Sicilian Diary

Christmas 2011

2012-01-08T08:56:00.000-08:00

During the week before Christmas I was speaking to Tuskani, a 17 year old Nigerian boy who is in a refuge in the borgo with other African boys. They came to Sicily by boat from Libya a few months ago. He has the most dazzling smile and pronounces my name better than any Sicilian. But his whole face changed when I asked him about his family. He told me he had no family left. His mother was killed in Libya during the civil war there this year. She was a Christian, he said, so he goes to church sometimes, 'to keep his soul clean'.

Another time we were talking he said he preferred American hip hop to African Music - he didn't know Ismael Lo, Baaba Maal, Cesaria Evora, Miriam Makeba - the great singers and musicians of Africa. He shrugged and said they were from other African countries. But he wrote down their names and said he would look them up on Youtube. His fate? He will stay in the refuge till he is 18 and then probably be moved to another holding centre, similar to a prison, until the government decide whether or not to send him back to Libya.

He was the first to with me a happy Christmas on Christmas morning - in English, that splendid smile lighting up his face.

La fiesta que tengo ....

2011-09-15T06:09:00.000-07:00

Aha! At last the music we play is starting to have its fans. Italians are usually pretty conservative where music is concerned, so I have dedicated much time since we opened to compiling playlists of music - world, jAZZ, Gypsy, flamenco fusion, hiphop, triphop, African, folk, singer/songwriter along with Italian, Sicilian and American/British/Irish songs which might be more familiar to their ears. While I was away mio marito had one of the playlists on and the DJ was fascinated with Amparanoia's 'La Fiesta que tengo'. He copied it and played it during many nights throughout the summer, but also at his slot at the beach. Next year he wants to do a 'Pachamama on the Beach' for sundown ... I have longed for the hip strains of flamenco fusion that gracefully accompany the puesto del sol on the playas de Cadiz .... but little other than Deep House seems to get through here. So it is a cause for celebration that Amparanoia is leading the way to more openminded appreciation of interesting music. And not only that, but to have chosen a song which is about empowering women, and which is now becoming our themetune! .. not that the DJ was any the wiser ....

August at the restaurant

2011-09-15T06:06:00.000-07:00

August was a good month for Pachamama. We have a nice returning clientele among the seafarers: captains of chartered yachts and caiques come up to us for the third summer running; Milazzese who have gone to live in the north of Italy or other parts of Europe come to dine. Many compliments this year, not one complaint. Wish I had been around to hear some of that! At last, our travaglio bears fruit. It is fun to see lots of people enjoying their cocktails to the sounds of the DJ you have hired, the river of suntanned bodies doing their summertime thing on the road outside, nights drift on until 4 or 5am when the mint from the last mojito is thrown away and couple straggle off into the nascent eastern dawn.

The polizia called once to deliver a hefty fine: it was 1.20am and the DJ was still playing. Indoors, it must be emphasized, since the four other locali in the neighbourhood had their live music on outdoors. But the police do not appear to differentiate between inside and out. Music must stop at midnight, and that’s that. We even risk having our music licence taken from us, they threaten, when mio marito points out that the music cannot be heard outside, so cannot be annoying the neighbours. The following week the music cut-off point is moved to 1am. Interesting. We appeal the fine, which amounts to something like three days’ work, at the weekend … But are simply told that we are fortunate our licence will not be removed since we were so prompt in the payment of the fine …

Now that the police have been doing the rounds of the neighbourhood doling out fines for cars parked in the borgo without the Residents’ Pass (all our staff get fined – they cannot get the Pass and there is little available parking anywhere near), and free parking in the centre has been stripped and parking meters set up all over town while traffic wardens swarm the streets – this freehanded fining can be understood: the Comune needs to make money, so what better way to do it than at the hands (pocket) of its citizens. Park and Ride? Multistorey carkparking? No such sensible solution. Nope. A fine is always a handier way out for the powers-that-be in Sicily.

Bichos in my bedroom ...

2011-09-15T06:04:00.000-07:00

Been back a couple of weeks now. The heat still hasn’t let up. After the greeny fresh air of Ireland, the grit and dust and humidity is particularly hard to bear. The locals are feeling it too; people are starting to fray at the edges, tempers simmer, the elderly moan about whether or not to use the air conditioning, fa male, they conclude, and turn it off to lean listlessly in their doorways, hoping for a gust of wind to reach them.

It’s the perfect clime for bichos of all sorts, and Via Montecastro has seen its fair share lately. On our first night back I hear shuffling; the merest hint of a noise, like paper being crumpled quietly – and nearly step on the cockroach as I enter the bathroom. A 2am chase after the scarafaggio ensues. I manage to daze it with spray then almost finish it off with a good whack from a brrom – but it is still alive enough to slither into the dustpan. I keep the lid on it until I get outside and shake it over the side of the terrace. But is that still more shuffling I can hear when I go back to bed? Oh yes. As if that’s not bad enough, the following night I wake with one on my pillow – a mere 10cm from my sleeping bambino’s head. Its antennae quiver at me, its beady eyes ogle. It’s HUGE, and red brown, so I know it’ll be camouflaged once it hits the floor. It doesn’t move as I shift bambino into his cot; luckily he doesn’t wake up during the hunt. This time it is more difficult. Who wants to cover their pillow with cockroach spray, or bang it with a dust-ridden broom? Desperate times: I spray anyway and the loathsome creature scuttles away into some dark corner of the room. I get my glasses, turn on more lights, keeping one eye on bambino to see if he stirs. Tricky: you don’t want to get too close to the creature, but you do have to discover which dark recesses are hiding it. So I’m down on my hands and knees poking with the brush, spraying under chests of drawers. It flits from one hiding place to the next, immune to my deadly spray – I then have to open the window to avoid intoxicating myself and bambino. But I get it with the broom in the hallway. Gross. I sweep the squishy mess into the pan and out to the terrace with it quick as I can. How hard is to sleep after that? Any more friends in the dark?

My neighbour, always the optimist, tells us how she missed my walking the bambino up and down the street (merely a pleasant preliminary), before launching into the details of her recent encounters with rats. On our street. One came right across our rooftop and into her house, apparently. Another was discovered by a little boy, under her chair. Sounds like a joke; ‘Scusi, signora, there’s a rat under your chair!’ She wasn’t able to move, so mio suocero came to the rescue; one nifty clout with his foot finished it off.

Mosquitoes are in their element.

All in all, I’m just delighted to be back.

pushy policeman

2011-07-03T03:26:00.000-07:00

Ha! spoke too soon on the police-visit front. We had the polizia (different from the carabinieri) in on Friday at 1.30am when the dj was still playing (inside). Our waiters had been checking all night outside and were sure the music could not be heard past the wall five metres in front of the locale, where all the punters sit with their drinks. Plus, the live music OUTSIDE the bars just down and just up the road would have drowned it out. But the polizia probably couldn't be bothered to make their way up the steep hill to the next bar, so they stopped at ours. As usual. This hugely overweight policeman and his sidekick were in plainclothes, so we didn't have the chance to spot them and stop the dj. They asked had all our staff got contracts, did we have permission to play music in the bar and various other questions along those lines. We do have all our papers in order, even though this lazy poliziotto didn't even bother to check. He was just interested in finding a way to give us a fine. Fines must be evidence to their superiors that they are doing their duty. As he was filling out his form he asked what the name of the restaurant was. He didn't even know! That proves, though, that the police had not been called to go to us on a complaint from neighbours about the noise levels. The phonecall is what generally sends up the carabinieri. Mio marito protested that everything was in order and the speakers were turned inwards so as not to project the music outside, so there was no way it was causing 'nocturnal disturbance', as the plump policeman was alleging. But the policeman had latched on to the fact that our music permit is only for live music up to midnight - which is prolonged to 1.00am in summertime, though the policeman wasn't aware of this. He told mio marito he would have to present himself on Wednesday morning at the police station, for 'una fesseria' - a token fine, just to prove the policeman had been out doing his rounds. Mio marito didn't know at the time that the live music continued until 2.00am at the bar just up the road, or he might have protested. Last year we wouldn't have wanted to get other bars in trouble, but the bar up the road seems to be immune to police visits. Partly becasue of the owner's connections, but also because it is up a steep incline packed with revellers, and not so enticing for police to have to have to push their way through. Much more convenient to give us a fine and be done with the beat.
Can the police themselves not be reported for not doing their duty properly here? Instead of stopping the live music outside which does annoy the residents, they stop at the first bar (with most people outside) and waste our time and money when our music doesn't annoy anyone, and we make a point of not having live music outside, not even on the beautiful terraces at the back. The plump policeman even made a joke on his way out that since there were so many people outside the bar, we should have to pay for the use of public space. Mio marito smartly retorted that not all the people outside had got their drink at our bar. The policeman just trying to push his power around. It's as if they want to punish us for the fact that the bar is now doing well - due to very hard work on our part. As if my husband has nothing better to do on Wednesday morning. As if there aren't loads of drug dealers, mafioso wheeler dealers and thugs around on a Saturday night whom the police would be better-off investigating. Too much effort. Especially in this heat, and with so much pasta in your belly.

Friendly carabinieri!

2011-06-26T04:10:00.000-07:00

We haven’t even had any hassle from the carabinieri this year – touch wood. They have called in a few times on their beat, but fortunately on both occasions the dj had just stopped so there was no music on. But we can’t really be faulted on that since we have music inside only, while the four other bars within a 100metre radius all have live music outside … which doesn’t go down well with the neighbours. It is completely illegal to play live music at the volume they do, in a residential area, but this hasn’t stopped anyone until now.

The mayor called a meeting of all the bar/restaurant owners and said we were to be mindful of the neighbours and keep the music at a lower volume – but it wasn’t a definite prohibition, certainly not enough to prevent any of our competitors from having live music at the weekend. The mayor says he will now be responsible for issuing permits for live music etc, which is as it should be, but we are not convinced he will be attentive to the other borgo issues. The rubbish collection problem was not mentioned. Stagnant overflowing skips festered all week across the road from our restaurant, the fetid stench invading our front terrace and bar. And there is never any street cleaning. The scirocco south eastern wind has been blowing up dust, sand and dirt for a month now and the streets are filthy with litter, but still no street cleaning. The dirt gets into the house as well, even with shutters; it’s enough to leave the window open for half an hour to have a layer of dirt across the tables, floor etc. I want those superb lorries with the hose that clean the streets at night in Spain.

The carabinieri have another target though: the bar that opened last summer in the beautiful old square with the church below our restaurant. The owners put out tables all over the square, catching many a tourist who doesn’t know that we have beautiful terraces at the back. He also plays live music in the piazza at the weekend, which reverberates between the two churches and shakes the foundations of the houses all along the street. So the police have visited the restaurant several times saying people are complaining. They even took the manager away to the police station for a good talking to, where he apparently insulted the superintendent. The police then gave him a hefty fine for not having paid for the right to have tables out on the square. It’s a lengthy process, which we gave up on; we thought it would be nice to have tables on the small square in front of our restaurant, but not worth the bureaucracy and queues and endless paper pushing. So now there is silence in the church square, no tables, no live music. I’m sure once the permit comes through he’ll make up for it.

Meanwhile my husband was summonsed to the police station, without being told why. We wondered about music but thought it couldn’t possibly be. It turned out to be an investigation into our DJ; since he works in the marines, he isn’t allowed to have another job. The carabinieri made a huge deal out of it, had mio marito swear not to perjure etc, wanting to know when the DJ played and for how long etc. But mio marito told them he plays for us for free; he’s a good, clean-living guy, our DJ. As if they haven’t anything more serious to be doing … eh, preventing drug trafficking, mafia dealings, street patrol at night in the borgo … The best of it was, the superintendent complimented mio marito on his manners: ‘Yours is the only locale where we have had no problems. You and your staff are always polite and compliant.’ It is probably the only drug-free, underage-free, Mafioso-free place in town, judging from reports of other places. We worked hard to keep the low-lives out, not easy. Nice that the police, finally, have recognized this. Someone once joked that it was the restaurant with the highest percentage of third level education, since we and our staff all have degrees and masters. Not that university education necessarily means good manners prevail, but a little bit of intelligence, as opposed to hot-tempered resistance, goes a long way when dealing with the carabinieri.

Tutto va bene

2011-06-26T04:09:00.000-07:00

Dare I say it? Things are going well at Pachamama. We have a good team in the kitchen and in the sala and all work more or less in harmony. It is a relief to feel so secure at the start of the busy season – and a novelty, looking back to the previous two years! I can see it in our attitude to potential customers; no longer are we falling over ourselves to explain our menu and ethos, we are assured, friendly and confident in recommending our place.

Our aperitivo is the best in town, reflected in the numbers on a Sunday evening and also the increase in party bookings wanting aperitivo-style service. We went to another bar in the centre for a friend’s birthday and after an hour of waiting there was still no sign of the aperitivo. The sangria that my friend had ordered wasn’t ready when we arrived so she asked for a few bottles of wine, but when they emptied there were no waiters around to bring more. At ours we agree a number of bottles beforehand according to the size of the group so the bottles are all ready on the tables once the party arrives, and we allocate a waiter to attend … no comparison. Made us feel good though!

Via dei Scopari

2011-04-16T06:49:00.001-07:00

Via dei Scopari is legendary in Milazzo, scopare being the verb to have sex, though the street name comes from scopo, which means broom - and Scopari therefore means broom-maker. Apparently teenagers make it their aim to pass this way at least once for their romantic encounters … there is no evidence of this today as I walk the stroller down Broom-maker street. It is one of the oldest streets in the town, running parallel to the fishering port in the Vacarella area, and is an odd jumble of old and new: low town-houses next to ruins, abandoned weed-ridden lots next to four storey 1960s apartment blocks. A couple of buildings are nothing more than the façade with vacant windows revealing long grass and wooden beams hanging dejectedly. One has the stone gargoyles but no balcony, another has the rusty balcony railings, but no bottom to the balcony. A potted nespola plant bearing the small yellow plum-like fruits shows that there is life in the ground floor house below one such derelict house-front. The radio can be heard through the battered salt-worn wooden shutters. But there is a bit of spring-cleaning going on in the street: white lace curtains waver on washing lines in the breeze from second-floor apartments; plastic bottles full of water protect a mint plant from cats; a little blue jug, a tourist trinket from the Aeolian islands, has been placed on the windowsill of a toilet window; on the corner, a ragged plot has been carefully gardened and turned into a herb garden. Opposite, set into the loose stone wall there are colourful mosaics telling of the life of San Francesco di Paola, who founded the church just above in the twelfth century. Little objects of beauty in a dirty old town heaving and sighing under the weight of its history. A scrawny cat arches its back as it scrounges over a stinking, overflowing rubbish tip. Other grey cats don’t take their yellow eyes off me until I’ve passed. Neither does the old lady stepping out in black on the broken cobbles. Protecting their territory from the straniera.

We come out on the port to find the fishermen working together to tidy a clearing around a palm tree and fix up old stone sinks where people used to wash their clothes. They have a whole workline in operation – some pushing wheelbarrows, others collecting stones, others raking the mud, others with buckets. Rare to see Sicilians working together in such harmony and with such industry … There is no one else about, although it is 4.30pm. Most shops don’t open in the afternoon until 5pm; some open at 3.30pm or 4pm, but customers don’t risk going out since no one is clear about the commercial hours. Even if l’edicola, the newsagent, for example, usually opens at 4pm, if the owner had a late lunch or simply doesn’t feel like it, he might not open until 4.30pm. Just another of the grey areas in Sicily.

Spaccanapoli

2011-04-04T07:28:00.000-07:00

Spacca il silencio – Break the Silence, a threesome from Naples who do Italian singer-Songwriter covers, played last night at ours, after the aperitivo. They arrived two hours late, having got lost on the way, and then need showers and food. But they are not bad, apparently. This morning my suocera phones concerned that there is no sign of them at 10am since they were supposed to see mio suocero at 9am to get their instruments etc from the bar. I go to wake them in the attic space above the restaurant. A smoky voiced tall thin guy comes to the door in response to my Buongiorno. 10 minutes, he says. I bump into them later at the bar having granita and brioche, the Sicilian summer breakfast special. The singer is currently listening to The Virgin Prunes, I am impressed to hear. I intend to recommend him Las Grecas, but forget. Only he works, in Ikea, as well as having the band; the other two are full time musicians, they proudly tell me. They are based in Bologna and came all the way to Sicily to perform their covers. Though they tell me they write their own tracks (they had a few of their own songs interspersed with the de André, Paolo Conte, and Vinicio Caposella, mia cugnata tells me). They want to know where they can get some arancini. They are so clearly not from Sicily, with their bedhead hair, their trendy t-shirts, and long gangly look. A breath of fresh air on a Monday morning in Milazzo.

Il bello e il brutto di Sicilia

2011-04-04T07:26:00.000-07:00

Strolling my bambino along the marina, I reflect that the view encapsulates much of what is bello and brutto of living here: colourful fishing boats bringing in the fresh catch, the Nebrodi mountains and Mount Etna still snow-capped against the blue April sky; we are in short sleeves already, while Spring has hardly registered a change of temperature elsewhere in Europe. But looking past the fishing boats, there is a huge oil tanker in front of the sprawling funnels and smoking chimneys of the oil refinery and the electrical plant – and one is reminded of the pollution. Mio marito remembers clothes on the line covered in ash when he was little. His mother remembers how beautiful Milazzo was before the oil refinery was built in the 60s; the centre was free of the ugly high rise apartment blocks in dirty green and mustard purpose built to house the employees of the new refinery, and so the old 17th century buildings had much more visibility and majesty.

But the fact is that Milazzo is one of the most polluted towns in Italy, according to a recent survey, along with Gela and other refinery towns in Sicily. The people who chose to locate the refinery will have known well that they were putting an end to the nascent tourism in the 60s when Milazzese were just beginning to enjoy the lidos along the coast that now look on to the refinery. The survey places it in the top 40 most polluted towns according to deaths by lung disease and cancers … Great.

We were visited by the polizia di finanza on Friday night. At midnight, just as things are kicking off. It’s always bad news when you see any polizia coming, especially the Finance Police: you know you are in for a fine, and the aim is to stay calm and courteous so as to have the fine fall in the lowest bracket possible. Even if you have everything in order, they will invent something. Which, of course, these two did. ‘A girl outside got her drink here but didn’t have the scontrino,’ their threatening opener. My husband assures them we always give the receipt – the infamous scontrino – as it is the only way we know people have paid. The barman won’t serve drinks unless the customer hands over the scontrino. The polizia harped on about this for a while and then changed tack. ‘Is your cash register new? Let’s see its documents.’ So at midnight on a Friday night, our best time for business, my husband has ot go to the backroom and get out the papers for the till. All present and correct – except one. ‘Did you get it serviced last year? Every year it has to be serviced.’ Aha, now they have got us. We didn’t know about this. Every year, like your car, the till has to be serviced to make sure it works correctly and stores all your transactions so you can pay up all your taxes to the Italian state. Nice one fore the police. But they put the on-the-spot fine in the lowest bracket – could be anything from €250 to €2000, we won’t know until the official fine comes through in the post. ‘We got off lightly,’ says my husband. Lightly? This country RUNS on fines. There is no such thing as giving you a warning and a week to get things sorted. No such thing as an efficient accountant who should advice of such things .. I cannot believe our accountant didn’t tell us of such a simple thing, so easy to avoid. Why are we even paying him? But of course, he couldn’t be expected to think of everything. Not in this laid back land. My husband isn’t even that bothered. Don’t blame the accountant, he says. If they hadn’t picked us up on that, they would have kept on about the scontrino, or found another reason to fine us. They were actually quite polite, he says. He told them they were creating difficulty for him, showing up at the busiest moment of the week. They said they were doing their job, and he said so was he, and invited them to come on a week night! They then admitted that they had been SENT. Sent! That means they got a tip off, from someone who wanted to get us in trouble. ‘We wouldn’t have come otherwise,’ they said. Probably some other bar, jealous of our popular weekends. It is true – everyone says we are the bar that is most consistently busy. Only at weekends, and the bar does much better than the restaurant, though things are picking up there too, as if we are finally getting some recognition.

Now the accountant says the supplier should have reminded us to get it serviced. And the supplier says the till should have reminded us with an automatic warning. But it didn’t. Perhaps because he didn’t programme it to do so? My husband engages in lengthy, wordy discussions with these various accomplices to our omission. The supplier says if we pay €50 immediately we will avoid having to pay the fine. Our accountant should have told us this, he says. With all these random figures floating about, and buck-passing … I just wonder is there anyone capable of doing their job properly in this country?

Sicily for Sicilians

2011-03-28T08:22:00.000-07:00

Today it rained – typical scirocco weather. Interesting to watch the Sicilians in the unusual weather. I took bambino out for a walk anyway as he was oblivious to the light rain in his sturdy rainproof stroller. My husband’s cugina pulled up in her car – ‘It could only be you, out walking the baby in this weather!’ she says. A light drizzle, nothing to worry about. Warm enough to sit outside under the canopy while I have my cappuccino and bambino sleeps. Four middle-aged men, one shorter than the other, join me but chat among themselves. Some people are well-prepared for the weather – an elderly gentleman in a tweed coat and dapper cap steps carefully. Others hold a magazine over their head and scuttle from A to B (never far as they park as close to their destination as the flexible parking laws allow). Nothing like the bowed-down hunched-shoulders marching against the elements you see on the streets of London or Dublin. There are good things here too.

Though an English girl married to a Milazzo-man told me he was talking seriously of coming back. They both have good jobs and live in a nice place in England, and can come here to their apartment to visit the nonni whenever they want. ‘Don’t be seduced by the sun!’ I warned. You both will be too used to life in the UK. The state here gives you nothing. No child benefit, rubbish pension (you only get about a quarter of the taxes you pay for pension when you reach 65), no rubbish collection, poor health system –(never get sick here!), poor education for your kids, and serious lack of opportunities for them. Is the sun and the sea enough in compensation? And what would you do? Your husband might not get a job here (he’s a doctor) and you would have to give up your career and teach English- Is that enticing? You’ll have no friends, because all the interesting people our age have moved away long ago. Think long and hard and if you agree to come, make sure you have a goal for yourself so the move is not just for your husband’s sake. That is the only way to survive life in Sicily. Sicily is for Sicilians, I’ve said it before and I will say it again. Yes, you are ‘accepted’ once you have kids with your Sicilian man, but you are still 'straniera'.

tre signorine

2011-03-28T08:21:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was like summer’s day. Three signorine had granita on the terrace of my local bar and admired bambino while I had my cappuccino. ‘He’s big for his age,’ they nodded wisely, not more than 13 years old. They wanted to know where I was from and what language I spoke to my bambino in and where I had lived. They said their English teacher at school was no good and that they planned to go to stay with their friend’s grandmother in England in the summer to improve their English. I gave them some tips on learning English, feeling the teacher in me respond to this obvious need. Teaching is so old-fashioned here, even these teenagers knew it – we just copy off the blackboard and repeat our teacher’s bad pronunciation, they said! ‘Sei giovanissima, quanti anni hai?’ they asked – ‘You’re so young, how old are you?’ Bold as brass, two of them. The third didn’t say a word, just dipped her brioche into the lemon slush. Like three young ladies out for a chat. The two interviewers remembered seeing me and bambino in the photo shop last week.

Poor bambino had no chance of sleeping with those two cooking over him so I had to wheel him round in the sunny piazza afterwards; midday is a great time to be out on a Sunday in Sicily since everyone else is at home stuffing their faces. A gecko slithered over the bench into the shrubs – sprawling mother-in-law’s tongue and stiff cacti.

Slow yoga

2011-03-24T09:16:00.000-07:00

I tried a yoga lesson this week, time to get a bit of flexibility back with all the hauling around of big bambino. A nice morning lesson, I had high hopes. But it was very slow, with lots of talking (of course) about the third eye and chakras and the point of strength 5cm below the belly button and 5cm inwards. Some rotation of wrists and ankles and one downward dog. Perhaps your evening class is more dynamic, I suggest. Depends what you mean by dynamic. Oops, she has taken offence, despite the fact that I complimented her on the lovely lesson first. Well, more toning. ‘Ahh, toning,’ she sniffs, ‘if it’s toning you want, go to a gym. The effetto tonificante of yoga is just a result of holding the positions.’ I know, I say patiently, the asanas … do you do any of these in your evning lesson? The triangle, the warrier, fish, bridge etc? ‘I was thinking of introducing them next month,’ she says, reciting their Sanskrit terms piously. Ahhhh, pazienza. The problem here is, when people get a ‘titolo’, they think they are way above everyone else and that the rest of us are ignorant. Two of my best friends are yoga teachers so i do know something ... It’s just that I had a baby four months ago, I say, and I wanted to regain some flexibility, I feel like an old woman, I joke. But motherhood is the most beautiful, energy-giving moment of one’s life, she says. SIGH. I sense a lecture coming. As if I didn’t know that. As if I am not loving every moment of bambino’s four months and three weeks. But he was 10pounds and stretched my whole pelvic area, not to mention his now 20pounds hanging off my shoulders etc. He’s almost double the expected weight for his age. I do yoga every day at home, and am convinced the yoga I did throughout my pregnancy enabled me to birth my big baby so beautifully and without any problems in water – and I managed to turn him, with his occiput posterior (head into back instead of stomach during labour) presentation by sitting on a pilates ball for 6 hours. But I though I might be able to learn something new at this course – plus it would be a little hour of me time, because it is not easy to get the downward dogs flowing when bambino is hollering because his little gums hurt, or he’s hungry or he wants me to play. But no. I try a last shot – well, what time is your evening class and how long does it last? Hoping for some final elucidation. ‘I don’t wear a watch,’ she smiles, superior. Oh God, a patronizing yogie master. Actually neither do I, but I don’t tell her that. I need to know to make arrangements for my baby I manage to smile, thinking, there is no way I want to see her again. And all this (an hour of stretching fingers and toes, thanks)for 10€ when the shop had assured me the trial was free. As if we were in Dublin.

Silent neighbours

2011-03-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

Someone has broken the wing mirror on our car. It happened yesterday between 4.30 and 5.30, because I went out at 4.30 with bambino and it was fine and my in-laws were out on the street at that time too as they were heading to the restaurant. Bambino and I came back from our stroll at 5.30 and the mirror was broken. I looked up and down the street: the builders who are working on a dilapidated building just down the street were gone – and wouldn’t admit to seeing anything anyway. I scan the neighbours’ windows, because you can bet your life that someone will have seen what happened, but not a stir behind the craftily angled shutters. I look down the street – the cars parked in front of ours all have their mirrors pointed out, except one car which has turned it inwards for safety. There is plenty of space to get past where we are parked though, and even if another car had been parked opposite ours there would have been space. My sister in law is convinced it was the Pazzo, the madman on the street, who hates their family. A repressed gay, she says, and also not right in the head. He came back after a few years in Rome and was never the same. Dangerous, she says darkly. If her father ever leaves the car parked near his house she moves it, she says and always turns the outside wing mirror inwards. They believe it is he who is scratching all our cars. Every few days a new scratch – the kind of deliberate scoring you do with a key – appears on our car, but overnight, not in the broad daylight. My next-door neighbour, a large housebound woman due to hip problems, is permanently sitting at the window, but no sign of her today. Another doting old man who walks the street wrapped up as if for snow in the warm spring days, has every day the same question – is it a bambino or bambina ? He then smiles at my buggy, and then forgets that it is a bambino. And wishes me buongiorno, adding that good manners are important. He’s nowhere to be seen. The suspect and his two side kicks, Walrus (beer gut and long whiskers) and Hunger (the thinnest palest creature in Sicily) are of course absent from their usual meeting spot opposite the dilapidated building. Who am I kidding? Even if anyone had seen what happened, they wouldn’t say.

