covering the cliff, and when I got down to Venus’s Pool, there was a blond lady in swimming, in her late 50s or so, her husband just got out of the water when I came down. She was there like Venus, herself. She was enjoying having the pool to herself, it was a moment like that in the Dolce Vita when Anita Ekberg prances around in the Trevi fountain. She said it was a bit cold but worth the thrill. Who was there but the lovely boy I met in the early days when we had just opened. He works in Brussels in immigration. Little by little it came back to me. The was girl smiling in the sun on the rock where I had been yesterday, was his sister – who has an Irish boyfriend, and lives with him in London, as it turns out. He said but when you come back here and find this splendour, beautiful weather in December and the capo you think of c...

It is boiling here with the scirocco wind blowing over from North Africa. I made mulled wine last night and the people said it was too hot for it! It was also a bit bitter unfortunately. Need less orange and lemons and more sugar and cinnamon. People greet each other clutching their stomachs and moaning about how they have overeaten again, but still compare notes on what was on what they had to eat! We are now known as the communist bar apparently. In Italy the distinct political factions formed in WW2 have remained, though communist does not hold the Eastern Europe connotations it would have in the rest of Europe. It basically covers anything from left of centre, to anti-establishment to bohemian lateral thinking. I wonder is it the world music that we play sometimes, or the South American artisan crafts on the walls, or the tapas we serve or what, exactly, has gained us this reputation? The other night a hippy smiling crowd who ordered special spritzes from me and then the best Scot...

We closed on Christmas Eve as that is when families get together for the big dinner here in Italy and exchange gifts. The nonni (grandparents), zii (aunts and uncles) and some cugini, along with the sisters-in-law and the kids packed into my in-laws’ kitchen. The big tree tastefully decorated in the corner, and a fabulous crib mio suocero made out of driftwood found on the beach and volcanic stones collected over the years sat on the dresser adorned with the usual nativity scene figures, plus little animals, and villagers cobbling shoes, carrying milk pails, forging horseshoes. The starters were laid out on the table. Everything was based around fish. Tasty marinated anchovies, smoked salmon and rocket, whitebait fritters, olives from the garden. This was followed by a fresh prawn and asparagus risotto, and then some grilled and oven-baked fish – San Pietro, one of my favourite (similar to John Dory), bought from the fishermen just in off the boats in the morning. Wonderful big chunks...

For Festa dell’Immacolada we went up the hills, even though we were working last night. Lovely colours on the hills, yellow and golden in the midday light, then stark purple grey shadows silhouetted against the sky at sundown. Amazing stripy sunset. Ruins at the corner of a scenic path with loads of bamboo and olive trees and mandarin and orange trees, the orange trees seemed to guide the path and then fell like a carpet down the green steep banks of the jagged valley. Old ruins of a farmhouse, with the outer shell still standing and quite grand but inside looked like there had been a fire. Roof and walls inside made of bamboo for insulation. Another outhouse had the stairs still intact though we proceeded with caution and got upstairs, wonderful views. Down another road we came to the Duke of Avarna’s village, 'Gualtieri Sicamino'. A whole street for him, with school church, and a long low row of houses with a few more behind, and then opposite, houses on three streets called...

The one good thing about not working so much in this off-peak time is that we get to travel more. Had beautiful weather. We wandered the windy damp streets of Ortigia, the island on Syracusa, the narrow streets and concealed courtyards of the Jewish quarer, past magnificent churches, along to the huge gleaming square of the magnificent cathedral, Saint Lucia's basilica and down towards the water, to the fonte di Aretusa. Legend has it that a nymph called Aretusa, who was one of the Nereids of Greece, fled to Sicily after the river-god Alpheus fell in love with her, but was then changed into a fountain (the Fonte Aretusa) by Artemis. The Greeks are present in the amphitheatre (which we had all to ourselves - perfect) and the huge rock cave known as Dionysius's Ear, where we whisted and called and heard our echoes come back with the amazing acoustics - leend has it that Dionysius used the cave as a prison for political dissidents, and by means of the perfect acoustics eavesdroppe...

I went to the a bar in the centre with the Irish girl last night. On the way we passed two men who come to PM and they gawked over taking a second look. They started laughing when they realised it was me and that they had been caught out. Sono irriconoscibile senza il mio marito, lo so, (‘I’m unrecognisable without my husband, I know’) I said. I feel a bit like in prison here. It was so great to go out. The whole pub stopped when we walked in. Everyone stared. Mad Max was on the sax with the trumpeter and a couple of other musicians. Lost in their jazz moment. One fo the men we had passed on the street came in and took my hand and danced with me. The trumpeter came over at half time. So are we going to do this thing or not? For sure, I said, I’ve sent you an email of songs. He said he’d contact the guitarist. We’ll see. Anyway, Mad Max said the same, are we going to do this thing? He asked, and I said, sono pronta! Amazingly he called mio marito today to get to talk to me (he wouldn’t ...

