Sicilian Diary

My accent has been Sicilianised. All traces of the Tuscan are gone. I heard it when a fake Milanese (the Sicilians who go to Milan for work and acquire the Milan accent because it makes them feel superior) asked for a Curuuna. A what? Do you mean a Corona? But what I heard myself say sounded like Cohrawna, with the typical broad Sicilian vowels. Probably akin to a Castlederg accent if you are from Tyrone. Oh dear. But having a more local accent helps when dealing with the locals. They understand me better. It makes me less foreign to them, less daunting. I can rattle off the house antipasto without batting an eyelid (la parmigiana, la caponatina, involtini di zucchini, melanzani ripieni, cozze al limone …), tell you what meat you can have in your panino : bresaola, carpaccio di manzo, prosciutto crudo o cotto. These words are a struggle for me since I don’t eat meat and so don’t actually know what the ham in question is like. But I sound convincing. Likewise I am most convincing on the...

We're putting up a huge billboard advertisement with this picture of our paella at the motorway exit for Milazzo for the next two weeks. Let's hope it lures some tourists up from the port.

Heard a couple speaking in French last night on the terrace so went over to see if I could help, but it turned out they were from here but lived in Switzerland and spoke in French for the benefit of their two young children. (they picked up one of our cards in a bar at the port -yeah! our publicity efforts work!) They said there was no way they could come back and live here. ‘In Switzerland things work,’ said the man. ‘When you ask for something, you get it straight away.’ Not like here, of course. We have the wonderful Norman/Spanish/Arabic castle on our doorstep here in the borgo antico, but since its opening (after two years of closure for reconstruction work), nothing has been made of its fabulous atmospheric spaces. Mio marito proposed, at a recent meeting with a town council member, that concerts and plays be put on in its amphitheatre space. The meeting was about what ‘rules’ would apply this summer for the running of locali in the borgo; opening hours, hours when music could b...

Here are some photos of Milazzo's castle with its symbol grafted on to one of the outer walls; the volcanic island of Stromboli; and our gamberi in tempura and our famous paella!

Today is the first day of August and I wonder will there suddenly be a huge surge in clients like there was last year. I have already noted a few returned faces. W have dj music on Thursdays, Fridays and Sundays throughout August so that will no doubt bring in the punters, and damage my eardrums. Last night the cameriere called me discreetly from the till. He had two bottles of wine in his hand so I thought he wanted to consult on which to bring to table. But no. His beady eye had spotted a sneaky cockroach on a table at the back of the room. Luckily no one was sitting nearby, and the dirty thing was brown in colour rather than the brighter pink-red they can sometimes be. SO it was camouflaged. We just had to get rid of it without anyone noticing. He gave me the two bottles of wine and went to grab it with a napkin. Ugh. It slipped off the table and scuttled towards the steps to the kitchen. But he got it just in time. Good for him. I took lots of orders for paella last night. Our ads ...

Last night, Friday night, again our aiuto cuoco is off – this time at a theatre performance where he plays a crucial part in the play apparently. We are going to have a serious talk to him about responsibility tonight. Then our waiter asked us for a loan of €2500 at the end of the night. What? What do these people think we are made of? Do they think that having 4 or 5 tables a night with moderately priced food and then selling cocktails for a few hours puts us in a position to offer bank facilities? Don’t they realise that we have big overheads? That we constantly pay, then owe then pay then owe our suppliers? He wanted the money to buy a scooter! These Sicilians ragazzi have not learnt basic work and responsibility ethics (I blame the indulging parents). Mio marito explained that the thing to do was save his wages and in October he would be able to buy a scooter. But he wants to go to Ibiza in October he says, on holiday. Ah yes, but at the age of 20 you can’t have it all, my friend. ...

Cauldron took down the sexist advertisement. Result! The Donne Libere organised a petition-signing event for the ad to be removed, and one of the members held an interview with the director of the company on national radio, where he completely embarrassed himself. He offered a kind of written ‘apology’ where he said you can see worse images than these on Italian TV every day and on the promenade at the seafront in Milazzo! As if sharing the blame released him from responsibility … He also said that if the ad were placed in bigger, more cosmopolitan cities such as Torino, Milan or Rome, no one would bat an eyelid as the residents would understand the irony … yes, he entirely missed the point and didn’t learn much from his mistake. The billboard now shows a family picture of mother and young daughter flashing white teeth at the camera in the understanding that the husband/father is off installing the solar panels … yes, progress is limited here.