Staring fishermen

2011-03-21T08:03:00.000-07:00

I ran into difficulty yesterday while out for a stroll with a friend along the marina. Bambino needed fed but each time we stopped at a bench a few fishermen would gather to stare at us, the fair haired foreign girls. They should know me by now! I complained to another foreign friend. Her partner is a fisherman and she knows them all, so she promised to come with me some time and introduce me. Can’t wait.

busy nights, quiet nights

2011-03-21T07:59:00.001-07:00

It’s hard to predict what way a ‘serata’ will go; Friday, the restaurant did very little, but the bar was packed with lots of people dancing to the tunes of DJ Giuppy … Saturday, the restaurant was packed and the bar too, so that the road outside was full of people like a summer weekend. And yet on Sunday night, the popular aperitivo attracted few punters this weekend – perhaps because we didn’t have a DJ last night. The SAIE – the PRS, or music rights people, to whom we have to pay €50 every time we have live music or DJ (As IF that money ever reaches the authors) warned us that they knew we were having DJs on Sundays (we pay up for Friday and Saturday, but it simply didn’t seem fair to have to do it on Sundays too … SAIE friends are exempt of course. We are not their friends, but at least they warn us, rather than coming to fine us directly). We didn’t have th barman either, so his mates didn’t come. We’ll have to decide if it’s worth the expense of barman, DJ and SAIE …

Meanwhile, in the kitchen, we now have to keep tighter tabs on the cook who has been making enormous quantities of everything. We need to check the shopping list (we were left with SEVEN bags of rocket left over last Sunday, plus various bags of mozzarella going out of date and desserts which were well past their sell-by date …), and also at the beginning of the evening discuss what preparation needs to be done.

noisy lunch

2011-03-21T07:58:00.000-07:00

During the week we went out for lunch for my mother-in-law’s birthday. We had the small agriturismo to ourselves. There were ten of us in total, including two children, but the noise levels would have woken the dead. When Sicilians get together over a meal they tend to shout at each other across the table. Plus, there was music on too, which I discreetly turned down once I had spotted the remote. But bambino didn’t like it! His nonno said, ‘It’s because you don’t take him out!’ what? I said, he’s out every day of the week. ‘Yes, in the outdoors, but not in noisy restaurants.’ Well, we’re in a different caffè every day of the week, where bambino is greeted by all (shouting ‘che bello’ into his little face) but apparently they are not noisy enough. Noise training is what my bambino needs. I see. … This is the third day in a row we have had lunch all together and the noise levels are getting to me too. At one point I ask the 5 year old does he not have a book to read. He and the three year old are running riot around the restaurant. There’s a difference: at home I think parents would usually have some game for the children – colouring books etc to keep the kids quiet. But here no such effort is made, so the kids end up whining in their parents’ laps when they are exhausted.

poetic postman

2011-03-14T13:33:00.001-07:00

One of my favourite institutions in this town, which is backward in so many ways, is the poetry-writing postman. Always in good humour, a tall handsome man, tanned from his mornings on the scooter bringing the mail – apologising when it is obviously a bill – he whistles and sings as he goes about his work. He passed me this morning as I was having coffee with bambino, and raised a finger as he remembered something, after flashing his winning smile and wishing me a buongiorno. ‘Signora, I have a parcel for you! But I will deliver it to your house!’ It seems I am the only person who gets parcels so regularly in Milazzo. He never leaves it at my house, as it is slightly off the road, preferring to ring my in-laws’ bells, since their house is right on the street, so he doesn’t have to get off his moto. And he once brought the nonna a book of his poetry. Fantastic. Where else would you get such a personalised postal service? It almost makes up for the stinking, overflowing skips.

On my way home, as I struggled up hill, the ery steep hill up to the borgo, two men ahead of me turned round to offer their help. They lifted the front of the stroller despite my assurances that I would make it on my own, and whizzed me and bambino up the long steps to the borgo. It worked out sorer on my arms, though, since I had to keep the back end of the stroller held high to avoid banging it off the steps. I ended up more breathless than ever at the top of the steps, with the rest of the steep incline to negotiate alone! But it was very kind of them. You appreciate these gestures especially when what you usually find it a huge jeep sprawled over the zebra crossing and massive kerbs on either side.

Sunday aperitivo

2011-03-14T13:32:00.000-07:00

Lovely aperitivo at Pachamama last night. Cosy lighting with candles everywhere and good chilled out music. Thankfully no DJ in fact many of the regulars commented there is no need. After the live music on Friday and DJ on Saturday, it is nice to be able to come and chat over a few drinks. Plus the music on the iPod is way better than either ;) Our regular DJ tells us that the bar across the road from has started an aperitivo exactly based on ours. They sent their DJ over to spy one night and he started it off last night. Will they have the same food? Same sequence of snacks? The couscous and the faro, the Greek salada and the tortilla, the chicken nuggets and the fried savoury our Neapolitan chef cooks up? Our aperitivo has been such a success – apart from the great deal – because it offered something new hear in Sicily. A common social event in northern Italy, the aperitivo doesn’t really exist in Sicily with real food, just nuts and olives.

why do we get all the freeloaders?

2011-03-12T09:39:00.000-08:00

Mid-week we get a request for a booking for a party of twenty, for a girl's birthday. She wants to spend a maximum of €60 - four bottles of prosecco. A bottle costs €16, so she wants a little discount, plus she will bring a cake which our waiter will slice and serve ... and of course, service is included - the plates and flute glasses and the dishwashing, and the laying out of tables for the twenty or so people. Although they will occupy most of the upstairs room, she there is no rental fee for the space. Never mind that a table for two would generate €60 with much less effort. On the night itself, she saunters downstairs every so often, 25 years old with the ways of an 18 year old. She apologises that many of her friends haven't turned up and so she would like one less bottle ... this happens several times throughout the night, despite the fact that the waiter notes all twenty places are occupied at the table, with more standing. When she tries to renegue on bottle number two, he mentions this. In the end, the young lady pays a grand total of €35 for entertaining her large group of friends.

The following night we have a booking for another party of 15 this time. They want prosecco and antipasti and fruit - plus the service and space, naturally, all included in €100. So €60 for the 4 botles of prosecco, leaves €40 for the fruit and antipasti - just over €2 per person. Errr, profit? And the man who made the booking asked for a discount on this ... As if he were doing us a favour. We decide that we need to ask for half of the amount upfront. And because there is so little work mid-week we are obliged to accept these customers. Hmmmm

To top it all off, the band on Friday night get ratty. Like all the groups who play, they have their meal and two drinks on us; but this was not enough for this Depeche Mode cover band. They wanted their 7 Santa Teresa rums (that's practically the whole bottle given the big italian measures) and 6 beers on top of that for free too. They have tried this on the previous two occasions they played with us, so they know the limits. Instead of thanking us for their meal and the fact that we also let their girlfriends eat for free - the singer and his sidekick made a huge scene, calling mio marito stingy, of all things. Outside the bar, of course, so others could hear. Luckily, there were only a few people left. My husband stayed calm and told him he was probably being so obnoxious because he was drunk. That was no doubt true. This brings on a Sunday depression about the kind of people we have to deal with. Rude, arrogant, figli di papa (spoilt little rich kids), provincial, narrow-minded freeloaders. Most of whom have rarely if ever left this town, never mind Sicily or Italy, to get some manners and culture. Hmmm I begin to suspect there is limit to the time we can keep doing this...

Local personality

2011-03-02T06:59:00.000-08:00

Mia suocera launches into a tale about a woman who used to work with her in the creche down the road. Her daughter works in a bar I go to often with the bambino, and finally after two years she greeted us with a smile. Since we are always given a great welcome in this bar her stony-faced service always seemed strange to me. So this is how my mother-in-law got stuck into her story. Every now and again she likes to regale me with some local lore. Her eyes light up, the voice lowers and she takes up her story-telling position. This time it is about Domenica, her ex-colleague. Domenica was very strict with the daughter when she was little, giving her hardly any freedom. The creche was opposite the child's school, so she was themost punctual of mothers and the daughter never got to roam around town with her friends. So she rebelled and ran off with a married man and had a baby with him bringing shame on the family at the time, 50 odd years ago. The married man divorced his then-wife and has lived with this daughter ever since. Domenica had three children in total, and managed to buy houses for all three of them, all on her own, as her husband left her.She had no formal education and was illiterate - otherwise, mia suocera says, she would have been an excellent businesswoman. Apart from the creche, she did all sorts of odd jobs, most frequently cleaning houses and shops and even the long marble staircase in the creche itself. She also managed to get the best house of all for herself, right in the cnetre of town on the main street, in one of the beautiful old palazzi dating from the 19th century. When the owner of the house came to tell her he was selling the whole palazzo she refused to leave, telling him she would buy the apartment she was living in. He woudln't agree and sent in the builders with their buldozers. But Domenica refused to budge and such was her conviction that the builders took fright and told the owner they couldn't work there. So the owner gave in and named his price. Domenica had no money to buy it but that didn't stop her. She went out one day determined to get the money - she stepped out in front of a car and let herself get knocked down. She made a huge scene at the hospital even though she wasn't hurt that badly ... but the insurance claim covered the cost of the house! The word for this in Italian is 'grinta', of 'faccia tosta'. She made the system work for her in other ways too: she couldn't afford to take holidays because they were unpaid. SO when she needed to stay home for whatever reason, she got herself into such a statethat her blood pressure would go up, so that the doctor could easily give her a sickness certificate.

My husband asks who we are talking about. Domenica. He raiseshis eyes to heaven. Mad woman. Wild red hair out to here. We all know Domenica.

Mafia update

2011-02-24T08:44:00.002-08:00

So what’s the latest on the mafiosi scene? The most obvious thing, and the one that affects everyone, is the rubbish collection issue. Heaps of it, 2 metres high and occupying the space of three cars on the street every 100metres or so, make Milazzo a very smelly place to be. The new council promise that shortly it will be all resolved but I don’t think anyone really believes them. The mafia make money out of the rubbish not being collected so it is in their interest to block any progress there.

Something that affects us more directly is the gang from the nearby town who come to drink every now and again. They came in last Saturday night, on a very good night with good music and everyone having a good time. These smalltime gangsters had a few shots of vodka without getting the scontrino at the till, and were loitering about outside. Mio marito had dealt with their boss effectively the first time they came and he had paid up, albeit with a small discount. But the bossman was very drunk and puked up at the bar just as he was about to pay. This coincided with the arrival of a plainclothes carabiniere who said they had received a call about the noise being too loud from a neighbour. Since our doors were closed and the speakers were turned inwards, it is highly unlikely that any neighbour would have called. Also, the bar 50 metres down the road is much louder, with an open roof top and music so loud it makes our windows rattle. Mio marito says it must have been another locale whose owner was jealous at the success of our Saturday night. Anyway, the bossman and the carabiniere exchanged glances, the carabiniere looking disgusted at the puke on the guy’s shirt, the mafiaman looking annoyed at getting caught in such a compromising situation, andmio marito dismayed that the carabiniere had come in just at that moment, as he will think these are the kind of regulars we have. The mafiaman took advantage of the confusion of the moment to slink away without paying, despite the fact that mio marito had kindly given him a towel to clean himself with and save his bossman ego.

Mio marito is now part of a consorzio del borgo, a committee of restaurant and bar owners in the borgo antico. They hope to work together to promote events up here in the Spanish quarter, keeping it clean and safe and offering cultural activities. I am curious to see what will happen as I have yet to see a group of Sicilians working well together. Indeed, after every meeting mio marito usually has a story about how so-and-so disagrees and how another wants to do it his way etc. … One of the older people and more experienced in local matters said that if anyone was asked for a ‘pizzo’ –bribe- by the local mafia, that they had to tell the consorzio, so that they would all stand up against them. This was news: Milazzo is not known as a pizzo place. But this man knew of a small family business in the marina from whom the mafia are taking €1000 a month. The poor guy probably doesn’t have much to take home after that.

The most disturbing of all is that one of our regulars, a guy in his late twenties has spoken openly in the local newspapers about the murder of his brother by the mafia. They live in the nearby town, which he called the new black hole of mafioso crime in Italy … Great. His brother died under suspicious circumstance a few years ago due to an overdose of heroine. At the time it was put down to suicide. But his family and friends knew he was in no way suicidal; he was a brilliant young doctor with a promising career ahead of him and very happy in his personal life, and did not use drugs. Also, the biggest clue was that he was left-handed, and the injection had been put into his left arm. Also, his body showed signs of a struggle. His brother did some research and discovered that his unfortunate brother was forced to operate on Provenzano to save his life. He was at a medical conference in France where the famous mafia boss was hiding out – no one had seen his face in over 20 years. At the time the young doctor didn’t know who it was; he merely carried out the life-saving operation. But several years later the mafia apparently had news that he had realized who his critical patient was, and so the order was given to get rid of him. Not nice.

Cook poaching

2011-02-24T08:44:00.001-08:00

Our cook told my mother-in-law that the owners of a new restaurant down by the sea have approached him to go and work for them. What makes it even more unethical is that these owners are good friends of my husband’s sister. She is appalled: ‘Here, where friendship has ‘un certo valore …’ Hmmm. Friendship didn’t count for much in this case. Imagine he decided to go? But he knows they are famous for not paying up, and also they made him a very poor offer. He would be foolish to go anywhere! He’s landed where he is. All god news for his ego da cuoco.

Signorina or Signora?

2011-02-22T11:24:00.000-08:00

This morning at the bar down the road, the barman - a waiter dressed in black and white like in Spanish traditional bars - called me signorina as he handed me my cappuccino - the best in town. He then corrected himself, Signora! spotting my bambino. 'Ha, you liked that, didn't you?' he laughed. A signorina is an unmarried Miss, while signora offers more respect to the married lady. But I rarely get called Signora, only if I'm with mio marito, and even then i get signorina. Which is a compliment, as the barman pointed out. But when I go out with mio bambino now, I am Signora everywhere. Interesting ...

Explaining apple crumble

2011-02-22T09:39:00.000-08:00

Explaining new desserts to the cooks has always been a challenge. They can all do tiramisu blindfolded (I imagine). And their strong point is always, always without fail the semifreddo, a frozen icecream dessert, and their favourite for me to try is always al pistacchio. So when I come up with apple crumble (ap-play croom-blay) it’s a big challenge to his ego. I have to build him up first by telling him how good his risotto is, and it helps that for the first order I take since August I convince the couple to try his risotto al profumo di limone with courgettes and prawns. The grated lemon zest really does the trick. His involuntary smile as he squints at the order (all our cooks are halfblind but pride prevents tem from wearing glasses) makes me warm to him. It also helps that he made a fabulous chocolate cake alle mandorle e all’arancia earlier which I was able to praise. But more on that later.

It would help if I was a baker myself. But no, I am just the daughter or one of the best dessert makers ever. My mother is the domestic goddess Nigella Lawson evoked in her cookbook. So, although mia madre has explained how to make the simplest dessert on earth – the one you make in Home Economics class when you’re twelve – the cook stumps me on a couple of issues. Just how small do the apples need to be chopped? Because my mother said a few minutes in the microwave would leave them slightly glutinous and stop them from going brown of course, so they would keep a few days in the fridge. But the microwave here must have different settings, we conclude, because the cook is getting increasingly frustrated that his carefully timed attempts have just produced slightly soft apple slices. I try to explain that it needs to be a kind of lumpy apple sauce. But he doesn’t get it, because salsa in Italian is only used for savoury dishes, really. Compote? I know it’s the French word, but in the international world of haute cuisine …? No good either. (He was spoofing to me one day about the wonderful sauce he makes for meat, ‘è internazionale,’ he insisted, giving me some Neapolitan French – I still don’t whether it was jus de la viande, or sauce brune, he was trying to say, the accent just didn’t quite make it – it was GRAVY he was going on about. Ah yes. That would be the sauce I grew up on, my mother’s own homemade special My mother-in-law ha capito – a purea, she says, a purée. Yes, that will do. He’s got it now. Well, we’ll have to chop the apples into small cubes then, he decides, a bit more confidently. But the kind of apple also provokes plenty of discussion. They don’t have cooking apples in Sicily; cooking apples are best because of their texture, they shred easily into mush. The most similar thing seems to be mele renette, but they appear to be hard to come by. He uses Golden delicious, which are very sweet, I probably would have chosen Mele Stark or Pink Lady … but he experiments with the sweetness and adds much less sugar. And the result is not bad. It is less lumpy and more compote than it should be … but I can’t be too fussy. Plus, no one here knows how it should be really. He gets the croom-blay right first time. I have added some crushed almonds to the recipe and they give it just the right crunch. But my sister-in-law says that he isn’t fond of this dessert because it takes 15minutes to cook it properly in our old oven as the heat only comes form below, and he can’t put the paella in the oven if they are in it because of the smell of fish. Definitely to be avoided.

As for the chocolate cake. This one is a masterpiece. But so simple to make, according to my mother’s recipe. Everything just gets thrown into the magimix and then into a cake tin then into the oven and an hour so later it is transformed into a delicious torta. The cook is nervous again since his experience of chocolate cakes is of the Sette Vele variety, a veritable bomba or all types of chocolate and cream and and icecream in seven layers, the current favourite in the pasticceria here. Sicilians like everything to be full on, no half measures. But this cake, which is called Chocolate amaretti cake in mum’s recipe, is exquisite. The crushed amaretti and crushed almonds give a slight crunch to the velvety smooth stiff mousse texture of the dark chocolate, and the fresh orange juice and zest of course, is a classic association. I change the name, because amaretti reminds people of stale biscuits in their grandmother’s cupboard in Sicily, but it’s the description that is difficult. My sister-in-law tells me people turn up their noses when she starts telling them about it, because anything different is scary. She says most people think of big puffy sponge cakes when they think of chocolate cake. She has tried telling them it is a wonderful Irish recipe, but it turns out in Sicily Ireland is not noted for its dolci … it takes just one person at the table to be intrepid enough to try it, and then someone else at the table plucks up their courage. Because she tells me on Saturday night two separate tables already had come back for the apple crumble. Yeay! And it’s only been on the menu a couple of weeks. By Sunday all our desserts were gone. And on Friday I was concerned we had way too many when I checked the fridges. All sold out. Crema Catalana, crepes, Baileys Cheesecakes, Apple crumble, chocolate soufflé (or flan, the one baked in the oven with the runny centre – amazing) and the new torta di cioccolato alle mandorle e all’arancia).

But the best thing was the cook’s reaction when he had made the cake and I sampled it. I pretended not to know that he had misread the recipe and put 500grams of amaretti biscuits instead of 50 into his first attempt. (Mio marito told me) But I took a slice of his second one home to eat in peace before putting it on the menu. Mio marito told me he put on a show of being nervous when I phoned up to give it the go ahead. It’s ‘spettacolare’ I told him, ‘you must taste it, because this is exactly how it should be.’ ‘Of course it is,’ he declares, ‘didn’t I make it myself.’ As if he had come up with the recipe.

I found three plates of crepes in the fridge last Monday. So on Wednesday I left a note for him not to make so many … there were about 30 crepes in total. And they are not nice after a couple of days in the fridge. Also they were tasteless. And the lemon and orange zest was missing – though he assured me he had put it in ‘You can taste the orange zest when it is there,’ I said. Because he has an excuse for every single thing you say to him, just to get the last word. So I reckoned he was following his own recipe, as most cooks here know how to make crepes. But not necessarily the best recipe. My mother has the best, naturally. And that’s the one to be followed so I left the recipe under my little note to him. The proportions of egg and flour are just right and make a runny mixture which allows for proper thin crepes, not the thick spongy things he was coming up with. He will start wishing I had never come back! But it is the attention to details that makes the difference. And all the other restaurants around here offer pannacotta or semifreddo or tiramisu basically. So we have to make sure our desserts are good, our unique selling point!

Being napolitano, the cook makes quite a good foccaccia and pizza bread. Quite light and not oily or with the strong taste of raising agent from ones in the town. But with his accent, everything he says sounds like a threat. Last night he was making up some foccaccia for the aperitivo. I asked for a few slices without meat, as he puts prosciutto in everything and then forgets to tell me …. Ughhh. ‘Tre pezze ti bastano?’ he asks me as he hands me the plate. He barely opens his mouth as he speaks, so it is all a bit cotton woolly, like the Godfather movies, though Marlon was Sicilian of course. So I usually have to get him to repeat. ‘Are three slices enough?’ he says again, in a slightly raised voice, giving even more of an aggressive effect. They better be enough, is what it sounds like, ‘cos that’s all your getting.

How is the restaurant going?

2011-02-22T09:38:00.000-08:00

And how has the restaurant been in my absence? Did they miss me? The waiters said they were glad I was back because mio marito was getting more grumpy without me. Mio marito says that he had to play the role of the strict manager, which he had let me do while I was around … while he got to be the laid back, approachable boss, saying ‘I’ll need to ask my wife about that’, for anything he disagreed with. Ha.

We have the same cook as before. He started muttering after the summer period that he would need to be paid more, once the restaurant started closing Mondays and Tuesdays through the winter. I would have been harder to convince on that one, because I think he has an easy time of it. The only time he might have some work is Saturday and Sunday, on week nights three or four tables max – and they might have piadine or panini which the second cook takes care of – and Fridays are really the worst night for the restaurant strangely. But he started muttering about how he was sending his CV to places in the north of Italy – I seriously doubt it, his family are here, he lives a ten minute walk from the restaurant, and he’s getting well enough paid. Other places he has worked we know he didn’t even get paid at the end of the month. Anyway, the classic situation. As mio marito maintains that there have been no more problems in the kitchen since he been working for us and actually quite a few compliments, he was willing to give him a bit more to keep him happy.

Now that I am back though, I keep him on his toes. He wanted us to sample his sformata di salmone: a kind of smoked salmon parcel stuffed with Philadelphia cheese and rocket – and with a dash of Tabasco. Even before I tasted it I knew the Tabasco was out of place. I didn’t give him the whole ‘I’m Irish – we have the best smoked salmon in the world and the only way to do it is with good Irish butter and brown bread.’ I just said that Tabasco is a Mexican sauce. It doesn’t go with smoked salmon. And the rocket already gives a peppery flavour – which goes quite well with the smoked salmon and the cream cheese. And the smoked salmon needs to be of good quality. It is hard to get good smoked salmon here. It is usually over smoked, extremely salty and very slimy, whether it comes from Scotland, Norway or Ireland. It was a very unusual association, I though. And it made me wonder about his tastebuds as a chef.

Even more so when I sampled a ‘torta salata’, a kind of pastry he made mid-week of mushrooms, smoked provolone cheese and rocket. Unfortunately the rocket goes bitter when cooked, and the smoked cheese tasted way too strong for the mushrooms. Plus, as the waiter pointed out (the waiters are very skeptical of the cook’s abilities), it was burned round the crust. So, again, I tactfully (I hope) pointed out that the smoked cheese was too strong for the mushrooms and maybe a soft cheese with less flavour to it would go better. I wonder does he taste his experiments? That pastry was inedible. I wouldn’t even have sent it out on the aperitivo on Sunday …

But we are doing better than last year. We have regulars who come to the restaurant, one of whom has asked us to do an aperitivo for their wedding, after the church ceremony. We have regulars who come for the desserts, and those who come for the tapas and the paella. And the new pasta dishes are going well. Also, the addition of hamburgers – mio marito got inspired in Ireland – is turning out to be popular. This time last year it was very very quiet and we were not happy with our kitchen staff. So we’ve made progress.

We’ve painted the bottom half of the bar area green, which somehow gives it a more Andalusian touch, and placed a large round mirror behind the bar which reflects off the long mirror opposite. And there is now a flat screen at the back of the room, making the corner area more interesting. Don’t worry, it’s not for football, we’ve no intention of getting Sky. We show old movies, Carlo Saura, Almodovar, Woody Allen, documentaries, music videos – on silent, while the dj, or stereo system play other music. Good conversation point to while away the winter nights …

two local scandals

2011-02-21T08:13:00.000-08:00

When I arrive back at Christmas there were a couple of local scandals. One was that two English teachers from the language school had been harassed by five locals on a Saturday night. They followed the two girls right up to the door of their house and then tried to get in the gate. One of them hit one of the girls and she fell to the ground in the confusion. The good thing is that the police caught them straight away. Though the girls say that in the police station the guys were making threats to them the whole time. Result? The two girls left for England the next day. No hanging around. They had only been here two months. In an interview in a local paper one of their students, a man in his mid twenties, said he wasn’t surprised they left, but that it was a terrible impression to give them of Sicily. He said he sees the English girls arrive every year to teach but that few of them ever stay longer than a year because there are no tourist amenities here. Bad infrastructure (for example, the infrequent shuttle bus connecting the train station to the centre stops in the early evening and there are no taxis so if your train arrives late at night you are stuck …). Plus travel in Sicily is not easy if you don’t have a car. Infrequent and long bus and train journeys would discourage even the hardiest of travellers. Piles of stinking refuse every 100 metres. The odd rat. No entertainment – little decent live music, no real cinema (there is only one cinema with one screen dating from the 50s and it hasn’t been renovated – the ugliest and most uncomfortable I have ever been in). Add to this the unwanted attentions or intentions of the locals … the sun and sea (usually polluted in summer) just aren’t enough, and by the time it is hot enough to swim the English teachers have gone home for the summer anyway. The student said that the locals aren’t used to the openness ‘modi expansivi’ that the English girls have, in the sense that, at night, in a bar in the UK people mix and chat up or accept being chatted up without it necessarily leading anywhere. Most people can read the signs of interest or disinterest. The harmless flirting and social interaction that a few drinks will bring about. But here in Sicily, where less drink is consumed, particularly among the females, this openness is not so common and girls will usually stick to their own group of friends. This is true. It is also true that last year there was an English teacher who drank herself comatose and slept with anything that moved, unfortunately garnering herself and all other English teachers a bad reputation. Luckily, I came here already married and haven’t had to deal with any of this, apart from a bit of chatting up at the restaurant which came to a hasty end when they asked how come I was in Milazzo and I pointed to the man behind the bar.

The other scandal was more minor and much closer to home. One of our dodgy neighbours (he looks like he has been on a hunger strike his entire life – white bones walking) showed up outside the restaurant one morning over Christmas when my father-in-law was checking something. His best grey suit was hanging over his bony shoulders like a sack of potatoes. ‘Signore, I am going to the carabinieri,’ he announced, solemnly. ‘Someone has stolen my babbo natale (Santa Claus).’ Oh dear. What was it like, was it expensive? ‘He was an inflatable babbo natale I had on my balcony. This morning I woke up and he was gone.’ Can you imagine the carabinieri taking him seriously? While the whole family fell about laughing as they told me this – of course, it was one of our waiters who played the trick, since he was able to pinch it from our balcony - we wondered was there perhaps a link to this theft and the scratches which had mysteriously appeared on our car. Every day for about a week a new scratch appeared on the car, the kind you get when someone scores their key across it. Give him back his Santa Claus! I said.

Sunday morning socialisers

2011-02-21T08:10:00.000-08:00

Today, Sunday, we-re on our Sunday morning stroll downtown, trying to decide which bar to have coffee in. I try the one which gets most sun in the mornings but all the tables outside are taken by dodgy looking people in shiny black bomber jackets and shades. We try inside anyway but don’t even get some much as a buongiorno or a smile from the staff. That’s important. So I reverse the stroller out. Dithering outside about whether to go to the quiet but expensive bar on the pedestrian strip to my left, or whether to go to the bar on the corner of the roundabout by the sea, I sense some eyes on me, and realize I have just sailed past some cousins who are getting a good eyeful of myself and the stroller. They come over for a chat and to check out bambino who is blissfully sleeping. Just out for a coffee and glance at the papers and stroll with all the other parents on the promenade, I tell cousins, with whom I will be shortly having lunch at the nonna’s, to mark a year since the nonno died. We make it to the bar but poor bambino’s sleep is over. He’s a celebrity. There is a kind of hush as I wheel the stroller in and get settled with my coffee and book: people are busy trying to place me. Who’s this straniera? But then the man at the next table turns around with a great hello for us, a saxophonist who has played at the restaurant, and everyone sighs in relief. So she’s known round here. In fact, I sit for the length of my cappuccino kissing cheeks and handshaking all the Sunday morning socialisers: the exact same people who will have been up at Pachamama until 3am. It occurs to me that they are not really so much pleased to see me as pleased to be able to greet the nice foreign girl with her funky stroller and cute bambino. Because it’s all about appearances. Maybe I’m just being cynical. Maybe they are genuinely pleased to see me. I beam at all concerned anyway.

Walking with bambino

2011-02-19T11:40:00.001-08:00

It is quite an experience to go out with the buggy in this town. Now I am stared at even more than before. First for being foreign. But now I have the fancy three-wheel Phil & Ted stroller, without which I would never be able to leave my house due to the state of the streets here. The street we live on in the borgo antico is cobblestoned, but full of pot holes and all the stone slabs are chipped and broken making the surface extremely uneven. Impossible for the regular buggy to travel. So we brought the Phil & Ted over from Ireland. Meno male. I have joined the other strolling parents who walk their babies down along the marina. On Sundays it is a whole social event. Some families coming from mass, another social event in Italy, others just out for the passeggiata before stuffing their faces with the family, all don their Sunday best and strut their stuff down by the yachts and fishermen’s boats, since it is the only street wide enough to walk in twos, and smooth enough to enjoy with a buggy. I prefer to do it during the week as I have the whole pavement to myself, apart from a few fat fishermen who all stare at the straniera when we go by. Now and again mio marito joins me just so they know I am not a lonely single mother – I am the only person strolling alone. Sicilians would find no pleasure in walking alone.