Mio marito is now happy to blame the aiuto-cuoco’s departure on me. Because the latter brings it all back to me telling him coldly (?) ‘senza battere ciglie’ (without batting an eyelid) apparently, that he would have only two days the next week. I remember clearly that day last week when mio marito asked me to tell them that. Business was so slow we decided to close three days, and have the cuoca the four days we were open, and the aiuto cuoco the Friday and Saturday. He knew they wouldn’t like the news and he got me to do it. And he also knows that my way of expressing is not his way, which is Sicilian and therefore more acceptable. Ah sure just blame the badly spoken foreign wife sorry she wasn’t more delicate. The aiuto cuoco simply couldn’t take the bad news from me, and now uses me as the excuse so he can get his job back. Of course he didn’t talk to me about it. Just explained his trauma to mio marito who tells me, oh by the way, the aiuto cuoco is back …

Just had a hilarious salsa lesson and a half. The instructor went through the basic steps – God how many times have I seen them now? And we danced in lines facing the mirror with some Shakira like girls wiggling and stroking their hair. We laughed a lot though. The instructor talked a lot to my English-speaking companions (from the language school) at the beginning and joked that we didn’t understand him much. But as soon as I walked in there was a nice couple who have come to the locale a few times. So they said ah she is also Irish but really now she is a milazzese so the owner said who are you and who is your husband?! Can I not go anywhere and be greeted for just myself? I said we had had the idea of having a Caribbean night or tango night and would they be interested and he said they already did it with the another bar near us. I didn’t know it was they who organised it. But he said they were interested in getting the most exposure possible. I said the room upstairs was fairly big...

It’s been a while now since we’ve had any major staff problems, so of course something had to come up. The aiuto cuoco wanted to talk last night. Horrible to have these aggressive talks at the beginning of the night. He said two days a week wasn’t enough and for him he was doing ‘extra’. Like when cooks are called upon to fill in for someone else. I knew he was too subversive to last long. Muttering quietly to his friends in the corner. Anyway, he threatened that he wouldn’t be here next week if we didn’t start paying him a lot more for the two day week. Mio marito calmly said that this was just the second week it had had happened, that we were doing our best but the situation had changed dramatically, and that in any case he had done 6 days a week for two months when he had only wanted three or four days week. So now he has two days less instead of two days more but in any case it would all even out. ‘I’d rather be at home’ he said, 'than do just two days a week.' Well stay a...

Loads of food got thrown out yesterday. It is the cooks’ job to manage the food. I asked on Sunday about everything in the fridges and the cuoca went through everything. And still the chicken had to be dumped. I spent DAYS on that menu trying to minimize wastage, we gave them the cooks the raise they wanted and what are the results? It was very quiet last night and the cuoca was supposed to cook the cozze (mussels) because they had been there two days in a bucket of water but wouldn’t be good the next day. But she didn’t do it – and today they had to be dumped as they were starting to open their shells. It’s no good just asking them to do things: you have to actually then check that they have done it. And they really hate it when I check on them … They ordered 3 or 4 more packs of potato chunks for the patatas bravas but unfortunately mio suocero bought the wrong kind. So when an order came for patatas bravas they were about to send the waiter off saying there were none; but I remember...

Last night on TV all the news programmes were about the trans scandal. A top politician was filmed going to a transsexual in Rome, a guy who is married and has kids. Who cares, I said? Let him do what he wants in his free time. Most of the trans are Brazilian. That I do remember in Brazil, you see quite a few about the place and not a bother on them. For the World Social Forum last January they put on a show or did a parade, we were having a drink at the Café da Republica right where it was all happening and the café was full of them flirting around and joking and fluttering their fans and pushing their boobs up and no one batted and eyelid but rather enjoyed the craic with them, one was getting photographed in a marquee in a shiny shimmery outfit. Also in Spain it is quite common in the underground life there – as Almodovar films have shown. But I haven’t seen it much in Italy so far. But it apparently now is an underground trend. Last night one famous trans was getting interviewed on...

The restaurant and bar are a lot quieter these days, so we have decided to close Monday to Wednesday. Such a difference after the stress of summer. This morning I sat by the boats at Vacarella, the fisherman’s port. Bright sunlight over the mountains behind the bay lighting up the sky blues and whites of the fishermen’s boats all hoisted up just out of the water. I passed the fishermen in their rolled up socks over their trousers, some in wellies selling plump silver fish, looked like all had the same stuff. Spilling the guts on to small tables, with cats snooping around for leftovers. Elegant motor boats with two mates hanging out together, on the tourist pier, and then a fisherman rowing out to the slightly bigger fishing boat and setting off, a lone figure at the helm. Silvery light on the water and a boat coming in was stamped liked a dark print on the horizon, one plump beer belly and a young boy went past, two dark figures in relief. The wakes from the boats sending back ripples ...

Our cameriere has the waitress way, ‘cosa volete ragazzi, sieti pronti?’ 'what are you having guys, are your ready?’ They know where they stand with her direct approach. It takes me ages to understand and write down all the extra ingredients they want in ther panini. I got caught with a bunch of Panini customers who wanted to know all the different kinds of ham and meats available, words I find hard to pronounce since I am not a meat-eater. I struggled through the tongue-twisting list: prosciuto crudo, prosciutto cotto, salami, bresaola. Then I said excuse me to lift the big yellow menus from the table, but the girl didn’t move much, just kept gassing away. So the big floppy menus passed close to her face, and I said excuse me again, smiling pleasantly but she just made a face as if to say how awful. I took their meaty made-up Panini order to the kitchen. As if the wonderful split pea soup with toasted cumin and chilli pepper will ever be requested. There was a surplus of mushrooms...

A day of understanding or learning about communication … in Italy, or in Sicily. At the hairdresser’s … in one of the numerous dreadful hair mags and glossies there was an article on communication. It was for owners of hairdressers and dealing with their clients but related to general terms really. How so easily instead of communication we can create a misunderstanding, and how easily it can be remedied if you just say, forse ho capito male, o forse non mi sono spiegato … it is these details of polite discourse that I still haven’t got my tongue around, so important in Italy for the bella figura and to protect the delicate Sicilian anima from offence. Take time, advised the journalist, to think whether your prejudices or preconceived notions have influenced your comment. Ma non hai capito cio che intendevo dire is what is heard most often (‘But you haven’t got what I mean!) It is true even among themselves I think Italians misunderstand each other more than we would. Do you see what I ...