But to get to this point there is an entire obstacle course to negotiate. Many crossing points on pavements will not have the gradual slant to wheel down the buggy so you have to jolt it down from the unusually high pavement. More often than not, the zebra crossing will have a car parked on it, on both sides making it difficult to get out – high pavement – and on coming traffic can’t see you. Though it is not customary to stop at zebra crossings anyway in Italy. This week I had to stand on the zebra crossing in the middle of the road while the man parked on it, blocking my access to the pavement, got into gear – while on his mobile phone - and drove off. There was quite a queue of traffic waiting for me to cross. Also this week I opened the door of my house to find a car parked right outside my gate completely blocking my way out! We had to lift the stroller over the bonnet of the car. Just as well mio marito was around. I wrote in red lipstick across the windscreen, ‘Thanks for parking here. I can’t get past with my buggy.’ I keep that red lipstick in my bag now, and on courageous days I think I just might leave such notes on cars blocking my way. Sounds OTT? Imagine how frustrating if five times in as many minutes you can’t cross at a zebra crossing and have to take your life in your hands and your baby’s and edge out on to oncoming traffic. Imagine that you can’t cross the road at another point because the cars are so tightly parked on either side of the road that there is no space to get your buggy through. So you end up walking on the road until you can get on to the pavement. Then you need to watch out for the dogpooh, or the huge lamp post placed inconveniently right in the middle of the pavement leaving you without enough space to pass on either side of it. So you need to go on to the road. But the cars are so tightly parked that you can’t get out on to the road. SO you need to backtrack. Or indeed, there is a car parked up on the pavement. Same problem, cars are parked so tightly around it that you can’t find a space to get out on the road. Very frustrating.

Add to this the mountains of rubbish growing at every overflowing smelly skip ... another mafia problem which the new council will apparently do away with .. I'll believe it when I see it. It is so disgusting and redolent of developing world coutnries ... We are talking about every 100metres having to pass rubbish heaps the size of a house. Think of the rats. On my first walk with mio bambino in the sling to the piazza a stone's throw from our house what did we see jumping into the wall? a rat. Despite the fact that the rat buster lives roud the corner from us with his Ratidion van proclaiming its disinfesting powers right outside. Not working. Familiar eh...

But by the same token, people will hold open doors for us, reverse their cars to let us pass at a regular crossing, and just smile as we approach. That's nice.

meeting and greeting with bambino

2011-02-19T11:33:00.000-08:00

Even more so than when I was pregnant, people are pleasant to me. I know that sounds as if I am surprised, and I am, when I consider how I was treated with circumspection, if not suspicion when I first arrived here. This is not an Italian thing – in Tuscany I was received with open arms. But Sicilians are notorious for their ‘sfiducia’ with regard to ‘forestieri’ or foreigners, but which I mean someone from outside their town, whether or not they are foreign. With good reason, too, considering their history.

Regulars from the bar and restaurant clamour to see our bambino and regale us with complimenti on how cute he is and often bring ‘regali’ too. The blue eyes win them over immediately, the wee charmer. I had him over at the restaurant for the Sunday aperitivo, now a regular and popular event (eat as much as you like, plus cocktail for €6: in Dublin the alcohol would run out, here it’s the food …). Well, bambino had a little fanclub gathered round the buggy. And the DJ (male) looked after him for me while I got something to eat. He even played nice chill out music until we left.

Men in particular are interested in him and in how his birth went. Last Saturday in the café down the road, one of our favourite local councillors and head of proposals for resuscitating the moribund castle asked me how I managed since he was such a big baby. Did you not have trouble with stitches? He asked. How funny, imagine an Irishman enquiring about your stitches. No, thanks to hypnobirthing techniques and a water birth, I didn’t need any. They are all fascinated with the idea of the water birth. You look great, he tells me, much better than before, luminous skin. Motherhood agrees with you! Grazie indeed. This is all accompanied by magnanimous hand gestures indicating my face, my hair and the general shape of me. Wonderful. Only Italian men can pull it off. Another male friend tells that he saw me at our wedding, when pregnant and now in the early days of motherhood, and he says, you are at your best now. Sei una donna completa. Will you listen to these Italians. I fear it is all to do with the hormones and once I stop breastfeeding this luminosity will leave me, the hair will fall out and the blackheads will return!

Old ladies have a habit of coming right up to us, right up to bambino’s face, whether he’s in the stroller or the babybjorn carrier, and screeching, yes, screeching into his little face, ‘Beddu!!!!!!!!!!!!’ Sicilian for bello. I feel frightened by these witches, so I don’t know how my poor bambino must feel. Here, it would appear, it does not come naturally to whisper at babies, as you would expect. Men shout, quite aggressively, ‘o giovanotto!’ (young man) and at first poor bambino cried, as you would expect, it sounded like he was being reprimanded. Now he’s a bit more used to the Sicilian rough treatment.

One of the nasty neighbours, the old lady who throws her rubbish into my in-law’s garden (!), stopped us as I was out for a stroll the other day. Pretending to rearrange her washing, hung out on the street in front of her little corner house, I knew she had her beady eye on us from way off. ‘Look at the picciriddu’ (Sicilian for piccolo, little one), she squawked. I winced, anticipating the ‘beddu’ screech, which duly came. I tried to walk on but she followed me down the street. ‘How come I have never seen you before?’ she mused. Yeah right. ‘Ah signora, sure you see me every day pushing the stroller up the hill,’ I reply, ready to give her the benefit of the doubt, but suspecting a ruse. She beams, innocently. ‘Ah, is that you pushing the pram. Sure I didn’t recognise you. Well, where do you live?’ Over the road there, I nod vaguely. ‘Where exactly? Which house?’ I repeat over the road, and amazingly she comes up with the exact house number. As if she didn’t know who I was. ‘So you are married to -?’ Aha. ‘And what do you do here?’ She enquires, all in Sicilian dialect. I am beginning to tire of her little game. ‘I run the restaurant across the road from your house,’ I tell her, looking her in the eye. And walk on. Not good to spend too much time with these nasty neighbours. My mother-in-law tells me not to trust any of them, that they know what’s going on before it has even happened. Watching everything from behind their purposefully half-closed shutters. And commenting among themselves. Never to your face, she warned, they are too sly for that. But they will be discussing everything about you behind your back. So it’s not just my imagination when I go out the door that many eyes on me ...

In fact mia suocera has just told me to make sure mio bambino is wearing something red tomorrow to ward off the mal'occhio at a family dinner tomorrow. But if it's family? All the more reason she says ... Her mother had her sew a little red heart into her children's clothes and so she had her daughter put a red chilli pepper from Naples under her grandchildren's mattress ... the eye is more powerful than anything people can say about you, she assured me. Wow. Reason enough to leave this crazy land...

Returning to Sicily with bambino

2011-02-19T11:30:00.000-08:00

The most long-awaited bambino in Sicily came back with me just before Christmas. The whole street turned out to greet him. Well, not quite. But all the neighbours wound down the slats on their shutters to get a good look at the Irish-Italian joining the street of losers and loopers. And at me of course, to see if I had regained my pre-pregnancy size. The in-laws feted him at every Christmas dinner and were disgusted when I took him home just before midnight on New Years’ Eve – I had no idea, nor did I care about the time – mio bambino was 7 weeks old, poor thing, and both of us were exhausted. Babies shouldn’t be up at midnight for noisy parties with champagne bottles popping and 30 adults all shouting auguri at each other across the room. Plus they had all had plenty of time passing him round and gawking at him and analysing whom he looks like during the previous large family dinners over the festive period. My north-European idea of a routine for the baby, involving a three hour loop of Eat-Play-Sleep came in for a bit of eye-rolling and I decided to steer clear of a certain sharp-tongued aunt with her old opinions on everything from dummies (I am not a fan and use it a quarter of the time they would use it) to sleep to whose eyelashes he has. Every part of my little bambino has been attributed, from his hair (very contentious, as it appears to be dark at first glance, like my husband’s, but underneath and at the temples it is fairer, like mine) to his fingernails. The chin? His paternal grandfather’s. His eyes are blue like mine and also the shape is mine, says the nonna, since they are not big like their eyes. Any bigger and they would be falling out of his little face. His Irish grandfather just smiles every time he sees him on skype because we all know that the person he most looks like is him. Everyone has their opinion, of course. Some exclaim ‘he’s the image of his father’, while someone an hour later will say, ‘è tutta sua madre’.

His grandparents see him a couple of times a week, either looking after him for a couple of hours to let me get something done, or when we go to their house for lunch. Then there are the brief encounters if I drop in to their house or to the restaurant or bump into them while out for a walk. But this is still not enough apparently. I begin to sense my cognata (sister-in-law) whispering that I am over-protective and they never get to see him. Since the older sister-in-law brings her two children over every single day for the entire afternoon to get time to herself, I can’t really compete. This is Sicily, where everything is full on. There is, of course, the way I want things done, and the way they do things here. That’s not particular to Sicily, every new mother has her issues with her mother-in-law or indeed her mother on how she wants things done for her baby. But here I am under more scrutiny and the north-European criticism is no doubt flouted often (as soon as I leave the room). For example, our houses here, being built into the side of a steep incline, are all full of steps. Steps to get into the house, and once inside, steps into the hallway. Then steps up or down to the kitchen. Hard concrete terracotta steps. I hate going up or down them carrying mio bambino, let alone someone else carrying him! But at the in-laws’, they like to carry him in the buggy down the steps to the kitchen, which is not necessary, I protest. He can stay in the hall if he is sleeping. But for them the ever-present ‘corrente’ is a much bigger danger. The draught in the hallway might cause him to catch pneumonia. On the other hand, when they are all dosed with the cold, or l’influenza , (the ‘flu) as any remote nose-dripping or slight cough is called here, they have no hesitation in looking after him for me, since the antibodies from my milk will protect him. Hmmmmm ….

Being pregnant in Sicily

2011-02-19T11:28:00.000-08:00

Here I am back in Milazzo, after a four month absence. I went back home to have our baby because the Sicilian hospitals – and staff – were not at all convincing. I stayed until the end of August, doing my duty through the high season, carrying my seven month bump through the humid terrace where curious diners congratulated me, and sat under the air-conditioning near the till when not dealing with customers.

The best thing was that no one smoked any longer inside the bar. I just had to move my bump nearer to the would-be smokers and they would lover the cigarette and go scuttling outside, usually with a shamefaced smile, most unlike the typical defensive attitude I met with before. The other, most interesting phenomenon was how attitudes towards me changed. No longer the north-European foreigner, to be regarded with suspicion and kept at a distance, I was embraced by one and all. Neighbours who had never exchanged a word with me, nor looked directly at me (while staring and observing my strange foreign ways from behind their shutters, be sure) suddenly started smiling and greeting me with a barrage of questions. Not necessarily a change for the better. In this strange community, the less your neighbours know about you, the better. But I couldn’t help smiling back and giving them the kind of information they wanted. I desisted, though, from revealing whether we were having a boy or a girl. It was always the second question, hot on the heels, after how many months pregnant I was, so that they could judge whether I had put on a lot of weight or not (I grew a lovely cartoon bump, or designer bump as someone called it, and didn’t put on much weight elsewhere). Whereas in Ireland/UK often it is hospital policy not to tell you the sex of your baby, here it is considered the norm to find out. But I didn’t think it was anyone’s business, much to mio marito’s amusement – and frustration – as he was dying to tell the world we had produced the heir. My duty was done in the eyes of my in-laws, who magnanimously said they would have been equally overjoyed if we were having a girl, the important thing, of course, was that the baby was healthy.

Luckily, after the first few months of slight anaemia and morning sickness, I enjoyed a healthy happy pregnancy, blossoming, as they say you do. Work at the restaurant became more fun, as any table I served wanted to get the lowdown on all the pregnancy details they could wheedle out of me, depending on the hunger levels. The difficult thing was the antenatal care. Nothing stateside can ever be simple in Italy, and of course it started out with the fact that I had mislaid the piece of paper with my doctor’s name on it (never having been to see him before). You would think such things would be registered on a computer system, but no, we are in Sicily … so when I went to the health centre to get the piece of paper printed again, the clerk told me non EU citizens had no right to free health treatment. Such was his lack of desire to print the measly piece of paper. I looked round me. Whom was he talking to? One Geo-political lesson later, and I got the required paper. I should have changed doctors while I was there though, because the dottore di famiglia turned out to be useless. He wrote me the script for the usual first blood/urine tests to be done, but when I showed up at the blood clinic (everything is separate in Italy … how I longed for the NHS) the receptionist told me I would have to go back to him for an amended script since he had omitted some of the blood tests. Two of the main ones, to be precise. When I took the results to him he turned almost as pale as me in my lightly anaemic state, and told me I needed to eat more meat despite the fact that I am a pescatarian. This was obviously too challenging for him so he told me I needed to get myself a gynaecologist for the rest of my antenatal care. He then gave me the script for the 12 week screening tests, the only free one in Italy, but he got the entitlement code wrong, as we found out when we went to Messina, the regional capital, requiring a further visit to amend the script and return to the hospital in Messina. …

In Italy, like in the US, antenatal care is provided by a gynaecologist, which you pay for privately upon each monthly visit. It’s a whole money-making game, since as my doctor friends told me, you don’t really need a monthly check-up, if it is a healthy pregnancy. Plus, the care consists of numerous expensive blood tests, a visita – internal exam, and scan, each month. All my UK/Irish doctor friends confirmed that all of the above were unnecessary, that the usual 5 or 6 blood tests and 2 or 3 scans during the course of the pregnancy were more than sufficient. The internal exam cannot reveal anything which can affect the gestation period, or birth, and the traditional hands-on-tummy and measuring tape were as good as the scans. So. You can imagine how overjoyed the gynaecologist was to have me as a patient, with all my awkward foreign questions and disagreement over her treatments. It was hard enough to find a female gynaecologist, there were only 3 or 4 in total, and the one we ended up with was a nervous creature. She was convinced I needed many blood tests, despite my healthy record, and an internal exam at every visit, which added €50 to the fee, or subtracted since I declined her the pleasure. This was a huge deal for her and when I would phone to make appointments, she would immediately ask whether I intended to have one or not … plus when I skipped a monthly appointment, since we had the 20 week scan with another sonographer who was able to assure us that everything seemed fine, she joked that I was skimping on checkups. I assured her there was no need … all about making money. One time I left the images of the scan behind, and when I called her to ask her to send me them, she said there was no way I could do that because she hadn’t given us an invoice. She was terrified our 28 week scan pictures might fall into the hands of the finance police who would then jail her for not paying her taxes … this does happen, actually. My friend’s doctor, a specialist in hip replacements in the neighbouring town of Patti, has just been sentenced for making thousands in this way.

But my main reason for wanting to return home (to civilisation) was that during the birth here no pain relief is offered. By that I mean they have nothing from the most basic gas and air, to pethidine, remifentanol or epidurals. In fact, the ‘parto con epidurale’ is known as c-section because you only get the epidural if you are having a caesarean section. Not that I wanted a drugged birth experience. I wanted a natural birth (and had one) but wanted to birth somewhere my hypnobirthing techniques would be understood, and somewhere with pilates balls and birthing pools. None of which is available in Sicily. Unheard of. My doctor feigned disappointment when I said I was leaving, said she had been imagining a wonderful birth with her obstetrician friend. They don’t even have midwives here, which for me, was fundamental in my vision of an unmedicated, intervention-free birth. Here, at the slightest whiff of a complication, you get a caesarean section. So take into consideration that my baby didn’t move into position until 37 weeks (described as breech until then, though most first time babies don’t move until between 34-37 weeks), and the fact that he was big, weighing 3.8kilos at the 40week term appointment, I would have been politely told that it was in my best interests to have a c-section. The fact is, that doctors in Sicily do not want to take the risk if any complication presents. Or is it the fact that the hospital gets paid for every caesarean performed? Or perhaps the fact that the doctor in question gets the job done in half an hour, rather than a 24 hour labour? I had only just arrived home when a local case made international headlines. A certain gynaecologist got into an argument with an obstetrician about whether a labouring mother should have a caesarean or not. The obstetrician told him that it wasn’t up to the gynaecologist to decide anymore, his job having ended before labour commenced. It came to fisticuffs and the gynaecologist put his fist through a window in front of the poor woman in labour and her partner. Meanwhile her labour got complicated and she ended up having an emergency caesarean, and the baby was born in a coma … The gynaecologist was struck off. He did my 12 week scan.

Volcanology conference

2010-10-04T09:36:00.000-07:00

We are providing the catering for a volcanology conference this week in the castello. They want breakfast and lunch provided on site everyday, with the occasional aperitivo and evening meal at ours. They checked out a few other local restaurants as regards menus and rates and chose ours. That's nice. We also heard from the Mayor's assessore who dined at ours during the week that the conference organisers had met with the mayor and some of his council to discuss the running of the conference and the catering. Other council members had suggested more established big name restaurants in town, insinuating that we might not be capable. But the assessore told them we would do a great job. So nice to have been chosen over the big names - for that is all they are: restaurants with flamboyant owners who swagger about spouting on about how fantastic they and their dishes are, heaving their convincing pot bellies from one table to the next with a handsome glass of red wine in hand (this tactic clearly works but it's just not our style).

I wonder what is being investigated: Mount Etna to the south, or the Aeolian islands - the closest one, Vulcano is a dormant volcano, could explode any moment. And excursions to the summit of Stromboli (the furthest from Milazzo - 30 km away) were stopped this summer because of larger explosions and a small tsunami on its shores. Two underwater volcanic craters between the islands and Sicily are apparently responsible for the rougher seas this summer too. Interesting ....

It's all about power and connections

2010-10-04T09:09:00.000-07:00

The police came by on Saturday night at 2am. The place was packed. It had been a great night, no hassle from the Barcelona mafioso gang who have been trying to get free drinks for the last couple of weekends, just nice people enjoying the DJ music.

Apparently, someone had called to complain about the noise disturbance. This is very strange because you cannot actually hear the music outside Pachamama. Our DJ was playing inside, and the speakers were inside. 'Are you sure the complaint was not about the bar up the road?' asked mio marito, signalling the bar 20 metres up the street - DJ and huge speakers outside on a podium, disco and drunken dancers in full swing on the cobblestones with the Moorish castle as enchanting backdrop to the overplayed House tunes. The policeman was sure the call was for Pachamama. He summonsed mio marito to come down to the police station the following day to see whether a fine would have to be paid. There would be two potential fines amounting to €2000 in total: one for disturbing the peace and one for not having the licence to have music until 2am according to a new law (news to us that we need this licence - another arbitrary Sicilian law).

Just another example of how we are scapegoats; we don't know the right people, we don't have friends in the police. For the rest of the evening our customers sympathised wondering how on earth the police had managed to walk out of our doors and ignore the offensive volume of the street disco not 20 metres from our door in the middle of the residential area. The DJ suggested it might have been a jealous owner of another bar in the vicinity. Or perhaps the caller got the name wrong - few of the elderly neighbours get Pachamama right.

So my poor marito had the ignominious duty to report to the police the following evening. He reiterated the fact that our customers were concerned about the loud outdoor music being allowed to continue in the bar nearby, while our indoor music had to be turned off; he added that having a DJ is not our greatest desire since we are more interested in the restaurant side of things, but with the current economic situation we are obliged to get punters in and make a living, and that all through the summer we have respected the laws and caused no public disturbance. The policeman acknowledge these points but said he had heard that mio marito had behaved badly during the course of the last police visit (we had a little visit a few weeks ago from a plainclothes carabinieri, just a routine check, and mio marito had asked to see his ID - presumably this was the bad behaviour in question). But this policeman went on to say that he could see mio marito was a decent person simply trying to do his job and that there had not been much of a disturbance outside our locale. They didn't go to the neighbouring bar with the disco because they were called out to another case as soon as they left ours ( yeah, right). Woudl this happen anywhere else in the world? They walk out of our civilised Saturday serata and completely ignore the chaotic outdoor disco on their left, whcih surely must be preventing the slumber of numerous residents ...

The meeting with the police goes well, it seems. Mio marito goes on to say that he did his military service in the carabinieri and so it would never be his intention to violate civic laws. 'Well, why didn't you say so?' says the carabinieri. 'You should have told me that on Saturday night: it would have changed everything.' Mio marito said he didn't want to take advantage of the situation of that fact, and it hadn't occured to him that it would have made a difference (something which any other Sicilian would have done straight up). The policeman gets increasingly friendly and assures him that he will do his best to persuade the Tenente not to go ahead with the fine - which in any case would now only amount to €250 or so.

Another story along the lines of power ... connections ... neighbourhood watch in the borgo

My Sicilianised accent and the Paella success

2010-08-06T06:16:00.000-07:00

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 beers, Sicilian, Italian and foreign, even though I haven’t tasted a single one of them. The Menebrea we have on tap, for example, is an award-winning birra artigianale from Biella, near Torino. And I can tell you what grapes are in your wine – Grecanico, Cataratto, Insolia (white), Nero D’Avola or Syrah (red) being the most common in Sicily, or recommend fruitier or crisper white wines, full bodied lighter reds. I’ve come a long way, managing to get these culinary tongue-twisters rolling off my tongue like a native.

Our billboard with the paella picture must be working because last night the two terraces were full and there was a paella at every second table. There is an increasing optimism at our tables, an increasing appreciation of the way we deal with our customers. Courtesy, humour and culture are served up in higher doses than in other restaurants. So we have noticed some locals, holiday makers or boat people (yachting staff) returning for more. Now they say on their way out, See you soon, or We’ll be back to try more from your menu … to try the paella, or whatever. Most encouraging. In fact, we are more relaxed now with the new cook in the kitchen. There was one slight delay yesterday for a paella, the fourth or fifth of the evening …but it came from a family who were getting steadily drunker on cocktails, most unusual, though we’d brought them nibbles on the house and a cheese and ham platter to start. But we can be confident now that the meat will be good, the fish will be good, the pasta will be tasty, the paella just right, the salads nicely presented.

Paella

2010-08-02T08:37:00.000-07:00

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.

Dirty waters

2010-08-02T08:06:00.000-07:00

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 be played outdoors etc … But mio marito and a few of the others added that proper maintenance of Milazzo’s greatest heritage be assured; proper street cleaning with hoses and daily rubbish collection. Several restaurateurs complained about the presence of cockroaches and insects coming from the fact that the streets are not cleaned properly. Mio marito asked for (the umpteenth time) recycling facilities to be set up, since we are all such consumers of glass and plastic bottles etc, not to mention the organic waste. The councillor agreed he would do it best, but it's all a foreign concept for these shores. You can only live in hope for so long, in Sicily. After a certain time you just get frustrated and resigned like the locals.

Rubbish is a big problem along the beach, too. Most of the population not being civic-minded, bottles and coke cans and crisp packets get left behind, along with the rubbish the sea dredges up coming across the sea from the islands. Yesterday’s paper had pictures of some ‘exasperated citizens kitted out with rubber gloves and huge bin bags, collecting some of the rubbish strewn along the beach in front of their houses. Defining themselves ‘the Green Brigade’, they were watched by ‘incredulous’ and ‘curious’ passersby. Incredulous, I can imagine, at someone being civic-minded enough to take charge of something that the town council doesn’t bother about. It is rare to see such displays of citizenship. For all their pride in being Sicilian, Sicilians tend to disown, or shrug off responsibility about the state of their town/region, probably due to a sense of helplessness. The Green Brigade were also keen to water the Oleander plants (rose-laurels), highly poisonous but beautiful bushy trees with magnificent white or pink flowers. They are all over Mediterranean countries and often used as traffic separators in towns, or to separate lanes in the motorway (especially along mafia-financed stretches of the Messina-Catania motorway) because of their resistance to drought and hostile environment. But the palm trees planted last year along the beach were a lost cause, they said, already diseased when planted, now they are a playground for rats. So these locals had some disinfesting work on their hands too.

The council hasn’t even managed to sort out the sewage treatment plant's malfunctioning. Almost all of last summer there were warnings about polluted water, and last week signs went up again banning swimming from a few kilometres of the coast. The part of the beach we frequent is apparently safe; but I wonder what quantities of bacteria they use to distinguish safe from polluted … not encouraging. A marine biologist friend has seen many cases in hospital of people presenting with skin inflammations and stomach upsets after bathing; he won’t even consider swimming on the ponente side of the sea and prefers the levante, Eastern shores where the beaches are rocky and uncomfortable but, at least, clean. But there you have views of the oil refinery …

Great. The one good thing about this place in summer is the sea …

2010-08-01T05:14:00.001-07:00

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!

Oops - telling the cook how to do his job

2010-08-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

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 in some local magazines must be working. When I arrived a guy waylaid me on the terrace. ‘Thank God you’ve arrived, Can you explain the menu to her in Spanish?’ His friend was from the Dominican Republic and was over visiting, but they were finding communications difficult in their limited English and his culinary vocabulary was not up to it! She enjoyed the Tapas de Tierra and a simple pasta alla Sorrentina. It’s not on the menu and I found myself explaining it to the cook – it’s just passata with mozzarella melted into it … before realising I was telling a Napolitano how to make his own local speciality. Funny. Plenty of tapas and house antipasti going out, but we must sell more of our lovely homemade desserts. The problem is by dessert time I am usually needed on the till for bills and people arriving for drinks; but we’ve noticed that people will take my or mio marito’s recommendations more willingly than the waiters’. It’s only to be expected, I suppose, we have more confidence now in our food and our customers, whether new, regular or tourists, like to discuss their order with us.

Work Inspectors on the prowl

2010-08-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

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.

The perfidious Inspettori di Lavoro were on the prowl last night. We got the warning from the bar next door that they were at the restaurant in the piazza just below our house. It has just recently opened, so like us last year, they were getting the full works. I walked down through the piazza to get a look at them so we would be able to identify them if they came our way while mio marito got out all the contracts and wages details. Even though everyone is in legal employment with us we still felt nervous. We had to tell the cook to get out of the kitchen because he is still on trial and doesn’t want a contract until August for reasons of his own. So mio marito was the official cook, with the dishwasher giving a hand and my sister-in-law doing most of the cooking. How are the gambas pil pil done, she came down to ask. Just garlic, white wine and chilli pepper? I took orders and tried to steer everyone towards panini, piadini or pasta or steaks which were within our competence – starting with the house antipasto, which most people went for too ( a fabulous mix of Sicilian seasonal treats, such as the caponatina, the parmigiana, stuffed aubergines, courgette roulades etc). Luckily, for the night that was in it, most people followed my advice. I had to offer the swordfish rolls (already made up earlier and just requiring the grill) instead of the swordfish tortino, which we didn’t know how to make, and we called in the cook briefly to do a prawn and courgette risotto and tagliata (beef steak). But the table in question, a Danish family, said it was the best food they had eaten on their holidays, and if vegetarian food was always this good (referring to the antipasto), that they would all become vegetarian! They said I was the first person who spoke English they had come across in two weeks’ holidays.

Meanwhile the Napolitano cook was stealthily monitoring the Work Inspectors' movements. He'd phone us every so often to update us, talking in such low spy-level tones, a mix of neopolitan dialect and Résistance urgency, that I could hardly understand him. An easy night's work for him. When the Work Inspectors drove off - five of them in total, serious (state money-making) mission, he donned his chef-gear again. 'Phew! Just as well we had all the antipasti prepared!' he said, sweeping his hand around the assorted dishes. Now let's get stuck in to work.' 'We've done it all,' said mio marito. And his sister whispered that her mother had prepared all the antipasti.

Apart from the newly opened restaurant, the work inspectors went to the noisy bar next to it and fined them for not having a permit for their musicians to play on the street (another state tax), and also visited a posh restaurant below the castle, where they had a heated discussion with the managers which nearly came to blows. The argument was keenly observed by bored locals delighted with the spontaneous entertainment.

Sexist advertisement removed

2010-08-01T05:02:00.001-07:00

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.

Marzamemi and wild white beaches

2010-07-31T02:31:00.000-07:00

We were supposed to go to Stromboli for a 2-day break before the high season kicks in and we'll have no more days off until September. But the weather got quite stormy and the sea was going to be rough for the crossing so at the last minute we cancelled, and opted for Marzamemi and the wild white beaches of Southern Sicily (near Syracusa). There's an international film festival on there in this quaint fishing village, with screens up in the main piazza and side streets. There is now a motorway the whole way there basically, so we were there in 2.5 hours, fantastic. After Catania the terrain changes, becoming lower and smoother, more open fields cultivated for vineyards, olive groves, hay, wheat etc and then around Marzamemi there are km and km of stretches of greenhouses – all semicircular, low-lying for the melons and higher arches for the Pachino tomatoes. I was most disappointed to discover that the Pachino,or cherry tomatoes are not indigenous to Pachino, as it would seem; but rather have been genetically modified to become the small sweet burst of juicy flavour that they are! And of course they don’t really have a season since they are greenhouse products.

Our agriturismo was in the middle of such fields with lovely views over vineyards, wheat fields, Pachino greenhouses and the sound of birdsong, very peaceful, and only five minutes drive from Marzamemi – and Pachino, not that there is much reason to go to Pachino.

We arrived 3.30ish since we found it really hard to get up on Monday morning. Our aiuto cuoco didn’t come to work Sunday night - had a fever - the Italian male phenomenon of the fever – and mia suocera was in Montalbano on holiday, so of course, as we should only have expected, it was our busiest night in months, and we were all run off our feet. The bad weather helped; everyone came to dine at ours because we have good space inside. A table of 12 in the side room who didn't book (of course not. Upstairs filled quickly, and downstairs tables had several sittings. Only one waiter. Our lavapiatti (dishwasher guy) tried to give a hand as aiuto cuoco but on his third Panini when he only had two orders in front of him, he was already in state of panic so mio marito had to keep checking in on the kitchen. The cuoco stayed calm and worked his way methodically though all the orders; I have to say there were no complaints, no mistakes and indeed several compliments, though a few tables did ask about their delay for their food, but all good natured. UNfortunately a table of 5 of our good friends were the last to order and so had quite a long wait. When we ARE actually busy we probably give the impression of being completely unprepared. Bad luck. I had to stay until 2am and mio marito later. My whole body ached with the effort of carting food and trays up and down the stairs so I was wrecked. But we got our delicious cappuccino on Monday morning at Bar Alexander, the best cream croissant in town.

We headed straight ot San Lorenzo and got sandwiches on the beach and the lido and then lay on the sand but we didn’t even get a swim because it clouded over dramatically with huge sweeping grey rainclouds and we all left the beach when the first drops fell. The sky was clear towards Marzamemi so we headed there for a stroll, lovely it looked in the evening light. The blue fishing boats in the tiny port, and the old stone building where all the cute bars are tucked away. Very pretty and picturesque. Got seated at Suruq, a cute bar on the piazza with great views of the screen. There was quite a breeze and it felt quite chilly, amazing after the tremendous heat and humidity of the last week in Milazzo. Depressing French film about immigration, called Welcome. But nice to be in the piazza. After there was an old Italian comedy about a man who collects sounds for the special effects on cartoons, so funny. Volere Volare. The next night the protagonist was sitting beside us!

Tuesday was a fabulous day on the Isola delle correnti (the Mediterranean and the Ionic Sea meet - the Med beach has choppy waves and lots of kite surfing, and the Ionic beach is calm with little breeze), beautiful beaches. We went to Pachino first in search of a newsagent. What a horrible town. Takes forever to get though it because of a weird oneway system weaving up through the high part of town, it is all built on a steep incline and the streets have no markings to let you know who has right of way. Run down houses with crumbling fronts, it was like a scene from Brazil. The petrol stations in centre of town added to the Brazil feel. Three old ladies gathered in the entrance ot a house fanning themselves, dressed identically in their below the knee smock dresses. Old men smoking in the piazza. Have never seen so many old people smoking. Also at our agritusimo, snow white hair, no teeth and a cigarette at the granny and the old granda’s lips.

Also had great walks on Caracois beach, just 4km from Isola delle Correnti down a dirt track. huge long wild beach with long white waves. Great beach for kite surfing. Two chiringuito beach bars but it was too windy to sit for an aperitivo. This beach is full of falò - bonfires - on the Night of San Lorenzo 10 August, we were there a couple of years ago gazing at the night sky to spot shooting stars aong with everyone else.

Best beaches in Sicily here.

Cook number 4

2010-07-31T02:30:00.000-07:00

19 July 2010

The usual back-and-forth going on between the potential new cook and ourselves regarding the contract and pay. In this country it seems the power lies with the employee. Or perhaps it is just because they know we have no one else lined up. How they boast about their talents is quite something. Perhaps we are all just too humble in Ireland. This cook, or should I say ‘chef’, started off with an unattainable figure for his pay (again – it was he who named the sum, not us …), knowing full well that this would oblige us to counteroffer a high figure and that somewhere in between would probably be agreed. We watched him at work this week, but it was a fairly quiet one for the kitchen. While compliments were received for the food, we never got to see him deal with 3 or 4 orders arriving at once, or a full restaurant. Just as well for his first week, as he needs time to note how we do things etc, but it is hard for us in such limited time to discover just how competent he really is. I want to call up some of his previous employers, but again it appears that this would only further complicate matters. He accepted our proposed rate of pay – which will allow for a higher rate during the peak time in August – but it is easy money for him. If he has worked in these places he has shown us, in photos and on CV, he will have had to work a lot harder than he has for us, where the average is 4 or 5 tables during the week, and 5 or 6 at weekends, not forgetting that many orders are for panini or antipasti, which he does not deal with.

Mio marito’s mother has been in bad form all week and now I realise it is because she does not like this cook. They have little to say to each other. She thinks he is full of himself and all chat, probably because so far they have all been like that. He didn’t participate much in the extra Sunday cleaning last night either I noticed. He picked up things and pretended to be getting on with some cleaning when I came into the kitchen, but my sister-in-law confirmed that her mother and the dishwasher did the most part. Well, next Sunday she won’t be on, so he will have to get on with some of it. Though we will no doubt discover that things are not as well cleaned as when she does them. Without a more detailed CV and a chat to previous employers I find it is impossible to get a clear picture of what we can ask and expect of an employee. And in the meantime, I think they use every trick in the book to get what they want from us. Having accepted out proposed pay, it was almost like he was doing us a favour by accepting this compromise, but he said he was happy to do so since we are ‘good people’ and he is working with good people in the kitchen and he lives within walking distance (so no petrol money). He did the usual chat that all the others have come out with, I could nearly save them their breath at this stage: ‘You can trust me, I am a reliable person, I have years of experience and it has taught me that most restaurateurs are nasty, profiteering people, but I see you are honest and honourable people and I will do my best, it is all about respect .. blabla bla and so the person gets the job. WHY can’t we use some sensible North-European interview techniques at this stage? Every time we have been disappointed, each and every ‘cook’ we have hired has tried it on. I could see him in my mind replacing ‘nasty’ and ‘profiteering’ with, in our case, ‘young’ and ‘gullible’. Funny, but as soon as they do that whole ‘You can trust me, I am a reliable person’ speech, any hope or faith I had in that person just dissipates into the humid Sicilian air.

In the tradition of all the previous cooks, he made a semifreddo to try and impress me. He told me himself he wanted me to taste it and then mio marito told me that he was keen for ‘tua moglie’ to try it. The semifreddo alle mandorle, (almond) is just too sweet for me, like most Sicilian desserts. His had a layer of caramelised almonds on top, which just made it totally inedible for me, and then it was to be served with chocolate sauce. Way too much sugar for me, but the semifreddo itself was nice and I know that is what Sicilians like. He is at least the fourth ‘cook’ who has thought that impressing the wife with the desserts is a good way to get the job. Little do they know that it is a lot harder to win my sceptical North European heart.

outrageously sexist solar panels

2010-07-14T04:18:00.000-07:00

This obscenity is plastered on several billboards around Milazzo. It just clarifies, in case anyone was still in doubt, what Sicilian males think of women. Here, we have a woman, naked apart from her red shoes, advertising solar panels. This commercial says "Montami a costa zero." A play on words. Montami means 'set me up' ie in the sense of having your solar panels installed - but it also means 'Ride me' and the Sicilian males have photographed the girl in just the position in which they would like to do so.

Needless to say my Spanish friend and other members of the Donne Libere have already been on to the company to get rid of this degrading and volgar and chauvinistic advertisement. The director simply doesn't undersand what the problem is.... There is no hope. 2010 in Sicily.

Yet another chef ...

2010-07-14T04:14:00.000-07:00

We had the new cook on trial last night. He just came for a few hours. He seemed capable of only speaking to mio marito at first, until I started asking him direct question about some dishes he was proposing for the summer menu. He is absolutely huge, built like a sumo wrestler, he’ll not be able to do much moving around in our kitchen! He did speak more convincingly than anyone I have seen in the last year who professed to be a cook. Indeed, this man calls himself a chef. His CV does cite several well-recognised hotels and restaurants, but no formal training. Our second cook has worked with him before and says he is a proper chef; this of course means that he will be pushing for high rates of pay. He is also from Naples.

My mother-in-law is still fuming about the fact that the German-Sicilian cook never appeared. We last heard from him when mio marito was away on a boat trip a few weeks ago and he got me on the landline. I told him to stay in touch and let us know if there were any changes to his plans, after he told me he wouldn’t be back until 7 July. I also said we might well have ot start looking for someone else as we didn’t feel reassured that he would show up, given his track record. Is aid this in a light-hearted tone, knowing he only takes mio marito seriously, but I made my point. Anyway, we haven’t heard a bleep form him since, and my mother-in-law is raging. She thinks he tried to take the whole family for a ride, especially her son. The strange thing is that her son was so convinced he was the man, especially since al of us, before he had even arrived, were suspicious, and then when we did finally meet him, felt even more suspicious!

This means, she says, after the catalogue of dodgy people we have had in and out of our kitchen – her kitchen – that she does not trust anyone anymore, and she would usually give anyone the benefit of the doubt. She’s dead right: every single cook who has been interviewed professed to be capable and worth much more than they were – which is always completely clear within a week. Our Napolitano is now pushing for more than we can give him but there is no point in starting on a level beyond our means. He has just left his last place of work because they weren’t paying im – a well-known, well-thought of place! All our staff know that we always pay them on time and are very happy with their working conditions – in fact, at last we have a great time in the kitchen and in the waiting staff – we just need a chef!!!

Shut down at 2am and the Neopolitan Showman

2010-07-12T05:03:00.000-07:00

The police came by on Saturday night saying we had to close at 2am. Luckily, a friend from another bar had warned us about this and we had a sign up saying Last Orders at 2am! Usually at 2am it is our busiest time. The bar was packed on Saturday at that time. We said we thought we just had to stop serving drinks, and he said, I’m sorry but the new rule is that the locale must close at 2am. I would be delighted to see us all get to bed a bit earlier except that it had a big impact on our takings for Saturday night. And we need Friday and Saturday night takings to survive as a business! The policeman had two guys form the army with him as backup, and we recognised them as regulars – they looked really sheepish and embarrassed. Apparently there is a new chief of police and he wants to make his presence felt. It will probably die down in a few weeks – it better do for August, which we all depend on for good takings for the rest of the year …

At least the policeman was decent and not throwing his weight around. Apparently he went to all the bars around here.

Meanwhile, Paco, the circus-style entertainer who has played twice for us (Paolo Conte and Viniscio Capossela covers – very good band) showed up with his platinum partner. At 2.30am they wanted to know where to stay. We have never had them back because they cost more than any other band (v. expensive) and also he is very arrogant and gets on everyone’s nerves, requiring personal assistance before, during and after the show. My sister-in-law – our waitress- can’t bear him. So amidst the whole police shutting down confusion, my husband then had to find him somewhere to stay. We reckon he was hoping we would put him up, but even if we had wanted to ( we wouldn’t), my sisters are in the spare room. Unlucky, Paco. He said he had tried various places to no avail, but he obviously hadn’t tried the hotels with their 24 hour reception – too expensive for this scrocconne (scrooge/sponge). So he called our friend who has a B&B and who keeps late hours sometimes. But she was sound asleep. She said no, not wanting the hassle but then, since she was awake, she agreed to wait for them. They got to her at 3.30am and she says they put on a whole show about how they were our great friends and played once a month for us and so could become regular clients of hers. She said he made it sound like they were doing her a favour by giving her business – at 3.30am. She told them breakfast was from 8.30-9.30am and check-out at 10.30am and they rolled their eyes wildly and said but we are only getting here now at 3.30am so can we have breakfast later and check out later? She said no, breakfast is always at that time, but I’ll let you have the room until 11.30am but no later, as my mother will be doing the morning shift and she likes people to stick to the rules. He made a fuss as if this was very inconvenient and he was someone deserving special treatment, and she said, there is a hotel with 24 hour reception just 100metres down the road. Please go there if you prefer. She was getting tired of his Napolitano ways. (She says he was a classic Neopolitan – sorry napolitani). He wasn’t in his room ten minutes when he called her mobile – at 03.40 asking where he could find a bottle of water. Where do you think, at this hour of the night? She replied. I will have to get it for you.

In the morning there was no sign of him at 11.40am so she asked her mother to go and get them out. Anticipating his request for a discount, she said, tell him that the price, €70 is already discounted. Of course the showman tried it on, saying do we not get a discount because we are such good friends with Pachamama and we only arrived at 3.30am??? Imagine. When the gate closed behind them, the platinum partner was heard to whine, ‘Not even in the Sheraton are there such prices!’ My dear, the Sheraton would have charged you a second night for leaving the room late. Our friend said she wouldn’t let them in the door again!

Airport taxi service swindle

2010-07-12T04:54:00.000-07:00

My sisters arrived Saturday night in the most stressful circumstances. I was so annoyed that we had no one to pick them up. We would both be working Saturday night so we had to find out about taxi services, since the last bus was at 8.10pm from the airport, and they would not make the last train from Catania to Messina. The agencies all quoted €140. Megabucks. The bus costs €12!

I phoned the agency Garage delle Isole to see if their minibus might be picking up others on Saturday night and the receptionist said no, but she called on Saturday morning propsing €100. In fact it was SHE who called to suggest a taxi for €100. So the girls accepted.

But the girls were delayed getting their baggage, of course we are talking about Catania airport. SO they said the driver was calling them and seemed a bit agitated about the delay. Then half way into the journey I got urgent calls from my sisters. They said the agency had called, three times in Italian and then once in English, a lady telling them they would have to pay more because of the delay. They said that was not mentioned in the agreement and so the lady calmly said she would have the driver leave them at the side of the road. I called the agency to find out what was going on, and the owner was incredibly rude. He had some cock-and-bull story about calling my sister from 6pm to say the car wasn’t available anymore, but how he then managed to find another car – as if to say he was doing us a huge favour. I said I wasn’t interested in how many cars he had; but it was an absurdity to call my sister who was obviously in flight at 6pm, especially when he had my number and I speak Italian and live in Milazzo, whereas my sister, apart from being airborne, speaks only English. Also, had I known at 6pm that they could no longer provide the service, then I could have called another company. This was obviously part of their scheme, even though it makes little sense. He put the phone down.

I called back and he started roaring about how I obviously have no idea, signora, but this trip from Catania airport to Milazzo costs €240 usually. I said well that’s funny because all the other agencies quoted the same price, €140 and I chose you because you offered the lower price on the day and also because my parents had used their minibus service to the airport a few weeks previously without hitches. But i was talking to myself again. The rude man had hung up again!

In the meantime the taxi driver called me and reassured me he would bring the sisters safely to me (they told me after he was doing 150km/hr at times) and I said I would sort things with the agency. He sounded very kind on the phone so I knew I could trust him.

I phoned the agency back and said So are my sisters on their way to me then? And the man (the owner) replied – the taxi driver isn’t answering his phone any more because I have told him to leave the two girls at the side of the road. Comic value comes through now, but at the time I was raging. I said very good, I have the police below my house (they were doing checks on cars), I’ll just send them straight down to you. And I’ll report you tomorrow, and will give you bad press from now on. And what a terrible first impression you have given to two tourists arriving in your country.

So watch out people! This agency, based in Milazzo, is called Garage delle Isole.

open air discos in the borgo

2010-07-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

I left the locale after midnight having been there since 6.30pm for the book launch. Things were quiet enough. But I found our house to be the cross-section for about 4 different bands playing live outdoors, each of them belting out equally atrocious music. The band playing nearest was attempting terrible renditions of and 70s and 80s Italian rock music. I hardly recognised Paolo Conte’s lovely ‘Via Via con me’. The second nearest was a screechy woman trying to perform international rock music – I heard various U2 songs being murdered. The background din was so formidable I couldn’t hear the news on TV, even with the windows shut. Absolute nightmare when you know at 12.15am that this awful din is going to go on until at least 2am. However, I was aware that everything did come to an abrupt halt at around 2am due to a police raid on the nearest and loudest locale; they weren’t there to stop the music apparently, but rather were looking for a Mafioso, stopping punters and asking for documents. The Carabinieri also visited each of the other establishments with the loud music. Glad we stopped music for July. I think people actually come to our place to enjoy the peace, have a good chat and enjoy our lovely white Aeolian style terraces.

Lesbian book launch

2010-07-11T02:08:00.000-07:00

Last night Pachamama hosted a book launch: ‘Lesbianism in Nazi-Fascist Europe’. Only our locale could have hosted such an event. The organiser, my Spanish friend, was highly excited when she came, with her projector and images and requests for fun music to lighten the atmosphere. Arci-Gay arrived from Messina laden with posters on safe gay sex and anti-gay and anti-discrimination slogans which he then plastered all over the front of the locale. It reminded me of the early 90s in Ireland, and the 80s in England. but being gay is still a taboo topic in Sicily. But apart from Arci-Gay and the Rita Atria Women’s Anti-Mafia group and a few of the Donne Libere there weren’t too many people. The usual. We had just enough chairs so it was perfect in the privé (sideroom).

I thought all was going well – young Claudia introduced the subject matter and then the two co-authors talked about the difficulty of researching a topic about which there is so much secrecy and censorship. Survivors, they said, were reluctant to talk. But when the writers took questions from the audience, a heated discussion broke out between the president of Arci-Gay and one of the authors. He accused her of not wanting to lobby or promote their cause with right-wing parties, and she defended herself by saying she had worked within Arci-Gay for many years and seen how this approach was fraught with difficulties because Arci-Gay used only certain channels and people in the right-wing parties and it didn’t work for her. The Arci-Gay president, a large man, got out of his seat and went up to the panel and stood right in front of the writer while vehemently putting his point across. This will have seemed intimidating to her as his stance was belligerent and forceful. So she responded on the defensive and this too came across very strongly. At one point she jumped to her feet shouting, ‘Well, if I am going to have to defend myself to the Arci-Gay, I’m leaving!’ The organiser managed to placate her and convince her to stay till the end. Afterwards, the president said he would right a damning review of this skirmish in the local press the next day, which seemed unnecessary and petty. The writer herself was very taken aback and upset, especially since her reasons for not dialoguing with right wing parties are based on previous negative experience of how Arci-Gay operates with the said parties.

My Spanish friend was upset by all of this and said this was a perfect example of why nothing worked in this country and no progress in anything regarding social issues, could ever be made. How can we work on environmental issues, refuse and recycling problem and equality for women in Sicily, if these groups, who ostensibly would appear to have similar agendas, cannot even agree or discuss things in a diplomatic manner? She despaired. She said it was evidence of how in Sicily everyone has their own agendas, people will only participate in an event/meeting if they can promote their own interests; rather than listening and sharing other ideas, they want only to talk over the head of other members of the group to voice their own concerns. There is no concept of working together for the collective group. She reckons this springs from two traits prevalent in Sicilians: protagonismo – each wants to be a protagonist, the main actor on their own stage playing out their own drama; and familismo or amoral familism (a concept coined by American sociologist Edward C. Banfield in his 1958 study ‘The moral Basis of a Backward Society’ based on research he conducted on peasants in Lucania in the South of Italy.) which, in short, translates as looking out for your family only and not caring for the collective good, or improving the world now for the benefit of future generations.

My Spanish friend wanted to have a meeting with mio marito and a friend who has been elected to the town council, today to discuss the recycling and refuse collection problems and women’s issues too with a view to meeting the sindaco (mayor) with a strong agenda; but even our councillor friend was off-putting. He said the new mayor seems open enough at this point to constructive projects, but it had to be remembered that he was mayor for 7 years before in which it became clear that he was heavily influenced by his corrupt brother who had a string of dodgy powerful friends needing favours. He said in local politics here you had to be aware that each and every person had their own personal and political agenda, and that it was never about working together on a project for the general improvement and benefit of society. How depressing.

Our Sunday Aperitivo

2010-07-11T02:06:00.000-07:00

Our aperitivo on Sundays is going well, each week there are more people. Although now that the heat has arrived, we reckon people will tend to stay until late at the beach and either come late for the aperitivo or not bother at all. So we’ll have to see how it goes in July. I say we should play it by ear. Have a minimum of food prepared and then if necessary prepare more. Although that could prove difficult if we have to prolong the aperitivo until later as it could clash with customers who wish to have a meal – too much activity for the kitchen. We’ll see.

The locals love it, because our food is so good. When I think back to the aperitivos we used to have in Tuscany, ours is definitely more abundant and better quality of food, all freshly prepared. The whole idea of the aperitivo is that you don’t make money on the food, but rather on the drinks consumed, as people will want to have a second drink to accompany their second round of the dishes. That is how we operated in Tuscany anyway. But here, unfortunately, it is not quite so. Many people seem able to consume large quantities of food without having a second drink and have no qualms about coming in and filling up their plates again! There is one customer in particular, a cousin, who comes and indulges to the max. He actually said last Sunday, I haven’t eaten since breakfast, I was saving myself for this aperitivo. He and his wife fill and refill, but when it comes to paying, it seems to become painful for him. He limps towards the bar and reluctantly takes out his wallet. Now, the aperitivo costs €6, including your drink, and subsequent drinks are their usual price. Can’t do much better than that. But this cousin likes to get preferential treatment, meaning a healthy discount. When he and friends dine, they do get discounts, but it is hard to discount the aperitivo when only a couple of drinks have been consumed. The total was €17 as he did have a second cocktail and while he had a €20 note at the ready, he seemed to be shuffling rather obviously a couple of €10 and €5 notes, perhaps hoping for a discount? Since none was forthcoming, he then wanted a beer to round it off at €20; rather than choosing one that costs €3 (all of them bar three), he specifically requested a €4 one. I said, Well then we can give you a little discount, smiling sweetly. He said, Just as well, because I didn’t have any change! He’s probably annoyed he always gets me on the till rather than mio marito, his cousin, who would probably feel obliged to give him a good discount, even on the aperitivo – which is virtually free!

Busy Wednesday and Mafiosi Cats

2010-07-11T01:56:00.000-07:00

Last night was very busy after the mere three tables on Tuesday night. We watched the Spain Portugal World Cup match on Live streaming.

But last night I had told mio marito to rest and I’d call if we needed him. But first the Fortunato Wine family arrived with a party of 9 and sat outside. Then a table of 6 came and sat outside, six women, who then moved because the cats were prowling around – the ginger has given birth to 6 kittens. The tabby cat and another silvery one chase each other on the rails of the gazebo overhead, while the kittens scamper between flowerpots. Our clientele is divided between those who love them and those who don't want them nearby while eating. I would be in the second camp but it is so hard to get rid of them. We have put plastic bottles fo water everywhere - apprently tis serves to keep cats at bay - but today we found a large cat poo right next to one of the bottles on the windowsill - clear marking of territory. Mafioso cats.

Then another table of 5 arrived and sat inside, and a couple who installed themselves on the balcony – these last two tables wanted the birra bionda, which was finished, and the doppio malto which wasn’t working. It always seems to be such a problem when you say there is none. With all the bottled beers we have for God’s sake.

Then another foreign couple and a table of three girls. I got the Fortunatos happy with their orders and the young kids with their piadina and promises of interesting crepes for dessert – the mamma wanted a plain crepe and I said have the original French butter, sugar and lemon juice – and the cousin was surprised to hear they were originally French. Mamma delighted with the possibility.

Then the French couple wanted to know what the risotto was – I struggled to remember gamberi (prawns) in French, knowing it wasn’t like Spanish - gambas or the Italian. Crevettes popped into my head, and courgettes of course. She was pleased. They were from Paris, a sweet little couple exploring the island. They loved the fact that I could speak French. They have struggled to be understood, they said. I can imagine. It can be ahrd to find people who speak Italian here, with all the dialect around, never mind French or English!

The three girls at the next table outside who had some tapas and Garbugli di Venere and scampi had come all the way from Capo D’Orlando. Wonder how they heard about us. Also wonder how the French couple knew to come because they came struggling up the hill all out of breath and sweating when they arrived. The large table of 6 girls wanted 3 tapas di mare and 3 tapas di terra and seemed very happy with them. And the table of 5 who sat inside asked for the paella di pesce but asked could they add chicken to it. I said no, not possible, and they said but we had it before, and I said, I know, laughing, I was very angry when I found out. That is a tourist trick they do in Valencia, but the true Paella is either only fish or only meat. My certitude convinced them and they forgot about wanting to add chicken. They had one of each and were happy with both.

Photos Panarea

2010-06-02T04:21:00.000-07:00

The wheeler-dealer cook

2010-06-02T04:00:00.000-07:00

Well, our joy in finding a competent cook is, of course, of course, now tainted with a little doubt as to his intentions. You can never take anyone at face value in this place. He’s only been here two weeks, that is, he has only been working for us for ten days, but already there are a few things that don’t quite figure. Or that hint at certain things. Especially one particular instance: on Sunday night he asked my husband could we lend him some money. Some money? Says my husband, thinking he perhaps wants an advance on his first salary to help with settling back into Sicily. But we are talking along the lines of €10 000. EH?????!!!!! As bold as brass, he explains he’s in a tricky situation because his money is all tied up in Germany, but his sister needs some money badly at the minute and can we help out. I am blown away. Amazed. Has he not seen that the restaurant is practically empty on weekdays? Or does he actually think that the fact that the place is packed on Fridays and Saturdays mean that we are rolling in it? Has he not contemplated the 6 members of staff plus the bands that we have to pay at the weekends? And the overheads and the suppliers and the fact we’ve only been open a year? Can he not approach his brother or children in Germany for cash? I think he is off his trolley.

Mio marito diplomatically tells him he’ll discuss it with me but thinks it hardly likely. When he gets back to him with the news that we are not able to ‘help him’, he tries for €5 000!!! ‘Can you not give me something at least?’ he says, expectantly. No embarrassment. It’s as if we are inconveniencing him by not stumping up the dough for his dodgy dealings. Who knows what he needs it for. My mother-in-law reckons, from some of the noisy phonecalls she has overheard, that his sister may be purchasing a property, in which he will in also invest, and that they need the deposit money. He has been declaring that he has – or will have - €300 000 to invest here in Sicily, once he passes the sale on his restaurant in Germany. Now that the castle has reopened after its two years of restructuring, he thinks we need to capitalise on this by opening during the day, and even running a kebab and sandwich joint for tourists. We had a short circuit in the kitchen the other night and he slapped his hands on the fridge doors; ‘It’s these fridges which consume so much energy. When I’m in Germany I’ll get you some decent fridges: small ones that we can stick in under the work surface and then use as worktops.’ No need, I reassure him, it’s not the fridges, but the bad wiring that causes the short circuit now and again. I notice that the wine glasses are not shiny as usual and ask is the dishwasher playing up. But my mother-in-law says they are using a new detergent and so writes down on the shopping list the old product they used before. Our cook declares that all glasses should be washed at the bar anyway, that we could purchase another small, powerful dishwasher for the bar for €500. He goes on like this all the time apparently, making sweeping suggestions about improvements (expensive) and investments (on our part) to be made. He even hints that he and my husband go into partnership, that his rich Russian friend will soon be arriving from Germany with masses of Euro to invest (‘his house is made of gold, pure gold, real gold, I tell you!’) and then we’ll all invest in new projects together, like one big happy family. In fact, the language he uses with my husband, is all, ‘fratello’ (brother), ‘io ti voglio bene’ (I really like you) – from the minute he heard his voice on the phone he knew he was a good guy he could trust - and all his kind of blether. We were looking out at the piazza in front of Pachamama one evening before work, with the palm tree and the old church – the lovely old church façade that many tourists stop to look at, but which is closed since it hasn’t been restored. It is very picturesque, in that decrepit, Sicilian way, especially at night with the soft street lighting. ‘This piazza is bellissima,’ he declares. ‘I mean, look at this church; do you know if it is for sale?’ It is hard to keep a straight face. This is a seventeenth century church we are talking about.

‘No one who has been his own boss for thirty years can make such a change and easily adapt to working for someone else,’ says mia suocera, shrewdly. She is certain that we are just his ‘appoggio’, his initial support for getting connected again in Sicily. In fact, he often pops down into the bar area to see how customers are doing – more to get talking with them and networking than to see if they are enjoying his food. He’s putting out feelers for potential money-making schemes or partners, sources of funding and who knows what ventures. He gets despondent and bored on weekdays and Sundays when orders come in for panini and piadine; perhaps he is beginning to realise that he will make no fortune through Pachamama.

Stromboli

2010-05-30T08:32:00.000-07:00

Escaped for a couple of days to the magical islands of Stromboli, my favourite of the Aeolians. May is the perfect time to go as it is not too hot. As soon as you get off the hydrofoil you start to feel the Stromboli effect. No cars, just motorini, api (the three wheel moto-truck) and bicycles. The sounds of birds flitting among olive groves and lemon trees, and the low boom of the volcano when it erupts. Stromboli is a live volcano and you can walk to an observatory to watch it and have pizza by candlelight – which we did a couple of years ago when the volcano was particularly active, erupting every ten minutes or so, sending sparks of lava high into the air and molten rock tumbling down its dark silhouette. There are also guided tours which start in daylight and finish in darkness at the top with a picnic while you look down from a height into the crater before sliding and jumping down through the black sandy slopes.

This time we were staying in a secret garden – hidden from the outside by cypress trees, eucalyptus and pine trees, tucked away among rose bushes and olive groves this B&B nestles at the foot of the volcano, allowing unhampered views of the mountain and out to Strombolicchio, a huge rock looming out of the sea from its fragrant terrace. Our long cabin was so well hidden with sprays of greenery that we were convinced it was ‘abusivo’, built without planning permission, but it was the perfect accommodation to enjoy the full Stromboli experience. One of the benefits of having Mondays and Tuesdays off is that we have the whole place to ourselves. The only sounds up here are birdcalls and owl duets.

We head off to the Grotto di Eolo, our favourite bay with a huge cave providing me with much-needed shade. Plenty of walking on Stromboli but the fresh breeze and the pretty cobbled streets perfumed with jasmine and coloured with bougainvillea spray make it enjoyable. Our bay though, is packed with a large group of East Europeans, possibly vulcanology students of varying ages, and our peace is disturbed by their heavy drinking and Frisbee games with beer bottle tops. Also, the rough winter tides have rolled up masses of stones on to the beach, so now, where once there was soft black sand, there are uncomfortable spikey stones. Very hard to walk into the sea. The foreigners have the bright idea fo trying to rid their part of the beach of the stones and line up in a row of ten or so, flinging handfuls or stones at a time out to sea.

We head up the main piazza around 5pm for icecream at Ingrid’s bar (so called becaused Ingrid Bergman stayed on the island while filming and romancing ‘Stromboli’ with Rossellini). When I get to our table with my icecream I find my husband has been assailed by a little girl who seems to want money or food, or both. She flashes her toothless grin and I wonder just how often she plays this trick. Where’s your mother, we ask her. How come you are allowed to roam the streets so freely? Her older sister (Margherita, 12) soon comes along and it turns out she was getting the bread for dinner when her young sibling ran off. ‘You’re not to accept food from strangers,’ she scolds her. ‘You weren’t asking for food again, were you?’ Part of the double act or not? We’re not sure.

We’re back out before it’s dark to enjoy the sundown. The light at this time is magical on Stromboli. There is a sense of winding down, a smell of freshly cut hay on the air since our host is out tending to his nearby field. The volcano is bathed yellow in the last rays of the sun, creating shadows in its crevices. Seagulls and sparrows wheel overhead as we get nearer the piazza. We stop again for an aperitivo at the bar and this time Bartolo regales us with his mad wisdom. The wild fennel paste is best, he rants, about the bruschetta toppings.

Coincidentally, some friends from Rome have hired a sailing boat and we meet them after our delicious breakfast just for two on the magnificent terrace of our B&B. They take us out to bay where the old sciara is – where the former mouth of the volcano was- since it is too windy to be able to swim around Strombolicchio and the anchor would drag. My first swim of the season on Stromboli’s waters, not bad. ‘You have the life of Riley,’ say our friends. ‘Think of us in Rome, an hour to get to work, an hour and a half to get to the beaches outside Rome, when you have this paradise on your doorstep.’ It’s true: people come from all over the world to see these islands, in fact we see various groups of French, Swiss and German trekkers all geared up for the hike up the volcano.

We then head to one of the bays next to the Grotto di Eole and find one with lots more sand, rather than pebbles, and no one on it. Such luxury. Sail boats drift past. Not a sound, only the whoosh of the sea. Later we dine in a lovely restaurant with a terrace overlooking the sea and Strombolicchio disappearing into the nightfall till it becomes a beacon flashing three times from its lighthouse. One tasty occhiata later and we head back up to our secret garden, guided by the almost full moon casting our shadows onto the whitewashed walls.

Up at 6.30am for breakfast we see Stromboli at its best; the early morning light gives the clearest view of the volcano while Strombolicchio is just emerging from morning mists on the sea. A dawn chorus of owls and birds accompanies our caffè lattes and then we’re off to the hydrofoil.

A perfect break before the summer season kicks in.

Election fever

2010-05-30T08:31:00.000-07:00

Election fever dominates the sound waves here since voting takes place finally on Sunday. Just like in South America, cars go around all day blasting their candidate’s names and jingles from huge speakers. 660 people have candidated themselves for the council – il consiglio. They hope to get some financial gain out of it apparently, network in high places; but I still haven’t worked out what the requirements and parameters for candidacy are. Even the young girl in my favourite clothes shop asked me for a vote; so many of her friends were candidates too that she couldn’t count on friends’ and family’s votes alone. So what will you propose be done for women, I asked her. But she hadn’t a clue. She said much was needed for children here, more sports facilities, more playing fields and swimming pools. If anything is needed for children here, it is something of a more educational nature; cultural exchanges, international opportunities, better use of the grants available from the European Union. I am preparing 14 year olds in a local secondary school for the KET Cambridge English exam as part of a well-funded EU scheme for extra-curricular activities; but out of 100 in the year group – ten showed up for the course. Parents obviously not aware how important English will be for their future, and head teachers unable to sufficiently promote it. The standard to English teaching here in schools is not good, by the teachers’ own admission – and from what I have seen; the children were slow to respond to my communicative, interactive techniques, and it is still, after 4 months, difficult to get them to speak in English in pairs, or to me! They are taught by rote, and can parrot off to me the past participle and simple past if I give them the infinitive, but that’s about the height of it. Constructing sentences is a mammoth task for them. Another example of ill-used resources – the internactive whiteboards in a room upstairs in the school complete with overhead projector, but useless because the keyboard to the computer is missing … and there is no internet in the school anyway. Meanwhile I have to use chalk on the blackboard. Reminds me of the wonderful windmills on a hilltop outside the lovely mountain village of Montalbano; these wind energy stations seem to frame the belltower of the town’s duomo, but do little else; they don’t work!

I am disappointed, though, that the shopgirl has no ideas for women; statisics gathered by the donne libere, the women’s group formed here by friends of mine, reveal that the unemployment rate for women in Sicily is 70%, and that thousands of women are violently assaulted, and even killed, in Italy every year; in Sicily only 2% of these women will go to the police about it; but the police, and the doctors who treat their wounds, are likely to tell them to go home nad be a good wife to try and avoid any more trouble. Women are too afraid to report here, and even if they do, have no support system to look after them. Police and doctors need training, the women need free access to counselling and psychologists. This was part of the aim of donne libere; they have already applied for funding and three paid positions within a local structure here where these services would be provided, along with an improvement in child-minding facilities to enable women to work or get to the gym instead of having to rely on family, as is the only option here. But since the reality of this ‘sportello donne’ came onto the horizon, my founder-friend tells me, the come of the women who have been flimsy frequenters of the meetings have now become strident in claiming their right to the paid positions in the sportello donne. Since my friend is now leaving, I fear it will all fall apart, sicne it was her vision and energy which drove the initiative. This would be a great pity since she is doing one of the most useful things for women this town has ever seen. Her networking skills and diplomacy have given the donne libere a visibility and standing which could finally guarantee some positive changes for women here.

Meanwhile, fears that the current mayor will be re-elected prevail. Despite the fact that he and other members of the commune (town council) are implicated in mafia-related extortion concerning the development plans for the waterfront area. The lungomare, generally a scruffy and pretty-much abandoned area all year round except for July and August, was undergoing extensive regenerating, including a walking and cycle path (since the area behind the pebbled beach is rough scree and dirt), and the planting of palm trees. But the work was interrupted because of the ‘regola del 3%’ the rule whereby the mafia get 3% of any funds directed at public works, and another €500 000 requested under threats by these certain members of the commune and the mayor. The investigating judge requested the arrest of these people, but it was refused. So the mayor continues to stand for election. And in the eyes of the populace, who look admiringly at the numerous palm trees he has planted along the restructured concrete piazzas (palm trees also go well with grass, Mr Mayor), the hastily reopened castle despite the many safety hazards (I saw it last Sunday – the mayor even put on a free lunch aperitivo which mio marito and I stumbled on, to our delight – massive walled city and castle, but yes indeed, keep your eyes open and kids on by your side), and the outlandish fireworks displays for local saints’ days – he’s probably doing a great job. A comprehensive, functioning health system with adequate resources? Higher standards of education? Job opportunities? Support for women? Who cares, as long as we’ve got out palm trees.

The new cook arrives

2010-05-30T08:30:00.000-07:00

Finally the cook has arrived from Germany. After weeks of anticipation, procrastination and speculation as to whether he would actually come at all, he showed up en famille with wife, son and sister, for dinner last Saturday night. We were a little taken aback at his relaxed attitude after keeping s waiting so long; perhaps we would have preferred to see an example of his eagerness to work at this stage! But he dodged in and out of the kitchen between courses, commenting on potential changes and offering advice on presentation and cooking methods as if he was already in charge! Crucial to his performance in the kitchen, he explained, was his outfit; he didn’t dress all in white, but rather in the shirt and black trousers he was wearing at the moment, since he felt more himself. His wife nodded, strongly backing him up. I noted that the tiny 8year old son was dressed identically; was he going to be his father’s accomplice in the cucina?

In fact, on Wednesday, his first night at work, father and his replica, were in the kitchen together, since the wife had gone off to see her family in her mountain paesino. I wasn’t too happy to see him in the kitchen, fearing he would get in the way, or at worst, get us in trouble for child labour! But he made himself useful writing down the shopping list, though he had to ask the spelling of almost everything, since he is more used to talking in Sicilian dialect, than Italian. Halfway through the evening he went off to sleep in some cushions in the store room.

The aiuto-cuoco started on Wednesday too, on trial. He made a great impression on all of us. Only 20, he is doing the scuola alberghiera, the catering course here, and is keen to get all the experience he can get. Meticulous presentation of dishes, immaculate order and cleanliness in his work area and intensely focussed during the rush of orders on Friday and Saturday night, he was always courteous and speedy. His effeminacy gifts him with his presentation skills; he even made the Panini look good. He made me an exquisite fruit platter; the pears cut in identical pieces, the strawberries neatly sliced, the pineapple in homogenous triangles, the finished dish an eyecatching landscape.

Meanwhile, our cuoco made favourable impressions on all too, after his circus stage entrance on Saturday night. Excited about the orders coming in, energetic and quick at work and endlessly enthusiastic, nothing phased him and everything was beautifully presented. No troubled tables this weekend, no botched orders, not a single delay. This man is professional and knows we are counting on him. Mio marito brought him paccheri – large cannelloni-like pasta tubes, and he suggested paccheri all’ortalano, with a sauté of fresh seasonal vegetables and topped with shavings of ricotta di Ragusa, a salty sheeps cheese which works well with the sauce, since our cook is not as heavy on the salt as Sicilian cooks are. We brought him maccheroncini alla chitarra, tiny curved pasta tubes with grooved on the side like guitar strings and he rustled up a special of the night with fresh prawns and calamari with baby tomatoes. Very tasty and light. I thought the touch of chopped garlic enhanced the dish, but some customers who tried it found it too garlicky – Italians are terrified of garlic and its effects on the breath! So mio marito suggested flavouring the oil with a large garlic clove and then lifting it out to toss the pasta in it. I’m on his side where the garlic is concerned though, good to have it back!

In the midst of all, my mother-in-law is there, finally able to do her kitchen justice with its two new recruits, helping out wherever she can, guiding them as to where to find implements or store comestibles. She’s having a ball between these two playboys, flattered by the aiuto cuoco’s attentive courtesy and entertained by the cuoco’s stories and schemes. Much better than sitting in watching TV, says my sister-in-law, sure this is like having a reality show in your own kitchen. The cuoco already is coming up with ideas of running a kebab caravan from the garden, and she is all for it. ‘let’s make money,’ he cries, ‘who ever said Sicilians were lazy and didn’t want to work?’ He has been influenced by the large Turkish population in Germany, and also warns us that the Russians will soon be descending on Sicily to buy up property, as they did in the small tourist town where he was based in Germany. ‘They bring money,’ he assures us, with a confident, entrepreneurial air. God knows what he will be proposing to mio marito next. He already has suggested opening in the summer during the day, to make the most of the fact that the castle has finally been opened, after years of renovation. I don’t know where he gets his energy.

So, could things finally be looking up for us?

Glass-nickers, flower-waterers, receipt-cheaters

2010-05-13T02:35:00.000-07:00

Who was it that came by on Sunday night asking for the Irish woman who wrote the blog about Pachamama? What a pity they didn’t come back! Mio father-in-law, who can perform well in English when required, was interviewed by some English speakers around 7pm. No doubt they were up visiting the castle and were hungry and then went back down to their hotel by the port and ate somewhere nearby and couldn’t face the trek back up to our place. They asked him was his wife Irish. How funny. Pity he didn’t find out where they were from. And how they got news of my blog!

On Friday night I was heading home around 2.30am, going out through the terrazzo which was closed at this stage, all the chairs up on the tables. I was surprised to hear male voices: two of the men came walking towards me to go back into the restaurant – but the third guy was left doing his business with his back to me by the gate. Yes, there he was watering the beautiful flowering plants tended to carefully by my father-in-law. “That’s disgusting,” I said, “this is my garden. There are two toilets in the restaurant, both of them free.” Three of our regulars, whom we treat very well. I had to walk right by him to go out the gate, but that didn’t stop him. Charming.

No one showed up on Friday until about 1am. We had a good group on too, from Palermo and Catania, they play a mix of Paolo Conte and Vinicio Capossela, and the singer is spot on. He heard my Django Reinhardt on upstairs in the restaurant and gave me a bit of Minor Swing. But the drummer, who would appear to be the band leader, quite the circus master with his twitching moustache and dapper waistcoat and his blond groupie partner got on our nerves in the end. He was a bit too pushy. They played here a month ago and we asked them back straight away because we thought they were really good. They had an excellent sax and double bass player. But this time they had different session musicians - the sax wasn’t as impressive and the double bass player didn’t seem very familiar with the music. I could hardly hear him and wondered had they turned him down on purpose; his eyes were glued to the sheet music and his hands left hand didn’t move much … They brought four friends along, and as usual we were expected to provide, gratis, food and drink for all. On Friday night we have two waiters, two cooks, the dishwasher and the barman to feed as well. Which goes without saying. But with the most expensive group to date playing, we needed a good Friday night to cover the costs. The drummer grabs me as if he’s about to tell me something hugely important – ‘Scusa, scusa, but I always forget your name…’ He gets the pronunciation wrong of course, and then takes a deep breath and tells me that he’ll need to eat again when they finish playing. That’s fine I tell him, but at two your choice will be limited to panini or piadine. He’s happy with that, but the cameriera then tells me that he complained to her that the pasta portions were very small. I saw the pasta go past, and thought they were very much in keeping with my mother-in-law’s generous hand with the pasta. A normal portion is 70-80 grams, but with the staff she always gives 100-120g. And fair play to the cameriera, who told him, “ My mother put in a kilo of pasta for 7 people, so I think you must be mistaken.”

The night is slow to begin with; people come in, get a drink and leave again, making us question ourselves for bothering to get a really good group. The locals just want a name or face they know, the same oul stuff they have been listening to for decades, and don’t particularly care about the quality. It’s possible most of them are not familiar with Vinicio Capossela’s work either; an Italian singer/songwriter and pianist, he is strongly influenced by Tom Waits, with a touch of the melancholy of Manu Chao and Eastern klezmir and gypsy music. Much too cultured for the local ears. But after 1am they all arrive in hordes, and some do appear to appreciate the music. No one dances, sadly. It is so hard to get an Italian to dance. I’d have thought the Sicilians would be less self-conscious, more party animals, but not in this town. They are all too busy watching each other and sipping that one cocktail they got to make it last all night, to let their hair down.

On Saturday night the restaurant is full; everyone wants paella. Apparently they saw our advert in the local magazine. Most gratifying. And not a single complaint, all compliments. The kitchen performs well – thanks to the vigilance of mio marito on organizing the orders as they come in, and the waiters do a good job too. Then the dj begins; he has good sound on the speakers and a nice selection of music, even managing a Florence and the Machine track. I assume he must had spent time abroad and hear that he is based in Genova. He and his posse also looks good and are pleasant and courteous to deal with. But then after midnight, it all deteriorates into house. Sicilians can’t move beyond house, it is the only music they know for night entertainment. Soul, hip hop, reggae, R&B, world, 70s… might as well not exist. He did have a good selection of dance music; he was a good mixer and good at sequencing but that kind of music makes everyone more aggressive. Customers at the till were impatient as they waited for me to serve beers, wine and tonic waters to keep the pressure off the barman and mio marito. Then, with their scontrino in hand they jostled and sighed at the size of the queue to get their cocktails. We ran out of wine glasses because of the many paella eaters, and I had to go next door and request some ice and some wine glasses – only to discover that the glasses they gave me were in reality OURS … my barman sighed. “Yes, this problem of glass-nicking goes way back,” he says. One of the partners next door does nothing but collect glasses all night, so he picks up ours with the rest of them. Once the previous managers here paid a young guy to collect glasses all night, and they were furious next door!’ he complains that our waiters don’t do enough giri outside collecting glasses. But with the restaurant being so big now that the terraces are open, it is difficult. Several of our customers have told us that they have seen staff the manager next door nick our glasses – we have black straws, and they use grey – so it is quite clear …

After I leave, a petty Mafioso type tries his luck. My sister-in-law is on the till and he pays for two glasses of prosecco. But he asks mio marito for “tri”, three, in dialect. Mio marito advises him that the scontrino says he paid for two, so he gets out two glasses. Mafiosi insists, “Ah, come on, it says two but I wanted three, so give me tri.” Mio marito checks with his sister who confirms he asked for two. ‘Look, we’re all Italian, so let’s speak in Italian. It says here two, so you get two. You work, don’t you? And you expect to get paid for it? Well, so do I.” Fair play to mio marito for staying calm under the circumstances. He sensed the atmosphere getting a bit charged so asked the dj to stop the dance music. He said he wasn’t going to give in to the Mafioso who was just trying his luck. How sneaky.

Glass-nickers, flower-waterers, receipt-cheaters …what lovely company we’re keeping these days.

On Sunday, maybe because we were all tired after the hectic Saturday night, there were a few hiccups. The major one was due to the new aiuto-cuoca on trial binning an order after having only sent out the first course. A table of 11 had come in around 9.15pm when the place was empty, and got their 4 portions of misto fritto straight away. But then other tables arrived, all at once, as usual, so our cameriera was on full tilt serving tables, while I was taking orders and getting their drinks at the bar. Meanwhile mio marito coordinated in the kitchen, but the aiuto cuoca – Joss Stone in disguise – assured him the tavolata was sorted and she ditched the paper without looking a the rest of the order. 11 piadine and panini. This table got upset when they saw food arriving at other tables and one of them came down to me at the till … I got the cameriera to investigate and the disaster unfolded. They were served almost immediately then, and I apologized and discounted etc and they became most charming again, but who knows what they will say around town. Another large table got set up downstairs but complained that their paella was lacking in salt – mio marito tasted it and had to agree … and they also complained that their steak wasn’t cooked enough, but this time he said it was, that it had been well and truly grilled on each side, short of burning it. But they were so happy with their discount that they stayed on for crepes afterwards. I was so busy setting up tables outside and in the side room (only upstairs is laid out for dinner), doing bills as tables left and clearing tables to give the waitress a hand, that we had to call upon my father-in-law to come over and give a hand. Which he did most generously, tackling the mountain of dishes in the kitchen. Last Sunday there was hardly a table, and indeed Sundays in general are manageable. So we don’t have the dishwasher in.

Life in an Italian democracy

2010-05-07T04:19:00.000-07:00

Quiet weekday nights. The cook we are waiting for called on Wednesday night. ‘Sono Giorgio’ he says as if he were already part of the family. He babbles on for about 10 minutes, spouting the same stuff he has already discussed with mio marito. What is your kitchen based on, he wants to know. Ah, yes, just like mine, Sicilian pasta dishes, tuna, swordfish roulades, antipasti Siciliani … I tel him our paella is a big seller and he says he is not being into paella, because in his town in Germany the Chinese restaurants give you paella for €4 and who knows what would be in it. Hmmm. He assure me he will be with us next Saturday because he is just waiting for his son’s school to break up for holidays, sign his report card and hey presto he’ll be with his. ‘Sono dietro la porta’ he says – I’m just behind the door. Sure. I said well, I need to see you to believe it since we’ve been expecting you for the last month. How’s your car? Is it working? Did the spare part arrive? It is impossible to take this man seriously. He even tells me, in his familiar way, that he’ll show up for dinner like a customer, and let’s see if we recognise him. A regular prankster! I would write him off as a looper straight away, but my husband is still convinced he’s the man for us.

I catch my North European neighbour when I go home at 1am having a quiet cigarette under the stars. Thank God the scirocco wind has gone, it has wreaked havoc over the last few days: cars are covered in a dirty coat of sand, windows are stained with sandstreaks, rubbish has been blown up out of the smelly skips. We discuss the hazards of living in Sicily, but also the problem of the noisy weekend nightlife depriving us of sleep. The bar a couple of doors down has reopened after being closed all winter, bringing an undesirable druggy clientele back to the borgo. We can hear their music as loud as if we were in a nightclub, standing right next to the speakers. It seems to reverberate through the flimsy walls of our houses. On Saturday night she says the police came because a gang of them were beating a man to a pulp. They only come if there’s a fight, she says rolling her eyes. I know lots of the neighbours here – many of whom are anciani – call the police to complain at 1am and 2am when they can’t sleep because of the racket, but the police always says their car is being used elsewhere. The police station is hundred metres down the road … Basically the bar in question has put its Olympic size speakers outside – meaning we have a disco in the borgo, a residential historic area. Not the place at all for a disco. When you call the police, she says, they tell you to come down and make a denuncia, file a report against them; but who would expose themselves in that way here? And it is not necessary at all. Italian law states that the mere presence of speakers outside a bar in a residential area is an infraction of the law in itself. She tells me that various neighbours have gone down to the bar owners and complained, telling them they will file the report against them . and though bar owners say 'Go on then – if you don’t want to live. Just see what happens to you …’ Charming. The head of the police has even complained to us about this bar, and says they are well-known as trouble-makers. But nothing is done. And why not? Either these people are so well-connected the police are scared; or they are paying off the police with a huge bribe. I suspect it is the former, because our last cook was from the same town as them, and when her husband was knocked off his scooter by a local hooligan she said the didn’t dare even claim the insurance off him because they knew who he was and the kind of trouble he could cause for them. They say that the Barcellonese run Milazzo, that Milazzo is in their hands. Great. This democracy we are living in … or civilisation, Sicilian-style.

I went to the Sunday meeting of the Donne Libere – the Women’s Group which is trying to give support and representation to women in Milazzo. The subject was Sexuality and Identity and they had speakers from the Arci (cultural group) Gay and Lesbian. Several of them told their stories of ill-treatment at school and when growing up, of how long it took their families to accept them. But the thing that struck me as strange was that they kept repeating, ‘it is not an illness. We are not sick.’ Apparently their parents had taken them to the doctor’s when they were teenagers in the hope for a cure. That these days, in contrast to our Spanish neighbours, in Italy men can't walk hand in hand down the street, girls can't kiss in public; homosexuals are not free to live their sexuality in public in a country where heterosexuals can comfortably demonstrate affection. It is probably because of the heavy political weight of the Vatican in Italy that these outdated offensive attitudes prevailed (not that the Vatican can provide a good example ...). The Arci speakers said they tried to visit schools to do educational projects with the kids but many schools would not participate, saying it was encouraging homosexuality. No such things as PSHE (Personal, Social, Health Education) in Italian schools. No sex education. And they need it; there is little else to do all summer long – hot days on the beach hot nights under the olive trees ... A recent article by a psychologist said that teenage pregnancies were on the increase in Italy, but wondered why, with all the information teenagers get via the media and science lessons at school … : hardly the same as PSHE, and I don't know what lessons the media projects, with the bikini-clad women dancing and prancing on TV. Ah yes, equality and respect. The speakers said it was unacceptable, in a democracy, that taboos should still exist around this subject of sexuality and identity. What democracy?

the Brazilian Bartender

2010-05-01T02:55:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night one of the local musicians pops in to ask if his group can play at ours one night in May or June. He plays the accordion, there is a drummer and then the singer on the guitar. Latin, reggae and ska mostly. Sounds good to me and a bit more laid back than our usual fare at the minute. But he wants to discuss the matter with mio marito. In fact he hesitates before even telling me what he has come in for – when to me it is perfectly obvious that he wants to ask us for a night. My husband is busy in the kitchen giving a hand to the cook – his mother at the moment! – because there are three tables all needing antipasti and second courses. So there’s no way I am going to disturb him when I can deal with the musician perfectly well. But the muso thinks I’m only good for giving him a drink. The hand shoots up to the mouth in a drinking gesture and he asks for a shot of rum. I remember the last –and only time – he came for a drink I gave him a very generous glass of rum by mistake, so that when mio marito gave him a second one he complained and ended up paying peanuts for the doubly generous dose. So I make no mistakes this time and get the tiny shot glass out.

I have to coax it out of him: ‘So are you wanting to play a night here then?’ He says yes, but he’ll wait to discuss it with mio marito. I let him wait and get back to chatting to my friend at the bar, a non-Italian who is watching this pantomime with amusement. Mio marito comes forth bearing three plates, greets the muso and whizzes on about his business not giving him as much as a second to get talking to him. SO I try again, ‘Look, tell me about your group, I’ll discuss it with mio marito and you can call us during the week for a date.’ I don’t have the music agenda as my husband books the groups, but at this stage all this muso needs is a date, which can be agreed over the phone. I know he probably wants to discuss the fee, and I know very well he won’t want to discuss it with me. So I don’t bother mentioning it. He still prevaricates, saying he can wait another two minutes. But in the end he has to go as there is no sign of my husband having a secondo for him. He asks for his number – which is on our business card, along with the restaurant number, as I point out, knowing well that my husband lost his mobile the day before. But I don’t tell him that either.

Well, what should I expect at this stage? Another couple who were dining that night put me in my place too: the guy declared loudly - 'So you're Irish! I was convinced you were Brazilian.' He beams drunkenly. Now how come, I ask, genuinely curious. I thought that myth was over. Is it the striking white Gaelic skin, or the blue eyes that convinced you? But his brain is addled with drink and he can't come up with a reason, much to my disappointment. His companion lingers a while chatting to me; she's on an extended holiday here in her home town because in Rome she hasn't been able to find work in her chosen field, art curation. We saw quite a lot of this girl over the summer as she hung around with the beach crowd who frequented Pachamama. 'So what would you like to have done with your life, if you didn't have this?' she asks, gesturing around the restaurant. Yep, that's me in the corner, the Brazilian Bartender, not a single title nor diploma to my name.

Last night was packed out with revellers who will be enjoying Labour Day today. But our temporary aiuto cuoco, who has been doing a great job, tells us he has been called to work in the refinery, which is better for his CV; and our temporary waiter, who was going to get us through May until he went over to Stromboli island to do the season there, also tells us that he can’t work from Monday on. Such a shame as both were excellent and fitted in with the whole team really well. So hard to find people like that. so we are back down to no cook – with my mother-in-law doing it single-handedly, and two waiters. Our Friday and Saturday nights are so busy now, especially since we have opened the two outside terraces, that we really need three. Our German-Sicilian cook has promised to be here on May 15th – but who believes him? And in the meantime there are no other contenders …

Waiting for the cook ...

2010-04-29T01:18:00.000-07:00

Our cook from Germany is still calling us with new excuses for his delayed departure each time. Last week the problem was his car; apparently he had started his journey but had a breakdown and had to turn back. He is now waiting for the part to arrive to fix it. All this was relayed in dialect in a 30 minute telephone conversation at our expense. We have skype! Bu no, we were on the kitchen phone. While the cook recounts his misadventures and reassures my husband that he is the man we have been waiting for and that he can do whatever we want him to do, I am wondering if my husbands has gone mad. But he assures us all that this is indeed our man. Even this week – luckily the cook called us, to say his son gets mid terms holidays from school in May 15 so can we please hold on for him till then – my husband still has faith in him. I hope so much he is right. Much rolling of eyes between myself and my mother-in law.

Canvassing in Milazzo

2010-04-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

Back in Milazzo there’s a big screen in the piazza showing the inauguration of the teatro – which has been closed for twenty years. Part of the sindaco’s (mayor) final showdown for votes, the castle next to our house – which has been under restoration for the last two years – should be reopening this week too. Palm trees and flowerbeds are sprouting up everywhere. The historic Chiesa di San Francesco di Paolo – Milazzo’s adopted patron saint of seafarers – was opened a couple of Sundays ago with much civic and military aplomb and a fire and brimstone bishop giving hell to his sinful flock. Piazza Roma at last is opened, with its shining new slabs of concrete and indigenous (not) palm trees and strategically placed benches which a few pensioners have already laid claim to – and all because the sindaco is a partner in the soon to open bar of the piazza. This is also the motivation behind the newly paved pedestrian street in the centre and the cute shiny new bar with nice benches right outside. Guess what? The sindaco is a partner there too. Unfortunately, the dear sindaco has no partners in the borgo – the most beautiful and historic part of Milazzo, with the picturesque Spanish quarter, the Norman-Visigoth-Spanish-Bourbon castle and the plethora of bars and restaurants of which Pachamama is one. Not at all; instead, we have overflowing rubbish skips, broken glass on the streets because they are not cleaned regularly (ever?), and I counted THREE dead rats on the steps down from the borgo last week, and THREE dead rats on the steps that go from the borgo down to Vacarella.

There are also elections for the mayor-to-be's consigliere (council). But the candidates just make you laugh. THere are several female candidates - but rather than being pleased to see this, it only makes me despair - they are all Barbie dolls, freshly off the sunbed and out of the beautty salon and some no doubt from under the knife judging by certain dimensions given special attention in the photography - since here in Sicily you are judged locally on appearance - hence an aggressive sexual competition between women - with intellect lagging sadly behind. One of the local barmen has even candidated himself. Is there any hope for this place ...?

But this sindiaco is merely a puppet of the local MP, apparently, who is Berlusconi's henchman in north-east Sicily, and 'friend of the people' in the next big town, Barcellona. How does this affect us? Well.. now that the weather is better, the Barcellonese are starting to frequent the bars of the borgo again, flashing their money - since they are the rich and powerful cousins of Milazzese - smoking inside when they feel like it, and starting fights with whomever they choose as target fot the night. Last weekend our barman was a potential victim. Apparently he had put photos on Facebook of himself with the ex-wife of a Barcellonese, and this guy turned up with 15 supporters to teach him a lesson. Luckily for our barman, two of our regulars from Barcellona (usually drunk and under the influence I suspect of that white powder) were able to intervene and save the day. We don't tolerate this kind fo thing, especially not the smoking inside - and we have had a hassle-free winter on all counts, really - but now that these trouble makers are back on the scene we are depressed and fear that things could get out of control some day. Because these are the kind of people who laugh when you ask ('tell' gets you nowhere) them not to smoke, and carry on on smoking. Or start a fight because you have offended them by not allowing them to do exactly as they please. Because they are immune. Standing behind their right to flout the law and do whatever they please, is the figure of their 'friend of the people', the Berlusconi-representative in Sicily. Weekends are starting to take on a familiar pattern: We have nice diners until midnight; midnight to 2am the place is packed with music fans of the good bands we put on; from 2am to 4am (no, these people don't want to go home) the drunk (on two cocktails)start getting belligerent and problematic for us. In Ireland a burly bouncer would simply remove these undesirables. But in Sicily they are untouchable ... Hence our need to escape to the islands on our day off ...

Panarea island

2010-04-29T00:49:00.000-07:00

We’ve just had a lovely two days on Panarea island. One of the best things about living here is having the Aeolian islands on our doorstep.Awkward enough to reach from abroad – the flight to Catania, the hire car or bus t Milazzo, then coordinating arrival times with the departure of the boats to the islands etc .. but we just drift down to the port and hop on the hydrofoil and we’re there in a matter of hours. I have left Panarea until last, because it is notorious for being extortionately pricey and full of rich posers, usually from Milan. Naomi Campbell shops in the boutiques here. Georgio Armani anchors his boat off shore. But at this time of year the island is deserted. There are only a few locals – aided by the Polish, Romanian and North African staff – fixing up their hotels, restaurants and bars for the onset of the season. Lots of whitewashing and painting going on. We are probably only about ten tourists stayingon the island in total. Since there has been plenty of rainfall in spring, the rugged slopes are quite green, revealing the reddish rock beneath. The windy streets are fragranced with gardenia and the first sprigs of jasmine. Sprays of bougainvillea are just beginning to bloom. Small trees are laden with nespole, or loquats – small yellow fruits similar to plums, which we have for breakfast. Lemon trees are everywhere, showing off their bright yellow fruits to nearby silvery olive trees.

Panarea is so tiny everywhere is within walking distance, so we head for Cala Junca, its most famous bay. We pass Cala Zimmari, a nice beach, but there are too many jellyfish freshly washed up on the shore to be tempted to paddle. Not warm enough to swim. Up along a stony path through the rock face to a ridge along the top of the cliff to find remains of a 15th century settlement overlooking two bays on either side of the ridge. Turquoise waters below. We go down the steps to Cala Juna and enjoy having the whole place to ourselves all afternoon, apart from the odd tourist boat which veers into the bay from behind the rocks, catching us by surprise (me with the bikini loosened trying to cream myself, mio marito indulging in a spot of naturista sunbathing since there is no one around – we certainly were not expecting to be assailed from the sea with these binocular-bearing tourists). The same megaphone nasal voice on each one describes Panarea and Cala Junca and its history while the German tourists scan all into their digital cameras, ourselves included.

Our hotel is stunning, but we have trouble finding decent places to eat. The first night we end up in the only place open, along with a t able of 6 Germans, an Australian family and 4 Spanish girls. We’re first to be served, and are quite dismayed with the miniature tartar di gamberi at a hefty price, and my heavily salted grilled vegetables. When you know aubergines and courgettes are grown in the back garden it’s hard to accept wild prices. At our restaurant they cost €3. here €10. My pasta, at €14 (none of our pasta dishes cost more than €9) is tasteless – linguine con gamberi di Nassa e zucchini. He hasn’t made enough of a sauce with the courgettes – some baby tomatoes were needed – and who knows if they really are prawns from Nassa – usually so tasty? We watch the Germans’ reaction to the starters. They have been heartily tucking into their wine and keep asking the harried (but rich) owner for more bread. But when the first dish arrives, a ripple of laughter goes over the table, and continues as the other dishes come along. I say to mio marito – I wonder if anyone will have asked for the tartar to gamberi, and sure enough the last person to be served – a robust man with a belly that needs looking after – is presented with this minute delicacy. His neighbour at table takes one looks at explodes into laughter. Too funny. They tuck in with, no doubt, the same comments we were making just minutes before. These examples of nouvelle cuisine might work in a fancy restaurant, but we are in a trattoria with old wooden tables and little décor or attention to detail. €3 for the coperto – but we don’t even have table cloths! Last week on Lipari island we ate in a chic restaurant with elegant minimal décor and exquisite table service from pristine-uniformed waiters – have three courses each and still paid a lot less. A couple of weeks ago a customer complained that his salad was small – at €7 our salads are usually abundant in the essential ingredients, on a bed of lattuga romana or rocket or whatever. Perhaps something happened to his; I didn’t see it go out, but of course, he got the discount he wanted. But here in this halfbaked trattoria did anyone complain? I don’t think so, not what you do on Panarea. But the following night we are eating at the pizzeria next door, whose owner turns out to be an old friend of my husband’s. I ask him what he thinks of his neighbour and he starts laughing, though he doesn’t want to say anything against him, he says. We tell him of our experience, and he laughs even more; yes, he says, he closed early on Saturday, Sunday and tonight he isn’t open – the locals don’t go there because they know his prices – and standards. He probably makes enough in one night to keep him going for the rest of the week. Our conversation is interrupted by the arrival of four suspicious-looking men – tow older with the pancia (protruding belly), and two in their thirties, with plenty of time to acquire one. From our host’s alacrity to look after them personally, we realise they are the carbinieri. In for their digestivo – a wholesome drop of grappa. Which they won’t have to pay for, of course. They were mincing round our lovely hotel owner too earlier in the day; when they left she rolled her eyes and told me one thing she couldn’t stand was being constantly touched when being spoken too – big belly had been particularly touchy feely. The carbinieri’s pad is a lovely chalet set in a shady grove right near the hotel. Their squad car is an electric-run golf mobile, like the few other cars on the island. Perfect for creeping up on any potential criminals, but offering little defence. With zero crime on the islands they have little else to do than slouch around visiting the locals. With all the free meals and drinks going round, they’ll have little cause to check up on taxes receipts (the scontrino) or fiscal matters at all.

We love Panarea though, and want to go back – especially to do a boat tour of the islands and swim in its crystal clear waters. Hopefully we’ll eat better though – I’m still digesting the pasta alla norma from the second night – with aubergines, tomato and oven-baked ricotta – but those aubergines were saturated in a deep frier.

But where, other than Sicily, could you be sitting at the end of April, sunbathing with your feet dipped in an open air jacuzzi and views over the sparkling Aeolian waters to Basiluzzo and Dattilo turning pink in the sunset, with majestic Stromboli smoking behind ...

Cook on trial trying us 10 April 2010

2010-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

We decide we would like to give candidate B a trial contract for two weeks, but that we need to tell her about Candidate 3 coming back from Germany the following week. I leave my marito to talk terms and conditions with her, sensing she will prefer to talk to him alone, and also that I would not have the patience to deal with her pushiness. She initially aggress to the trial run, but the next day phones us to tell us she cannot accept because she does not like the fact that we will try out candidate three the following week, meaning that we might sack her after a couple of weeks if he turns out to be better.

My mother-in-law says we were far too honest and should never have told her about candidate no. 3. If he turned out to be better then we could just have let her go, without having to mention him. We need to be as ‘furbo’ –clever or sly – as they are, she says. But we didn’t want to be nasty. Anyway, mio marito calls her back to say we won’t try out candidate no. 3, because we have a birthday party of 60 people on Saturday night coming for an enriched aperitivo, and we need someone else in the kitchen. So she is happy with that and works well enough all weekend, helping with the preparations and dishing out the aperitivo platters and doing the ‘secondi’. But on Sunday night she ruins her good work by making a big scene with mio marito – in the presence of my sister and mother-in-law, about the contract and th terms and conditions she wants. We are offering her a contract whereby in a year she will go up from ‘aiuto cuoco’ to ‘cuoco’, which, along with the rest of the pay and conditions makes and attractive offer, and is substantially much better than what our previous cook was on. But she can’t see this and wants more pay and other certainties that we are nto really in a position to give. This went on for 20 minutes and my sister and mother-in-law the enxt day, give out heaps about her. I foresee endless problems if we take her on. She is too big for her boots really, she wants more than her experience merits. She even said that the arrangement was not suitable for ‘lo chef’. Who’s the chef? my husband asked!

Finally the cook has called from Germany to say he is setting out for Sicily tonight from Germany. I hear mio marito talking to someone on the phone and presume it is an old friend. His accent is even more Sicilian and every now and again he comes out with a word in dialect. ‘This is the effect the German Sicilian has,’ he says afterwards. His tone is really familiar and friendly; he’s so enthusiastic, that I have to reciprocate.’ This man has run his own Sicilian restaurant in a touristy area of Germany for the last 30 years, and now wants to return to Sicily with his wife, leaving the restaurant in the hands of his two older children. He can do anything Sicilian, Nouvelle Cuisine, German and French and international dishes, desserts, and wants to ‘give us a hand’ he says. He has a relaxed attitude to bureaucracy and the contract which is a relief after stressy candidate B, having run his own restaurant for years he knows how tricky it can be. He’s coming back to Sicily for us, he tells my husband. By car! He and his wife are longing to return and he really wanted to find a position in a family-run restaurant. We are going to be his new family in Sicily. He even says he will drive straight to our restaurant. In the end it will be we who have to cook for him, I say! And are we sure he has accommodation here? The next thing is we’ll be putting him up! Mio marito wants ot call and cancel the stressy candidate B immediately, though I would rather wait and see this man in the flesh. It all sounds like a farce. Waiting for the new cook to move back from Germany specifically for our restaurant while trying to keep the current cook on trial sweet with our accountant. He has completely advised us not to take her on, and her previous employer, the owner of the restaurant where she worked, passed by at the weekend and when we asked his opinion he scrunched up his face and said ‘hmmm, I don’t recommend her. Sure, she’s a good enough cook, but she’s a ‘stronza’ – a bitch.’ Confirming all our gut reactions then …

New cook wanted 9 April 2010

2010-04-12T10:26:00.000-07:00

The time has come to find a new cook. Things had been running too smoothly for the last while – a quiet January and February were too good to be true. Our cook is leaving us to work in a supermarket because the hours suit her and her small children better. We are not terribly sorry; she has been ok but we have had to teach her a lot and always be alert to potential slip-ups and mistakes. She gave us two weeks’ notice, which wouldn’t have covered Easter, but luckily we managed to persuade her to stay until Easter Monday … She didn’t show up on Good Friday – a big night out in Italy, now pretty much laicised despite the Vatican at the heat of Italy … her husband called in to say she was immobilised in bed with a bad back. Since we know this was the day she was supposed to start her new job, it all seems a bit suspect. Having her husband call … on Holy Saturday she is back in action however which makes it eve more suspicious. Anyone who has ever suffered from a bad back will tell you it takes a few days to recover. Anyway, mia suocera, my amazing mother-in-law ran the kitchen with the help of an aiuto cuoco, an old friend of my sister-in-law. And we got through without any major hassle.

Meanwhile we have had the always interesting experience of recruiting a new cook. Candidate A presented himself with his CV in hand, but with little relevant experience. He had had several seasonal jobs ‘lavoro stagionale’ during the summer months, but worked more as a pasticciere … a pastry chef. In fact when I asked him what his speciality was, he couldn’t come up with one. He tried to avoid the issue by enthusing about his pastry expertise, so I came back to the question later and asked him what his best meat and fish dish were .. and I actually can’t even remember what he said something about tuna or swordfish – he wouldn’t be Sicilian if he couldn’t cook these fish … He has the biggest pancia ‘belly’ I’ve ever seen, so just as our little colloquio is closing I ask him, as mio marito and I had discussed, what his relationship with alcohol is like. He looks taken aback and then seeks the right words, ‘Well, you know, like anyone …’ ‘Because, I say, ‘we’re lucky here, no one touches a drop in the kitchen. Maybe a beer with dinner in the summer, but during working hours none of our staff is permitted to drink alcohol.’ He smiles uncertainly to see if I’m joking with my light hearted tone. So I keep a straight face and accompany him to the kitchen. He’s to prepare us garbugli con scampi from our menu, and another primo of his choice, but without meat since I don’t eat meat.
Watching him in operation unfortunately the pancia does get in the way. The spaces between the sideboards and the fridges, and the central working area and the oven and friers are limited and if there are two people working there passing each other, you need to have good special awareness – which this candidate unfortunately does not possess. But he is adept at chopping and slicing.

We have more interviews with a journalist in whose magazine we are putting a large advert, and once that is over, or two pasta dishes arrive. Error number one: the dish of his invention is penne with a bacon and pistachio sauce – our only specification being not to put meat in it. Hmmm. But apparently it’s tasty. Then we have our garbuglie – like linguine – and scampi. No points for presentation, it has just been slapped onto the plate. Also he hasn’t taken any of the scampi out of their shell – normally you unshell a few as it gives flavour and leave little chunks throughout and then place one complete scampi on top. But it has good flavour and the pasta is well cooked.

I’m not convinced by the overall performance and presentation, so hope our next candidates will be better. Mio marito is convinced that candidate number three will be the man; the only problem is he’s in Germany.

Candidate number two shows up well made-up, hair straightened, nails painted dark red. All business. No CV. Wants to know terms and conditions even before she has talked us through any relevant experience. It is typical here to show up without CV; in that way you avoid having to explain all the spaces or the number f jobs you left and the reason for leaving. She says, as usual, that she has had numerous seasonal jobs, and her most recent one, which lasted a year was in another Bar/restaurant not far from here. Reason for leaving? The new management brought in the mother to do the cooking. But later she says her reason for leaving was that she went to work in Germany. Suspicious. Her penultimate job was as a waiter and she has no qualifications to be a cook. She learned everything she know from her ex-husband who was a chef. She has the gift of the gab and spends ten minutes telling us how great she is and how impressed her ex used to be when she had him taste her dishes. When we ask her is she ready to go to the kitchen and prepare something for us she looks uncomfortable. ‘But people always just employ me directly after the interview,’ she says. ‘That’s strange, ‘ I say, ‘We haven’t even seen your CV. All our other candidates are doing a trial run in the kitchen, so it’s up to you, to be on an equal footing with everyone else.’ She goes on again about how other places have just taken her on immediately and that it is impossible to tell in one evening’s trial; but in the end agrees to come back two days later. She also produces menus from her previous job which she says she concocted, since they let her do whatever she wanted. Indeed, she looks dismayed at our menu, which she says she doesn’t know, and doesn’t look keen to try the tapas, even though we reassure that there are recipes and they are all really similar to Sicilian cooking just with Spanish names.

She is in a less recalcitrant mood on Saturday when she does her trial. She cooks up a nice dish of penne with baby tomatoes and fresh prawns which is very tasty, and then stays on to do some tuna steaks and beef fillets for a table of our friends, all of whom compliment the food, not knowing we have a new cook on trial. Once she completes the order, however, rather than ask what else she ca do to prove her skills, she whips off the apron and smokes on the steps outside the kitchen waiting for us t come and talk to her. Meanwhile she is glued to the mobile phone, nad glances round the kitchen . ‘Other job offers,’ she says with a self-satisfied smile. My mother-in-law reported that one. I can tell she doesn’t like her.

Reading books in Sicily - a rare passtime

2010-03-04T04:57:00.000-08:00

On my way to the biblioteca I stop for a coffee and cornetto alla crema at the café down the road. It is such a gorgeous day, sun splitting the skies, a light breeze lifting the fronds of the palm trees down at the port, that I sit outside. An elderly man is sitting at the other table with his book in hand, a most unusual sight here. In fact, a man has stopped to say just this to him: ‘It’s a great pity that it is such a rare sight to see someone reading; they prefer to be at home watching the rubbish that is on TV – di Filippo (trashy entertainment show) or Grande Fratello (Big Brother).’
He is right next to me so I join in, agreeing, and I add that in Ireland it is fairly common for people to read the papers or books in cafés. I get a broad smile. And how come you are here signorina? It turns out his brother, ‘siciliano come me’ – a good Sicilian like himself, is married to an American lady and they now live in Seattle. I said we’d probably give Ireland a go too. Ah yes, he said, I think Ireland is a great place maybe a little off the beaten track, but a place of culture, compared to Sicily. But you have the great weather, I say, lifting my hands to the sun, since the man was getting a bit down at the thought of the various problems of Sicily. ‘I know, and that’s about all we have here,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders. ‘And the great coffee,’ I say, just to get him smiling again, and sure enough he beams again and says he better let me have me breakfast.

The other man settles back into his book but most of the passers-by greeted him with ‘Buongiorno Ragioniere’, - Good day, Mr Accountant. Someone important indeed with whom you’d want to be on good terms. The last person says, ‘Scusa scusa, I’m disturbing your literature; but let me tell you, we’re all down at the sea, what a gorgeous day!’ The reading accountant turns to me, eyebrows raised, saying, ‘Not only do they not read here – but they don’t let those who want to read in peace do so!’ I was getting up to leave but he asks me to join him at his table for a moment, which of course I do, in anticipation of the illuminations on the Sicilian soul he’ll regale me with.
He shakes his head. ‘Ah signorina, people here don’t even read the papers, never mind books. And the children at school wouldn’t know how to get from start to finish in a book.’ I suggest it might be the way they are taught. He agrees; ‘The teachers have hardly been educated themselves and don’t know how to stimulate their students. So the children have no interest. All people want to do here is watch TV and gossip about other people’s lives.’ He smiles proudly. ‘I’ve travelled all over Italy, and you learn a great deal travelling. I used to go to the literary cafés in Rome’ – like Café Greco – I suggest, and he beams – ‘Exactly. I once met a few Chinese people there and we had a great chat and they invited me back to their hotel and we had a great drinking session!’ I agreed that there were cafés in Firenze and Bologna where you could sit and read, and he remembers a particular one in Padova near the University, which he used to frequent.

‘So you’re from Ireland,’ he establishes. ‘Sex is much freer in Ireland.’
I have to adapt quickly to the change in topic; but am I surprised? Sex is never far from the Sicilian mind. But I have to disagree. ‘I’d say it’s much freer here, signore.’ ‘Only in appearance. Sure they’re all at it behind closed doors, afraid of getting caught out.’ ‘Ah yes, a lot of tradimento going on,’ I feel relieved at getting things back to a moral ground, it’s too early in the morning to discuss sex with an unknown old man, even though he is the Ragioniere. ‘You’re right there,’ I say, ‘I think the fidelity rate is probably higher in Ireland. And there is probably more equality between men and women.’ Now he is on to the theme of tradimento, or betrayal. ‘You can’t trust anyone here, signorina,’ he says with a raised finger in warning. ‘Do you have many friends here?’ I have a few. ‘Don’t trust them at all!’ he said, ‘They’re all fake! People are only interested in two things here – money and sex. I’d hate to think of a nice girl like you getting taken advantage of.’ I reassure him that I am a good judge of character and have only a few good friends. ‘Signorina, open your eyes! That’s the best piece of advice I can give you, and I speak from many years of experience here. Trust no one, not even the ones you think are your friends!’

Making gnocchi

2010-02-25T07:53:00.000-08:00

Our Gnocchi dish has been a big seller since we opened. Sometimes entire tables will go for it, once the first person chooses it. It seems that Sicilians don't tend to have gnocchi at home and so enjoy the potato dumplings on an evening out. They are actually easy to make :

This recipe makes 7 portions of 200g.
* 1 kg potatoes with the skin on
*350g white flour
* 2 egg yolks

1. Boil the potatoes with the skin on and no salt. (this can be done the day before)
2. Mash the potatoes in a bowl, then mix together (using your hands) with the flour and egg yolks.
3. When you have a kind of solid ball, knead it well on your worktop.
4. Then roll it out flat and cut into long thinnish sausages. Sprinkle a bit of flour on to prevent sticking, and then cut the sausages up into little gnocchi size portions.
5. Cook for 3 minutes, or until they rise to the surface. (Extra portions will keep in a tupperware for a few days in the fridge, or you can freeze them and eat them at a later date).

Gnocchi alla Sorentina - fry a piece of garlic in some olive oil for a few minutes. Add in passata and cook through. Mix in the cooked gnocchi and throw in little chunks of mozzarella. This is delicious with some chilli - fresh or flakes. Simple!

We do the gnocchi with baby tomatoes from Pachino, mushrooms, rocket and Parmesan shavings - but I can't reveal the secrets of the quantities - it's important to get the balance between the tomatoes and the mushrooms so it isn't too acidic.

Women in Sicily 25/02/10

2010-02-25T07:38:00.000-08:00

This morning a man in his 30s followed me slowly up the hill on his motorbike and gazed back as he passed me, almost causing an accident with oncoming traffic. He then waited for me at a carpark halfway up the hill and watched my backside as I went up the steps to the borgo, a big sleazy grin plastered on his face. Welcome to Sicily, home of repressed maniacs.

I was recruited on Saturday night to a most interesting cause – a Women’s Group for Milazzo. I had just been talking earlier in the day with some English teachers here that it was odd that there were some many clubs for men here – ranging from various sporting activities to card playing etc, but nothing for women. A Spanish girl married to a local man, and a girl of Greek origins were the headhunters. I couldn’t refuse. We had the meeting at the Greek girl’s house, about ten of us in total. They said they wanted to set up a women’s group because women are not represented in Milazzo, no women’s support centre, no rape crisis centre, no sex education in schools. The most interesting thing they said was that they wanted to discuss male-female relationships in a Sicilian context, but also relationships between women here, as the basis for the latter is often predicated on rivalry and jealousy. The Sicilian woman, they said, feels her most potent weapon is her sexuality, so when she meets another woman she sizes her up in terms of the threat she poses to her. Totally foreign to Irish thinking.

But as I have said before, girls coming into our locale will always check me out, stare at me for most of the night, look me up and down to check out my style. But they get over themselves when I smile at them. And of course it helps reassure them when they discover I am married to the man behind the bar.

They wanted to know what we foreigners thought. I said women don’t have much of a chance here since you are bombarded with stereotypical outdated images of women on TV and on billboards; at entrances to the motorway you have huge posters of women in bikinis and thigh high boots holding petrol pumps … or what about that beautiful woman in her lacy bra in the car advert along the ring road? Women, posing as adoring mothers advertise bread, milk, pasta - bringing wonderful meals to the family table in TV ads; and of course, we still have the prancing dancing girls on the family TV shows. And as I pointed out, the worst thing is, that women are complicit in the chauvinism here. It is many girls’ dream to become one of those dancing girls. An English university teacher said many of her 20 year old students told her that after getting their finals their goal was to get married. So what was the point in getting the science degree then? Imagine being brought up to believe that you would only ever be judged by your beauty. No wonder there are no ugly girls around. They must all be kept at home. This explains the excessively tight and revealing clothing at the weekend.
But we can’t forget that not long ago arranged marriages were still the norm here. Mio marito’s parents had to elope in order to get married. My mother-in-law’s parents had picked out another man for her, but she had already fallen in love; so she and my father-in-law had to run away for a night and stay together – with the implication being that when she came back she was no longer a virgin so he would have to marry her to save her honour. And that was in the 70s.

Anyway, the idea of the Women’s Group is to think of projects to strengthen and enhance the position of women in Sicilian society, and propose these projects to the Comune. We shall see. At the minute the Comune is caught up in the farewell to the mayor since elections are coming up in May. All over town billboard size photos have sprung up entitled, ‘la nuova Milazzo’ – the new Milazzo, with pictures of a new carpark, a restructured piazza and the restored castle in the borgo. Hilarious, since none of these projects has been realized, and just below each photograph there is a ten metre wide and two metre high two-week old rubbish heap.

Who are you married to? 23/02/10

2010-02-25T07:31:00.000-08:00

This morning on my way out of the library I was waylaid by the nosey woman at reception. I knew that sooner or later one of them would have to interrogate me – it would be too much for their inquisitive minds to let me pass by several days a week without even knowing where I come from and who my husband is. They have absolutely nothing to do in this beautiful old palazzo comunale where the library is; I often wonder if their work is voluntary, as they could not afford to pay ten people to do nothing. At least I hope that is not what our endless taxes go on. That said, there were 4 traffic wardens (called, importantly in Italian, Polizia Municipale) dealing with deviated traffic at the crossroads at Piazza Roma today – where in most countries you would see one person. But that’s Italy. Two were in conversation, one was smoking a cigarette, and the other was actually directing the traffic.

Anyway, the nosey lady gets straight to the point. What are you doing here? – It’s pretty obvious, I’m consulting the books in the library. Do you live here or are you just passing though? Should have said just passing through and made a quick getaway. Where do you live? Who is your husband? I know your in-laws. I know his uncle who has a shop in town. His wife was in the hairdresser-s last week. Who are you? I manage to get in. She reluctantly gives me her name, then adds her maiden name – though she doesn’t like me asking her questions. 'I’m a dipendente comunale' (she works for the town council), she said immediately as if that was part of her name. A self-defined civil servant. She must have been proud of it. When did you get married, where did you get married, and don’t you have any children yet? When are you thinking of having children? At this point I realized she had a screw loose, although these questions are probably considered demonstration of interest among provincial Sicilians. I started backing away towards the door, but she wanted to know where I would be having lunch. Eh? At home, like yourself, I would imagine. Well, you know how you foreigners eat strange things. I mean, do you cook? She peered at me obviously expecting a negative. I said my husband did all the cooking and I was rarely in the kitchen, just to throw her completely. It stopped her in her tracks, so I left her with her mouth open.

I had just been reading in Il Giorno della Civetta what the Capitano Bellodi thinks about family in Sicily. He says it is lo Stato: The family is the State for the Sicilian. Sicilians are not interested in taxes, the army, other systems which make the state function. They are only interested in the institution of the family, in which they can cross the confines of their tendency towards a tragic solitude and adapt to cohabitation – so Sciascia appeared to think, using Bellodi as his spokesperson. That nosey madwoman will think she has me all worked out now since she managed to paint a network in her head of my husband’s family tree.

Sometimes living in Sicily feels so heavy. The weight of all those stares, all those tongues wagging on your behalf. Oh for the annonymity of the city.

Indolenza 20/02/2010

2010-02-20T10:06:00.000-08:00

Our philosophical regular, Giorgio, tells me he’s not going to bother voting in the upcoming elections for mayor. ‘What’s the point?’ he asks, ‘Do you think anything is ever going to change here?’ He laughs derisively. ‘What I hate most about this time of year, is that you see the same old faces you haven’t seen for three years or so; now it’s election time, they are out scouting for support, smiling at you like you’re their best friend. What a load of rubbish!’

The thing that annoys me most, I say, is the lack of rubbish collection, and the fact that there is no recycling. Uncivilised, developing country issues. Any chance this will change with a new administration? Giorgio laughs again: ‘Sure that’s all a ‘giro di interesse’’, he says, looking at me carefully to see if I know what he means. ‘Vested interests’ is another way of saying, that’s mafia territory, without having to mention the M-word. I know, I say, but I can’t believe no one does anything about it: You all complain to each other – the lamento is a typical Sicilian attitude - but there are never any demonstrations or organised protests. It’s outrageous.

‘Ah’, says, Giorgio, that’s because the Sicilian is essentially indolent. Indolenza, e menofreguismo, a couldn’t care-less attitude, that’s how we survive, he says. 'How else could we put up with what’s been going on here on our island for decades. Like Tomaso de Lampedusa writes, in ‘Il Gattopardo’, we Sicilians think we are gods; we’re gods, so why should we bother to do anything?' But why are you indolent, I want to know. Could it be, as he also writes, that Sicilians are tired?; tired of the sun beating down on your head six months of the year, tired of the mistral and scirocco winds battering you for the other six. It’s true – the winds here cause huge damage through the winter. Giorgio nods, 'yes, maybe that’s true, it’s so hot most of the time, it makes us lazy. Or the foreign domination, we’re tired of being told what to do for centuries – Phoenicians, Arabs, Greeks, Normans, Spanish .. and now the giro di interesse.'

Not a great outlook. On a hillwalk just outside town today, my friend and I are admiring the slopes of orange trees and wondering whether we could help ourselves to a few, since so many have already fallen off the trees and are rotting in the ground. An old man pulls in on the narrow road. ‘Girls, what a pity about the weather today (it’s a nice enough day – a bit cloudy, but it hasn’t rained yet and the sun gets through the clouds now and again).’ The farmer greets us with the typical lamenting attitude. ‘Look at the state of the roads, you can hardly walk down them. They’ve been promising to fix them up for years, but sure you know round here the politicians just pocket the money.’ There were old abandoned farmhouses, the bamboo sticks used as insulation sticking out of the walls, a derelict building with rusty iron bars on the windows, the number three still nailed to the crumbling wall and a postbox that looked like it hadn’t been used for years. We had passed a few men tending to their ramshackle vegetable plots, raking out the land, pruning olive trees – nascent green buds just beginning to appear on some. The older men stared and looked over their ground protectively. The younger men wished us a pleasant walk. But the houses were all built on fabulous positions with views over the valleys and out to the sea. ‘What a shame the houses have been abandoned, ‘ we say. ‘Oh, for years now. Nobody will bother about them now.’ The farmer shrugs. We try to cheer him up. ‘And the lovely orange trees, why don’t the owners pick the oranges?’ ‘The manpower needed to collect them wouldn’t be worth what you can get for them on the market, ‘ he said, shaking his head. ‘Now the oranges belong to the ground.’

'All Sicilians are actors' 18/02/2010

2010-02-20T09:24:00.000-08:00

It’s 18 February and about 26 degrees in the sun here in Sicily. It is so warm that by the time I got to Vacarella at 10.30ish, my hair was burning. Since the weather has been so stormy the last few days, forcing the locals to stay at home and play cards or watch San Remo, the Italian version of the Eurovision Song contest, the beautiful weather today has brought them all out on the street to buy fish, or watch others buy fish. Crowds are gathering round the latest catch, which the fisherman is still hauling off his boat. Eels spiral in a bucket, bright eyed red mullet are already lying on the metal tray, and he now pours on small silvery ‘mope’, some still alive and wiggling. A quiet row has formed, waiting for the moment when the fisherman will be ready to sell. Two old men wheel their bikes through the crowd, waiting with patience and resignation for people to move to let them past, instead of saying, ‘excuse me’. The fishermen start gutting fish or wrapping them up for customers while 20metres away the rubbish overflowing from the open skips and pile on plastic bags on either side, has started to stink in the heat. Behind the people waiting, short squat men with wrinkled faces and bulbous noses talk in pairs in low guttural dialect. It is hard to tell that they are talking to each other, so busy are their shifty dark eyes darting around the passersbys; noting who’s there and who’s not, who’s being two-timed (‘cornuto’, a favourite insult even when not true, as it is one of the biggest violations to a man’s pride in Italy) who owes whom money, and who’s on their deathbed. In public, with so much going on, Sicilians don’t look at each other in conversation; but in bars, in at a quiet time, confidences can be shared without the worry of missing something important.

At the bar across the road with my cappuccino, I reflect that often bars in Sicily are not as noisy as you would expect. In most parts of Italy, the bar is a hive of activity, an essential part of every day life, the daily coffee gives the Italian some meaning to their morning, a chance to greet acquaintances, exchange news, reassure themselves that all is as it should be. But in Sicily, it can also be the place of muted confessions, an important information-exchange, an implied threat. Private matters are discussed over a cappuccino, an agreement is knocked back in the toss of an espresso cup – or roundly challenged with a bang of the cup on the counter. Here, two elderly gentlemen have the local papers spread in front of them and read out news of interest to each other, commenting accordingly. A man and a woman sitting in front of me keep their voices low in case I should overhear what they are talking about. Two men come in and take up position so they can watch what’s going on outside. Love, death, double-crossing and two-timing – our cook proclaims it all loudly in our kitchen as soon as she’s heard it, but it’s all happening in front of you in the street and under your nose at the bar; hence the need for the daily coffee. Who knows what your beady eye might spy on the way to the café. And who’s watching me? That’s what the Sicilian is thinking.

For Sicilians are all actors, the girl outside the library tells me. She is working on a congress on Beni Culturali being held on the first floor, but since it is safely in progress, she and her colleagues are all outside in the sun, smoking cigarettes and watching out for news in the faces of passersby. As she talks, of course she doesn’t look at me; her eyes are across the street, and our chat is constantly interrupted by her greetings – most respectful to the Professore Meriano, chairperson of the Beni Culturali – overjoyed to a friend she hasn’t seen for at least two whole days. Sicilians, and Italians in general, love talking about their native characteristics, and in a most contradictory way, probably know themselves better as a race than Irish people, but yet are not at all open to self-criticism or self-irony. Giulia tells me she is delighted about the good weather, that it was about time it stopped raining (it has rained for about a week) and she thought spring would soon be on the way. Being weather sensitive, she can’t go out on wet windy evenings, but now that the sun is out and it will be a mild evening, she’ll probably go out tonight to see who’s around – as will many others, she predicts, who have been cooped up at home with the cars, the football on TV and San Remo. She wouldn’t last a week in Ireland.

The seagulls are out in force wheeling over the water’s edge and swooping down to scoop up any remains of the fishermen’s catch. A plate of scraps has been left for the cats. Some fishermen are taking advantage of the good day to touch up the paint on their boats – apple green, sky blue, white. The rugged mountains are dark grey behind the morning mist, in relief against the strong blue of the February sky, snow-capped Mount Etna clearly visible.

A female president for Italy? - maybe in the 25th century14/02/2010

2010-02-20T09:22:00.000-08:00

At the bar down by the fishermen’s port, two Saturdays in a row we run into the local Tom Jones. Sitting with his wife and her friend, he stares at us through the haze of his cigarette, without removing his shades. He wants to know where we are from. He is delighted to know we are Irish and not English, whom he dismisses with a flick of his cigarette as boring and unfriendly. Do we like it here? he wants to know, and beams at our positive reply. We know better than to mention the negative sides of living here; the pollution from the refinery, the filth around the smouldering rubbish heaps every 100metres, the lechy old men. Ahem … what are relationships like in Ireland, he demands to know, abandoning the small talk to cut to the quick. I mean, who wears the trousers? He leans forward in his chair, keen to see our reaction. We both proclaim the equality prevalent in male-female relationships in Ireland, unlike what we see here. Aha! He gets excited, and what is it like here? We both know by now that this kind of question can lead to dodgy territory here, and, not wanting to offend the amiable Tom Jones, I come up with the joke I have heard before – in public, men like to be seen to be in control, but everyone knows at home he is under the thumb – ‘la scopa dietro la porta’ as they say here, the broom behind the door.

Tom and company burst out laughing, delighted we have picked up this idiom; he leans back, satisfied in his wicker chair, but has one more question. ‘What about the women in Ireland, are they as jealous as they are here?’ he gives a big smile and the female friend smiles too, looking hopeful that we will have a good answer. It is true that Sicilian women are jealous; they often seem to me to be more jealous of each other and more in competition with each other, than of their partner. Some girls spend their entire evening watching me at the restaurant, checking out what I am wearing, and others try it on with mio marito, flashing him special smiles and flicking their curls at him. But when they realise that I am immune they get over themselves, and find it hard to put on their jealous-competitive performance when I am especially friendly and charming to them. So we tell Tom and company that actually the men are very jealous and possessive here, and he pretends to be surprised. ‘who have you met?’ he asks, laughing. Next time we see him he tells us he loves us because we are always in good form, and magnanimously invites us to his music night in the bar, when he will be playing piano bar music. (cheesy smulchy Italian lovesongs). He will be honoured if we can make it, so we tell him we are honoured to be invited and hope we can make it.

His relationship question is interesting as it comes up again and again here in a variety of guises. My friend who teaches English to men at the oil refinery (attendance is up since she started, last year they had a male teacher and the school nearly went bankrupt) says the topic comes up often and they joke about women being inferior and having to stay at home and do housework and look after the children. The ‘bar-humour’ I am subjected to by the late-night male drinkers propping up the bar is of the same ilk, albeit clothed in ‘witty’ sayings, or anecdotes. But unfortunately, it is nothing to joke about at all. My 35year old English student says she has a hard time in her job at the chemical plant, being one of the only female engineers. She has to work twice as hard as her male counterparts to get any kind of recognition for her expertise, and says that she has no chance of promotion now since her bosses assume at her age she will be having children soon and so they won’t waste the money. At her age, she says, she would have difficulty getting employment elsewhere for the same reason.

This is one of the prickly issues that lurks under the jolly ‘sole, gelato e pasta’ idea we have of life in Italy. And if men weren’t convinced enough that women are inferior creatures, just for adornment and housekeeping, then you just have to turn the TV on at any time to see women in bikinis playing arm candy to the male host. Think Bruce Forsyth in the 80s with his card bearing dolls. To make matters worse, it is the aspiration of many young girls to become one of these bikini-clad dancers for TV shows. In fact, my problem with chauvinism in Italy is that many women are its accomplices; with their tight clothes, stiletto heels, chests out and hours spent on hair care, they play at being dolls as soon as they’re too old to play with dolls, playing right into the hands of chauvinism. Plus, the mamma is guilty too. She never stopped washing her son’s clothes, feeding him just whatever he wanted and at whatever time he dragged himself out of bed, while she and his sisters cleaned the house, so the Italian male has been surrounded by images of women catering for his every need from an early age. A female president for Italy? Maybe in the 25th century

Favourite winter tapa and Sicilian dishes of the moment

2010-01-27T09:03:00.000-08:00

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 Nero D'Avola or Etna Rosso (red wines from vineyards on the fertile volcanic slopes of Mount Etna) is our tagliere di salumi e formaggi - a platter of finely sliced local hams (we have great salsiccia from the black pigs of the nearby Nebrodi moutains) and thick wedges of local cheeses with jams and honey. Mmmm

Pics of Stromboli and Salina

2010-01-27T08:37:00.000-08:00

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.

More Pachamama pics

2010-01-27T08:30:00.000-08:00

Pachamama pics

2010-01-27T08:21:00.000-08:00

Pics of trip near Catania

2010-01-27T05:24:00.000-08:00

'We Sicilians are Norman, Greek, Spanish ...' 17/01/10

2010-01-26T08:29:00.000-08:00

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 waxed eyebrows. They were like Audrey Hepburn’s or like fake rubber ones stuck on underneath his glasses. More manicured than mine. Hard to take one seriously when they are like that. But it is not an uncommon sight among Scilian men.

Since it is colder than usual now (I can’t say it is cold because to me it feels likes winter still hasn’t arrived) people keep asking for a smoking room. ‘Look there’s no one around, is it OK if we smoke?’ They always smile hopefully as if we’d be delighted. Apparently we are the only bar/restaurant in town where you cannot smoke inside. Everyone follows their own laws here.

We had a trumpeter playing with a dj which worked well, though it wasn’t as busy as usual because it was ‘cold’. The trumpeter said he was going to Spain soon to visit his (Sicilian) girlfriend. Are you worried she’ll go off with a Spaniard? I asked, testing his jealousy levels. He put down his beer for a second to think about it, but said ‘No, come on, the Spanish are brutti (ugly)!’ He said he had met lots of Erasmus students at gigs in Palermo and how they were really taken by Sicilians. ‘They like how different we are,’ he said. ‘Take me for instance, I am a Norman.’ (He stood up tall to show he wasn’t the typical short dark Sicilian. ‘Siamo normanni, greci (Greek)…’ he told me proudly. ‘You’re also Spanish, and Arab,’ I added. This is part of the Sicilian fascination. The castle at the end of my street was built by Frederick II of Swabia in 1239-40 on the site of what was once a Greek acropolis, and later an Arab-Norman citadel. It was under Aragon domination for a long period too. This history of invasion and foreign domination maybe explains the pride Sicilians have in their heritage and at the same time their distrust of foreigners, and even of each other. Greek myths abound: in Homer's Odyssey's Ulysses had trouble with the winds round the Aeolian Islands and Milazzo is the place where he ends up shipwrecked and meets the dangerous one-eyed Cyclops, Polyphemus. His cave is said to be built into the cliff face down dear the beach - it was turned into a disco in the 70s but had to be closed due to safety reasons ...

Mad Max and Diego, the depressed DJ, showed up. Not so depressed tonight since he was proposing they do a little aperitivo night for us on Sundays. I watched them dance around mio marito, getting more and more enthusiastic as they tried to convince him to give them the slot. Seeing them on the offchance is bad enough but a routine night would be too much. I left them with Giorgio, another regular, propping up the bar – the three stooges.

Lola

la Nonna's Story 13/01/2010

2010-01-13T07:16:00.000-08:00

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 haired man. She was so smiley and doing her best to chat in English. She lamented the fact that they don’t get to practise and that most tourists stay at the port and go to the islands that nothing is made of the beauty in Milazzo.

Today, invece, I went down to a bar by the sea, which is not nearly so welcoming, in fact he didn’t even put the heater on for me to sit in the covered area outside. But the cappuccino was good, and I got the Gazetta del Sud. No more news on the Haiti earthquake than I got this morning at 2am when we came in from work. But I read that Miep Gies, the keeper of Anne Frank’s diary and their guardian angel who had kept them hidden for two years in her attic, died at the age of 100. Remarkable woman.

It was this fact that sparked the chat with the nonna on my way past. I came by all the fishing boats of Vacarella, all the fishermen in their thigh high green wellies with the fish out on display. Slimy eels, pinky mullet, pink prawns and anchovies. One man was happily rearranging his fishing lines. Another was fixing his nets in his boat, another was gutting fish a bit further back from the pavement, with a few cats lurking nearby. A crowd of seagulls floated contentedly near the water’s edge, occasionally sticking their beaks in the water to pick up a minute fish. All the men had a good gawk as I went past. Plenty of action, despite the mizzle. Met the postman on his motorino with his bundle of letters in the little boot, and his luminous yellow waterproof jacket with Postino printed on it. I heard him park and holler up to a woman to open up for her post: ‘Maria, c’è posta, mi apri!’ In fair weather he goes about his rounds singing and whistling. A happy man, one of my favourite characters, especially now that the nonna just told me that he writes poems and brings them to her since he knows she likes them! A poetic postman. Fantastic.

La nonna had her door open when I was passing, since the bread man was just at the next house. He comes by every day with fresh loaves. So she invited me in and we went in to see the nonno, who was in bed. He waited for her to go and get the bread and as soon as she was gone he said, ‘here, open this glove for me.’ The knot was very tight and I understood that the aim was to keep the saw inside the glove locked up! But I opened it anyway – he wants to get his old tools out to remind himself of the man he once was. The nonna came back in and was very annoyed 'What are you doing with that od pruning saw?!' - and put it away. He asked me did I want some gamberi, their daughter had come round with lovely fresh gamberi. Every time I see him he wants to give me something. I said I had some already, grazie. We went into the kitchen then and the nonna showed me the fresh prawns. I told her about Miep Gies dying and she told me she had been there at Anne Frank's house, since her son and his Dutch wife live nearby. She then said she’d love to tell me her own account of the wars, of both world wars and how her family had been affected. Through her son she had met Elvira Battaini, a writer from Milano, who had made notes on things the nonna had told her down through the years, as she had wanted to publish them in some form. But she passed away in the summer, said la nonna sadly, ‘she was like a sister to me, always with a word of comfort and great flair and courage.’

La nonna said she had written down what she remembered of her earliest years. She remembered feeling abandoned by her father, who went off to work in Argentina when she was little, came back to fight the first world war and then returned to Argentina. She was close to her grandfather instead, who acted as father to her, though he grew older very suddenly and as a young girl she had to look after him. She said when she was a girl and was out walking with friends one night to hear the prophecies of a fortune teller, as they passed by the gates of the cemetery, not far from her house, her future husband whispered his declaration of love in her ear, saying he was going to send her a love letter. ‘Look at the stars! Listen to the whoosh of the waves!’ he said, ignoring their tenebrous surroundings. She laughed at the incongruity of the place with his romantic words. His letter reached her via a cousin. She had to keep this romance secret from her strict mother especially a kiss he gave her at their next meeting, during a walk in town; he kissed her on the cheek and she was so worried her mother would see the mark that she ran into the toilet with her little cracked mirror in her purse, and checked. She said they had been through many ups and downs together but had always managed to love each other through 68 years of marriage: some achievement. He had an irascible temper she said, he would often offend her with the way he spoke to her, but every day when she would see him off at the end of the road, he would expect her to give him a kiss on the cheek. But, she said, if he had been particularly offensive over a period of a few days she would put her foot down and not accept it. These Sicilian men, I said, are very volcanic, thinking ‘chauvinistic’ would be the wrong word to use. Oh, she said, he was 100% volcanic. I have heard about the nonno’s temperament before; one day at dinner with all their four children (in their 50s), and the grandchildren (aged 15-25- including my husband) he swept his arms round the room, and said, ‘Look at what one cock can do!’

As a young woman, the nonna got a job in Palermo in an ‘Aiuto Materno’, a kind of shelter for abandoned children and women who got pregnant as the result of rape during the war, or through prostitution. They would be found in rags, sleeping rough in the streets or at the train station, and brought to them where they got washed and fed and a bed. She had to keep her courtship with her fiancé secret, because the job was only for single women.

Come back, she said, so I can tell you more about my life story.

4am, and no one wants to leave 10/01/2010

2010-01-10T05:18:00.000-08:00

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 ... making sure the bar kept dealing with the orders as well as the customers down at the bar. Complete chaos. So different to the booth kind of seating in most Irish pubs where table service simply doesn’t exist.

In the middle of trying to do bills for the two waiters and mio marito, all requested at the same time, Mad Max appears with his usual aggressive charge. I said, hang on a sec, which no doubt tweaked his non-existent patience. He had misunderstood something that had happened earlier in the evening, twisted it in his head to suit his agro, and come to seek revenge. He started shouting and his face went pink then purple. I explained what I had said, but he said I’m not deaf I heard you! And I said well then you are accusing me of being a liar and I am no liar; this is what I said. His eyes popped out of his head, almost. Ricorda, he hissed, che qui io sono un principe e tu non sei nessuno. (remember that I am a prince here and you are no one)! Charming. What is he on? And he moved off, satisfied he had had the final word.

Due to huge efforts by all involved the night went well and customers were happy, in fact I think they love the fact that the place is so busy and bursting at the seams. But at 2.30 the night was still in full swing and at 3am large parties were still seated in all three rooms. So the waiters started putting up chairs in the sideroom and upstairs and the lights went on downstairs and the music stopped.

But downstairs all went haywire. Several people were smoking and the waiters and mio marito asked them to go outside. It is as if the rules don't apply after 3am. Our friends didn't help either as some were smoking too and all were drunk. There was something in the air last night, everyone seemed determined to drink as much as possible. Anyway I let it go for a while but then the mafioso at the large table downstairs caught my eye - they were the last table, and were not in a hurry to leave. He said, putting on a fake pleading look and slimy smile, 'Just me, just let me smoke!' What a mafia thought, he is king and gets to bend the rules. 'But the others will see and think they can too,' I pointed out. He obviously thought they would know he should be allowed to bend the rules! He said, 'Your husband says I can smoke.' As if. I said, 'Ah, but sure you know it is the woman who decides,' thinking - this is their kind of mentality, best joke about it. Anything to get rid of them, it was 4am. But then there was a near fight outside - mio marito had to close the door as they wanted to bring it inside - and this Mafioso got involved (not before sneering at mio marito - 'your wife says it is she who decides' - ) and then stormed off without paying. And of course he had done the whole ‘offro io’ business of offering to pay for two bottles of prosecco and drinks at another table ... I don’t imagine he will be back tonight to pay. Mafiosi don’t lose honour or face by not settling their debts.

Lola

The Foreign Woman's Tongue 6/01/2010

2010-01-09T04:37:00.000-08:00

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 into the toilet (one room upstairs and one room downstairs) and who knows what they get up to. But this pair came down about ten minutes later with their eyes even more shiny and made a hasty exit without meeting my eye, as I glanced over to say good bye. So this is what we have been reduced to.

The lovely sister came in the early part of the night, the girl with the Irish boyfriend. Aren’t you great, she said, having moved over here, adapting to this, you have all the chat in Italian. Good for you, she said. She understood. How I wish she was around more. Warmed to her so much.

The Mafioso mentality
Here is proof that you can’t say a thing without it coming back at you here, not even a wee joke. Especially not a wee joke. A few weeks ago at the end of the evening Blue brother (Blue is run by two brothers and is in the centre of town near a couple of other locali) was at ours having a snoop around, as he does regularly (he checks out what groups we have coming up, and then quite often he has them play at Blue right after …). It was the night of the young djs, nothing exciting. But I joked ‘hey, Vincenzo, next week they’ll be at Blue, right? He got a bit offended. È rimasto un po’ male, as they say here, which I didn’t expect, not having foreseen the repercussions or the deeprooted rivalry they feel with us. ‘Competition is another thing altogether,’ he said, curtly, ‘nothing to do with the groups you have. You guys should come to ours, at least I come up here sometimes.’ Anyway, a few nights later he was back up and he spotted Lola Montez was playing and joked about me and said, ‘Oh I’ll definitely be up to see you.’ And then he grinned; ‘and next week you’ll play at Blue.’ I had seen that comment coming and finished his sentence for him and we laughed and he put his arm round me. ‘I’d love you to play at ours,’ he says. ‘Me too, if you pay me well!’ I reply. He was on the phone to his girlfriend in Canada and said she was a bit jealous of his barman lifestyle and I joked of course, she knows you’re Sicilian. He joked, ‘well you married one!’ But that’s different I assured him. Anyway, we are on these kind of jokey terms, but I obviously went too far with my little joke earlier in the week, because as I soon found out, Mad Max then asked if we could play there and the other brother, whom I don’t know, said no.

Mad Max my sax player comes roaring up to me when the night is in full swing, the band is playing, the customers are lined up in front of me, desperate for their drinks. In his aggressive usual manner, he comes right up to the till elbowing clients out of the way, clients in a fairly orderly queue but who look alarmed as they see his red face spouting forth at me. I am trying to serve glasses of wine, bottles of beer and keep the queue moving, while he is roaring at me, ‘Ma hai avuto qualche discussione con I fratelli Blue?’ – Have I had a row with the Blue brothers? No, I assure him, at first not connecting. One of them I don’t know and the other is a kind of friend, I say. But he insists, between one bottle of beer and one receipt issued. He doesn’t know how to behave and when to say things. My head is throbbing, the queue is lengthening and here is this redfaced madman bellowing at me like a sick bull. You made some comment, he insists. I said, ‘You can’t be talking about that joke I made? ‘See?’ says Mad Max, getting the confirmation he was after. ‘You need to learn to keep your mouth shut!’ Devi tenere la lingua firma. Keep your tongue still, he says. Yes, here we are in 2010 but in Sicily we’re back in the Middle Ages. So I couldn’t hold in any more, the queue was getting more impatient and annoyed at the bull distracting me from dealing with their drinking needs. ‘You are the one who needs to watch his tongue,’ I say! ‘You are the one who fights with everyone!’ He is quite shocked, ‘me? I am trying to sort out a gig for us.’ But he prob knows what I mean underneath. Offended, he pays for the beers he owes and I give him the receipt and say thank you and look at my next customer. ‘ How upsetting.

Understanding Local Provincial Behaviour Sermon
Mio marito says the friendly Blue brother probably just passed on my comment and not the fact that we then joked about it. Also he has now gone to the Canadian girlfriend and we are left with the more provincial minded brother. That the Blue brothers feel fierce competition with us. That my comment expressed what we all know, but no one actually says. He would never have made a joke like that, it is too close to the bone. But I say that they have latched on to my comment as an excuse. They would never have let me sing there anyway, it would be too touchy a subject. Too strange for the competition to step into the competitor's den and sing and bring clients. Maybe they think it wouldn’t be good for business relations. But it is easy to use the woman’s comment as an excuse. The foreign woman’s tongue.

Capodanno Sicilia 31/12/09

2010-01-09T03:24:00.000-08:00

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 coming back. I said mio marito would say no way. I mentioned the recycling and rubbish problems, among others, and the sister ‘who stayed’ as they called her, the other sister, said – ‘We who live here, and see this every day, we hate this stuff too. I think loads of people would collaborate if we had the option of recycling.’ They said it was the nicest locale in town.

These people would be our friends if they lived here. Sometimes it feels like all the most interesting people left. They were such fun. So happy. The sister is doing a PhD on the religious symbolism in the mafia. How interesting the way they were different to the sister who had stayed behind. They spoke differently, had a light in their eyes, whereas she had a sadness, a frustration, even though she had the positive energy too. But she said, ‘It is sad to see so many people leave amareggiati, bitter and frustrated. We are frustrated we too who live here and face it every day.’

On the way back up the cliff people kept stopping to look back at the orange glow of the setting sun behind the last promontory justting out into the sea to the west. Dinner was back at my suoceri, and even more uncles and aunts were there last night – about 25 people were stuffed into the kitchen and sitting room. You could have dined on the antipasti alone. There were torte salate – pies with sundried tomatoes and primo sale cheese and another with anchovies and capers, savoury pastries my brother-in-law’s mother had made, marinated prawns, fried neonati fish (the name put me off trying them – 'newborn'), a courgette ‘torta’. Then smoked salmon risotto. Then huge, tasty grilled prawns in breadcrumbs, braised over the barbecue outside, it was such a warm night. Of crouse there was stock fish, as expected. There was so much food being passed around the table, there was hardly time to eat with all the passing around of dishes. The table was so long you had aunties calling from one end, ‘Where did those prawns go? Pass some down this way!’ or, ‘OK, stop sending food down here, we have enough!’ Limoncello and almondy torroni came afterwards, but we left before the card playing and prosecco began, to get to our friends’ party in time for midnight. In fact, we got there with two minutes to spare, before the house erupted with prosecco tops flying off, and kisses and auguri galore. Musician friends took up their instruments and played to get us all dancing, while guest helped themselves to leftovers on the sideboard and drinks on another sideboard. Capodanno in Sicily.

Venus's Pool 27/12/09

2010-01-07T09:15:00.001-08:00

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 Scotch whiskey from mio marito, left without paying. Unbelievable. That is the problem with table service for drinks.

I escaped for a peaceful walk out at the beautiful Capo (headland) after the liveliness of the last few nights. I had the Piscina di Venere (Venus’s Pool …) to myself, the sun light on the water leaving the rocks in relief against the cloudless blue sky, the odd fishing boat passing by just beyond the inlet, then a canoeist, and myself drenched in sunlight, about 25 degrees, roasting with my book. Two guys came along and apologised for intruding, they were thinking of a swim though they had no towels and when they saw me were inhibited and said maybe tomorrow. The second guy said, ‘What more could you want, where would you want to go? - You have Venus’s Pool all to yourself!’ It was gorgeous. Peace, feeling loved by the sun.

When I left my sheltered spot behind the rock there was a group of musicians playing hippy guitar music and the groupie girlfriend taking pics. Three other boys sat together watching the sunset behind the headland of Capo D’Orlando.

Lola

Christmas in Sicily 25/12/09

2010-01-07T08:49:00.000-08:00

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 of aniseedy fennel to digest and then some card playing until midnight, in keeping with tradition. The game was sette i mezza, the aim being to get the equivalent of 7 and a half points with the cards you were dealt, against the dealer. The stakes were low, everyone threw in a couple of euro to the pool. Great merriment ensued, with limoncello in the centre to aid concentration. Mio suocero and mio marito bluffed their best, the nonna played her good hand, the younger sister-in-law implored her father to remember she was his daughter and to go easy on her when he was dealer and it was her turn, the young cousin picked up tips on how to play from his grandparents and an older and very quiet cousin raked in all the winnings, sharing a big smile with me. At midnight the young cousin and nephew sprang into action lifting gifts from under the tree and presenting them to their designated owners. ‘Auguri’ and ‘grazie’ were called across the room while the mamma got down to business with the pandoro, the ‘golden bread’ of Christmas, sprinkling a good dollop of icing sugar over it and handing out hefty slices. Mio marito whipped out the prosecco bottles and filled the glasses and more shouts of auguri and clinking of glasses followed.

As if that wasn’t enough eating for one week, the next day at lunch time, we were all invited to the nonni for Pranzo di Natale. This time it was all about meat, but my suocera had thoughtfully made a spinach lasagna for me, which myself, the nonna and mio marito enjoyed while everyone else had a meaty one. The main dish was spaghetti with ventre – stomach of some animal, I was too afraid to ask which – and potato and carrot. Kind of like a stew except it was with spaghetti. Then there was pesce stocco – the regional speciality, stock fish, in a tomato stew, which was passed around the table. There were huge slices of ham too, looking not dissimilar to ours but no sign of cloves for spicy Christmas flavour. Again mia suocera had kindly thought of me and placed some small calamari (squid) in front of me, stuffed with capers and breadcrumbs and tomato. Soft and very tasty and piping hot. The nonno (granddad) treated me as special guest and kept checking I was getting enough to eat; he was most concerned I wasn’t having any of the local wine he was having, and then offered me some of the sliced pear he had after the main courses. Mio marito played draughts with his little cousin on the new set he had just received, the latter getting advice on all sides, but keeping a cool head nevertheless for his first game. One of the aunts had made two huge tiramisu welcomed by everyone, and washed down with prosecco. Card games and board games followed – the granny and granddad with mio marito and a sister-in-law, and the uncles and aunts with other cousins at another table with a new board game.

We then left to digest and prepare for the hectic night ahead…

The restaurant wasn’t too busy, as expected, though some people came for panini and piadini and desserts. The bar was busy with requests for bottles of prosecco and toasts all over the place. Once the band started playing the place packed out. All the returned ‘migrants’ from Milano, Torino, Roma and other northern towns were out socialising and we were busy ourselves meeting and greeting in between serving tables, making cocktails and holding fort at the till. There were hardly enough wine glasses to do; in fact there were often delays while we had to wait for the dishwasher to produce some clean ones. They break so easily, though the barman reckons that clients nick them if they are left outside, or that the bar next door mistakenly picks them up for theirs!

Fabulous festive atmosphere. There was hardly time to be envious of the meeting and greeting going on, and wish I was among my own...

Lola

Duca di Avarna's deserted village 9/12/09

2010-01-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

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 Serro 1, 2 and 3 going up into the hill, with steep steps linking the houses together. The last one on serro 3 seemed to be looked after now and again, had a fabulous lavender plant which we took lots of strands from for our idea of putting it on the tables, now I have it drying. Also a rosemary bush and mandarin trees and green lemon trees. Some of the houses were totally wrecked, ruins with no roof, others you could look into and they had stores of wood and tiles, strangely. A family came along and climbed over the gate of the church and got up to the bell tower and rang the bell! We saw them later down a lane chatting to the only inhabited house, a man asking if somewhere was for sale. There was no one else. Deserted village, quite eerie at that time. There was even a massive cantina for wine, with stone wine presses and big grooves in the stone for keeping the wine barrels, on a square the Duke had called Garcia Lorca square.

The Duca, Giuseppe Avarna, known for his eccentric nature, left his wife and three children in 1980 when he fell madly in love with an American air hostess 40 years younger than him. Due to some twist in provisions in the will, the couple were not allowed to live in the ducal manor, where his ex-wife continued to live, but had to occupy a room in the deconsacrated church. But they lived there happily, she playing the guitar and he writing poetry. Every night after they had made love, he climbed into the bell tower and rang the bells, to annoy his ex wife and proclaim his love to the skies! He was killed in a fire at his home ten years ago.

The kind of place that in Tuscany would be restored and a major tourist attraction, here in Sicily totally abandoned, that is the sadness of Sicily, so much ruin. Even at the catarate, the waterfalls we went to see, the visitor centre had been stopped half way through – there was a huge carpark but no other amenities, overgrown grass encroaching on the picnic table of the designated family area… the waterfall itself disappointed mio marito who remembered standing under the huge torrent with his mates 20 years ago all in the nude with fig leaves taking a picture. Not so much water now and it looked like the stone had crumbled away from the cliff. We went to a bar nearby to warm up after the dampness by the woodburning stove.

Lola

Being tourists: Syracusa and Noto 6/12/09

2010-01-06T15:47:00.000-08:00

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 eavesdropped on the plans and secrets of his captives.

We reached Noto at sunset, and wandered the main street of the old quarter with the pink light glowing on the yellowish stone. We sat on the steps of the baroque catedral and watched a group of small boys play football, and teenagers play table football by an old news kiosk.

Th next day, we made it to il parco dei Vindicari, a huge expanse of protected nature reserve, with beautiful white sand beaches, trails for trekking, though it was too hot for that! We got as far as a capanna for observing birds where a group of ornithologists were watching flamingos (fenicotteri). They let us look through their binoculars. Amazing,there were about 200 of them and we were extremely lucky to have spotted them. The Italian guide said they could have been in Tunisia or further south in Africa or in a different spot in Sicily. We cut on to the beach through some scrub and a gardener started shouting at us immediately. I was about to dip my feet in the crystal clear water and couldn’t believe he was shouting at us. He apologised when we went over. Listen, he said urgently, you need to get off this beach, this is private parkland, you aren’t supposed to be here. There is a sign, he said ,when we looked surprised, but it isn’t so obvious. But you’d be amazed, you’ll be spotted by a park ranger in an instant and given s huge fine. They have little else to do …we thanked him and hastily clambered back over the scrub and the wire on to the path. We went to see the ruins of a huge old tonnara (tuna factory). There are quite few dotted along the Sicilian coast line – for millennia tuna fishing played a huge role in Sicilian social and economic life, but now the fishery is under severe pressure due to depleted stocks. We drove to quaint Marzamemmi, a little village with cafés looking on to an old fishing port and old building leading down to a beautiful old square with an old church gracing the top of the square. One of my favourite sights in Sicily is from this square; last year we stood and watched a huge pink moon sink down into the sea behind the blue and white fishermen’s boats. Today the sight was not so enticing; we were happily munching on tasty lunch of cheese toasties and sundried tomatoes in the sundrenched square, its only occupants, when our café owner ran out and shouted urgently at us, ‘is that your car, run! The traffic warden is about to fine you.’ Mio marito ran down, but the nasty woman said she had already started filling out the form. Which doesn’t matter, she isn’t even a traffic warden said the café owner in disgust, she’s just an auxiliary. He said it in contempt. He looked at the clock. Look, three minutes past the hour. She’ll have just finished lunch and been delighted to spot your car there where it shouldn’t be. Again, another sign we had failed to see.

We drove on to the Isola dei correnti, a point where the Mediterranean and Ionic Seas meet, where two beautiful beaches meet, rough on one side, and calm waters on the other, with a little rocky formation in the division between the two, where the lighthouse used to be. But not to be seen today. The closer we got, the darker it got and the temperature dropped suddenly. When we parked the car it was ten degrees colder than it had been 5 minutes before. A huge damp mist was rolling in off the sea, and although we walked down to the water hoping it would lift, it just got colder and the mist even denser, we couldn’t see more than three metres in any direction! It was really quite spooky so we headed back to the car. It had been 28 degrees or so at mid day.

Feel quite privileged to have these beautiful places all to ourselves.

Lola

Out on the town 5/12/09

2010-01-06T15:45:00.000-08:00

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 take down my number, preferring to call my husband …) I gave him the list and he said he knew most of the songs. We have a free spot in a couple of weeks’ time, the Friday night. He suggested a practice on Sunday. We’ll see.

Scapegoat ... 20/11/09

2010-01-06T15:32:00.000-08:00

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 …

Salsa dancing, Sicilian style 16/11/09

2010-01-06T15:00:00.000-08:00

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 and that there was room on the terraces too. He said he’d come up and have a look. I said there was live music on Thursday if he was interested and gave him a flier! How funny, getting really into the advertising business. The girls were laughing when I also gave one to the two other English girls who teach in the other school, ‘hey you have them coming out of your bag like a magician!’ I said ‘yeah but it is all about communication, got to get out there.'

We had to dance in partners and how I missed those Brazilian classes then! The guys were not much good at all. One called Dimitrio was so funny, he was straight over to me like a shot when the instructor said choose a partner. So he asked was I studying or working and I said I was a teacher like the others but for now I was running a bar and he said he had heard of it.

Then the instructor got into teaching us about the rhythm and the clave the wooden instrument which marks out the rhythm the five tick tick tick tick tick, three slow and two fast which can sometime be inverted he said. He went on for 45 minutes and then made us dance to see if we knew how to start and when and to count the tick tick clave. I did it because the others didn’t know what he was on about, and felt put on the spot. Dimitrio was rolling his eyes and all the Sicilians were shuffling towards the door, so funny. But the instructor was undeterred by the blatant body language. Too funny.

Lola

Cook threats and sensual voice 14/11/09

2010-01-06T14:42:00.000-08:00

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 at home then. It was blackmail. Knowing that we need someone. Mio suocero said, ‘He wouldn’t be able to permit himself this luxury if my wife was here. You know, I once went to work in a kitchen as a cook in Australia. You know what I did for two months? Washed dishes. So who knows what experience he even has.’ We were very annoyed. I said I could make the tortilla and the smoked salmon paté and the two desserts he does and then on Friday and Saturday mio marito would work in the kitchen. This guy has been sitting and reading the papers for the last few nights, it has been so quiet. He lets the aiuto cuoca do all the washing up.

The guy from the piano shop came and suggested I get the old piano he had in the shop, for €500, the one I had noticed in the corner, but take out the instrument and put in a keyboard! As if it would contribute to the aesthetics of the restaurant and not have the problems of tuning. But I don’t want a things that looks cool for the restaurant I want the real thing. Business must be slow if he actually came the whole way to town to have dinner in our restaurant, I thought. Anyway it was nice of him to come and dine with us, we were pleased to see him. And another guy from Montalbano came down, the guy who organises the pageants. He’s a nice guy too. The trumpet player came too; he had played with a saxophonist and keyboard player a couple of weeks ago and they had asked me to sing a few songs with them on the spot. He was telling me how he had liked my singing, I sing just how he likes it and ‘hai una voce molto sensuale’. Wow. He especially liked Summertime which, he said, was much smoother and less carico than people here sing it and he thought it was great. He wants us to play together with a guitarist from Palermo and we’ll chat next time. He probably needs to organise return gigs for the ones his Palermo friends have invited him to. Would still be fun. 'You have a beautiful way of expressing yourself, when you sing it is like this' – he drew a line in the air - 'smooth and flowing, you have this intuitive sense of timing and fit in perfectly with the other instruments. You move people, you move me, mi fai emozionare, and I am a musician so think how the audience feel it. Trasmetti emozioni … I hate playing with singers here in Sicily, mi stanno su le palle, they have huge egos and they impose themselves and sing all over the place. But it would be an honour for me. I have only played twice with you but you struck me immediately, and have played with so many singers. I would take you to play in Palermo, Messina with me ... but you need to believe in yourself more, put yourself out there, you need more ego!' he grinned.

Nice end to a night that didn’t start so well.

Lola

'Sicilians are tired ...' 7/11/09

2010-01-06T14:21:00.000-08:00

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 remembered three huge sacks coming in from suppliers not long and had a look in the freezer; sure enough, under a few crates at the bottom, were two huge bags of potato chunks … the cuoca said cheerfully, to avoid blame, ‘We’re in luck! Look two packs down here!’ I said, ‘yeah, where were they when you were writing the shopping list?’

Yesterday I was looking at ‘Il Gattopardo’, ‘The Leaopard,' Tomaso de Lampedusa’s classic about the disintegration of a noble Sicilian family in the 1800s, though written in the 1950s and intended to show the cracks underneath the surface of contemporary Sicily. Lampedusa writes that Sicilians should leave Sicily at the age of 20 and make their lives elsewhere … ‘or they will not be saved’; and how the climate is really harsh - scorching heat beating down on your head for 6 months of the year and then torrential stormy rain for the winter. Which is true so far. The unbearable heat of summer has been followed by fierce wind and immense rains causing big leaks in our house.

I said I had the impression that Sicilians don’t even like each other; mio marito said ‘True; they only become Sicilian when they leave Sicily. They are Italian here in Sicily.’ But people here trust no one, only family and only just about I reckon. There is such a sneaky air around of being watched. You always expect to be truffato (cheated) here. With the history of repression and mafia and being controlled, said mio marito, are you surprised? 'Sicilians are tired,' says Lampedusa, tired of being repressed and watched and colonized. No more patience left. Great.

Lola

Transsexuals on TV 5/11/09

2010-01-06T13:56:00.000-08:00

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 one programme and another show had a psychologist and a lesser known trans in to talk about the rights of trans. The long haired man/woman was waving his hands around, saying transsexuals wanted to be treated like everyone else and have equal rights to employment, and that not all trans were prostitutes. This programme had Mussolini’s granddaughter on shouting off her big gob about how appalling the state of the nation was with the trans running around freely. The other programme had Brambilla the minister for tourism on shouting away in her loud awful voice and the famous trans explaining who her/his clients were – some gay, some heterosexual, some bi … some famous but she couldn’t say because she would lose the client. But it was all taken very seriously and I just thought how this would be impossible on Prime Time or any of those political insight shows at home. And this was on two Italian channels on current affairs programmes (on channels owned by Berlusconi, let’s not forget). Unreal. The whole of Italy focused on the drama of the trans. But now they reckon it was all a set up by Berlusconi. He got such bad publicity over being snapped in his villa in Sardegna with the underage girls and the orgies etc. so in order to get attention off him he is going for this leftwing politician, because apparently it is too implausible that the police could have got there and made the video and other things just don’t add up. How ridiculous. There were police and witnesses and paparazzi photographers being interviewed and explaining how their involvement but we reckoned it was all false. You can’t believe anything about Italy. What’s more, Italy has many more serious issues to deal with. As Berlusconi knows only too well …

Lola

Fishing boats and Pilates 3/11/09

2010-01-06T13:54:00.000-08:00

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 so the boats roped in by the pier rode up and slapped down again on the water. The tinkle of their masts and length of the poles swaying against the blue sky.

Not a soul around and was just getting into my book, when two girls come along and chose the boat next to mine to take photos. When they saw me one of them said, ‘non è la moglie … di quello del bar’… and trailed off a bit as I turned round (‘isn’t that the wife of your man from the bar?’). How annoying. Spotted in what I had thought was a moment of privacy. I can’t go anywhere without being spotted. They’ll go home and say, guess who was there all on her own with her book sitting on a ramp, the Brazilian/ Spanish/ Irish wife of your man ... No one else here would dream of taking a book down to the port. Most rarely read, and no one likes to sit on their own here, Italians are like sheep and must stay in crowds. The fishermen got out their cards and sat under a large shady tree.

The gym was packed of course. We are trying out all the Pilates classes and all the gyms are packed. Italians LOVE the gym. There is nothing they like more than saying they are going to the gym. It is their religion. They never miss the gym. Partly because they have to pay the monthly fee and don’t want to lose their money, but also because of the image thing. It looks good to say you are going to the gym, it is like talking about the weather in Ireland, here you talk about which gym you go to, what the teacher is like, which classes you take, what time you go at, the kind of people who are in your class. The Brazilian teacher was in his orange capoeira headband and white top and tracksuit bottoms. The black shiny shoes were the give away that he was gay said mio marito after. There was floaty Indian music on. I found myself mentally correcting his Italian as he gave the instructions, which were short and fairly clear. Though the moves were quite basic, pretty basic stretching, while the man in the other gym did a more advanced level because the people went last year too. But he wasn’t good at explaining the moves and left out some vital things. Like where the hand should be when lifting the hips off the ground – in the centre of the back I asked? He prob hopes I won’t come back. I noticed now the Brazilian varied facciamo – faccio and fate and fai … when he used the singular tu form I put the plural in my head. And he would get destra and destro mixed up. Torna instead of tornate. I was imagining how I would do it if I was teaching a class. Not easy to be clear. The Brazilian made some jokes - a bit brusque perhaps for the Sicilians but they laughed anyway. Look at how you are sitting, all slumped forward and hands in the wrong place, he kept chiding one guy. Are you tired today? And another girl said, ‘ho mangiato il riso oggi’, sharing her lunch habits with the whole gym. But he said, riso, allora sorriso, and the girl laughed obligingly, and another girl looked at me and rolled her eyes a bit laughing. The whole pandering to the instructor. We have yet to try a girl in another gym. I still don’t think he is Mr Pilates.

private party 31/10/09

2010-01-02T10:13:00.001-08:00

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 and so I made a mushroom soup, seemed the logical thing to do, following a lovely recipe from the Avoca book. But mio marito was surprised and made a face when he stirred the gloopy mixture. I took some just now to mio suocero for him and the nonni (grandparents) but he was surprised too: ‘oh we have mushrooms with pasta,’ he said, as if that was the only way. I know, I said, so do I, but we also have mushroom soup, a classic autumnal lunch. They will think it is heavy no doubt. But is a great soup. They will appreciate the gesture anyway I guess.

I was having a quick pasta dinner when people started arriving for the private party upstairs, so I ate round the corner in a less conspicuous spot. Mio marito was over like a flash; you always eat on the high tables in front of the bar, why not tonight? He demanded. He was perhaps tense because the private party was for the 30th birthday party of an ex from many years ago. This girl is not a regular, lives in the next town and in fact I don’t think has ever been over to our restaurant. But she wanted to spend her 30th birthday here with us. Great.

I went up to check if all was running smoothly once they had started serving the buffet food. I spotted the cameriere behind the serving table and was on my way to him, when whom did I spot but mio marito standing with arm round the birthday girl posing for a photo. In her glamorous shiny dress and heels and feather I thought someone got Halloween mixed up, but such overdressing (she could have been going to a wedding – her own) is typical here in Sicily, where things are best done in extremes, if they are done at all. Arms round each other, he tucking her in close to him by the waist, smiling away all the charm turned on. I could have turned and gone down the stairs. Or just calmly watched from the stairs, but no, nothing like being spontaneous. I marched over and pinched his waist so he sprang back. I pinched hard too. He was justifying it later, ‘I have been working hard all night,’ he kept saying, ‘you just came at that one unfortunate moment, she had just said facciamo la foto.’ (‘let’s take a photo!’) Of course she did. She turned and recovered herself well, ‘tu sei la moglie’. (‘You’ll be his wife.’) Not just a pretty face I thought, and just smiled broadly when she offered her hand and said, ‘piacere’. ‘I recognize you,’ she said, ‘from Facebook.’ So she is one of those Facebook people, of course she is. I am not a jealous person, (seriously) but this felt like an invasion of my place, the place I have created with mio marito.

It wasn’t very busy below, even though it was a nice mild night. The English architect students came along. The girl came out with her usual totally accurate comments in her very bizarre drunken way. She said there was no one in the other bars. She laughed, ‘oh no it’s winter, no one leaves their houses now. What do they do?’ She asked, perplexed. She heard the music from the party upstairs and said oh is that the group who played before, Milazzo’s best eh? They love it.’ The boy said, ‘hey they are attempting to play Michael Jackson live, that’s brave!’ She laughed, ‘But they don’t realize how crap they sound.’

Three guys stopped me when I was going up the stairs and asked if they could come too. I said it was festa privata and not worth it. They laughed and got me to chat to them and one seemed familiar. He was just back from Sevilla where he had been for 6months as physio to the football team. He said he had loved it and lived with his sister there. His friend had come to visit and liked it too. Which is better Milazzo or Sevilla, they asked. And laughed when I said Seville. But I said the islands were good and the volcanoes. Il barman was watching me chat to them coming over to wash things at the sink, ears pricked. They were asking what I was doing here, was I on holidays. I said I worked here and they laughed, thinking I was joking. La cameriera had a good look too, carrying a tray of glasses past. The three guys wanted to know what I did exactly. They nearly fell over when I said I ran it with my husband. Which one is your boyfriend? They asked in their funny English. Oh no, is he going to beat us up they joked. But disappeared at the earliest opportunity when a girl broke a glass on the table behind. No one stares at mio marito when he talks to customers.

Upstairs one of the party guests was chatting to the guitar player. ‘Have you heard her sing?’ he asked, ‘It’s sublime!’ the guitarist looked taken aback at such high praise. The guest said he had thought I was from Argentina when he heard me sing. Don’t worry, I said, it is a little known secret that I am Irish. Most people think I am Brazilian, including the staff!' The birthday girl was whispering about me slyly into the ear of another guest, whose glance over at me gave her away. He didn’t seem too interested though, and left her to it. I asked her was she having a good time, and she said she was, that the food was very good and they had been like vultures. That’s the important thing, I said. At the end I came up to give the waiters a hand to start closing up, and found a huge spray of red wine on the white wall. A nice job for the next day. Cigarette butts all over the floor. Birthday girl sprawled in a chair with feet up on a table, boyfriend stroking her legs. I have to pee, she said, and wobbled drunkenly off to the toilet. She gave me two kisses upon leaving and I thanked her; business is business. Her party will pay the suppliers.

Lola

Communication skills at the hairdresser's 30/10/09

2010-01-02T08:53:00.000-08:00

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 mean? We would say, like their ‘Hai capito?’ But the Italians are quick to jump to the other side of the fence, accusing, ‘you haven’t understood what I meant’.

Having learnt a little bit about how Sicilians operate, I said nothing about being kept waiting about 40 minutes, looking through the mags. Then the nice guy washed my hair. It was full of people getting their hair dyed. I felt very much the foreigner though. Never ever go on a Friday again. I watched Francesco cut a boy’s hair (about 8 years old). He got the best hair cut I ever saw a wee boy get, all chop chop chop, and such care taken, then all the gel and the serum. The guy took it so seriously. And the wee girl getting her hair washed beside me I never saw such a thing. It looked so strange. I’m sure we always just got dry cuts when we were little. These two, Carlotta the girl and the brother got the best treatment; I was watching it in awe. The wanna-be posh call their daughters Carlotta. And the names in the hairdressers, the one who dried my hair, Maria Grazia, what a name, it is after one of the madonnas. Then the other girl was called Donatella. I don’t know how she can be taken seriously. She was quite a nice wee girl though. The beautiful red haired girl didn’t smile once, no greeting at all. The first time I came she had wanted to straighten my (very straight) hair and I had said no thanks, and she’s had it in for me since then.

Anyway, my hairdresser, the owner, chopped off the dry ends, and urged me to go for the caschetto (literally, ‘helmut’ I think it is a kind of page boy look which appears to be fashionable here.) It definitely wouldn’t suit me, especially not the fringe, and it always surprises me that she brings it up, because she seems to know what she is doing otherwise. She was all jokey about doing the caschetto but suddenly serious again and concentrated. It was all about timing and how much time she could give me, I realised. Maybe Friday afternoon was a bad time to ask for her, with all the regulars in getting their roots dyed and expecting her to look after them. I’d say compared to the average Sicilian customer I am very undemanding. She got called away to check how someone’s bleach was progressing and came back to me; I requested it to be a bit more choppy, but she said she would have to do a bit of layering and it might get a bit mushroom-like. It appeared there was no inbetween, it was either the smooth look, which seemed a bit boring, or the more drastic layering up the head. But she then said ok leave it to me I’ll do it a little bit. By this point everyone was staring. Why, I don’t know, it wasn’t such a big deal but the lady next to me was staring away and didn’t even smile or acknowledge me when I looked at her, so I wondered was she waiting. The curly surly red head was doing her hair and she was staring fixedly at my hairdresser so I nodded my head towards them to indicate maybe she should see to her. She was chilled though but this redhead was most impatient. I said ‘sorry I don’t want to steal your time’, as she was obviously keeping an eye on everything going on around her, which wasn’t very relaxing. You have to make very quick decisions which then can be radical for your hair! It was all too hot. Anyway she seemed to relax, just telling the girls to do what ever needed done, then took the straighteners to do a few loose curls. I was delighted and said so, and asked her was she tired, she’d looked a bit frazzled for a minute being so much in demand. She was all pleased, assured me she wasn’t a bit tired, and offered me a coffee. How the slightest little comment gets you so far in Sicily. Just asking her was she tired she softened. And when I apologized for using up her time, the effect was that she gave me more time and did the cool curls. At the end I said I’ll come back in a midweek slot next time and apologized for the extra time it took to explain what she was going to do; she was perfectly mollified and gracious.

That’s how to be with the Sicilians.

Lola

Coca Cola fridges and offensive bills 25/10/09

2009-12-31T11:14:00.000-08:00

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 to take a photo of it, and I said when you’re done can you dismantle it again and take it away with you? He looked at mio marito and said yeah but that changes the deal with the t-shirts. Later on the barman joked that in the company of friends the Sicilian male will play the macho but that behind the scenes they all are only too aware it is the woman who decides. He is just your broom behind the door! he said - some Sicilian expression.

A blond girl and darkhaired girl sat all night at the bar fawning over il barman. They had two glasses of wine and later I noticed two more glasses that hadn’t been written down. They were funny girls, now and again I would catch them watching me or staring over provocatively. But I had given them not a moment’s attention, they seemed nice enough girls when they came in anyway. A restaurant owner at home had confided to me that the worst thing for your bar are pretty girls because the barman will be only too delighted to offer drinks on the house. So I was keeping an eye. So at the very end of the night, at 3am when I was about to go, the bar was cleared and just this pair were left so I sent over the bill thinking I would head home... The next thing, when a guy who manages another bar in town had just come in to say hi, il barman comes over and does this awful performance. Did you send over the scontrino he said? Why? I said I was about to head home and we were closing. It seemed obvious. But he pranced and puffed the chest out and clicked his cowboy boot heels together and said but you can’t do that! They are offended. One of them is my ex and we were chatting and it is very rude of you to send over the scontrino. I said I didn’t know it was your ex, I don’t know the girls and no offence was intended I am just closing up shop basically. But he went on and on, raising his voice higher and higher, puffing the chest out and contorting his face, and that whole river of words coming out that just confuses me. I simply don’t know where to begin to reply when I get that heated torrent of Sicilian diatribe. He continued, I know you did that because you have that Irish mentality and in Ireland you close bars at two and people leave and that is how you think. But you have to trust me, do you not trust me? He ranted. I said, have I ever said anything to you? (it’s true – I leave him to it, and he knew that was true). Most offensive was that he said altri. Hai persi altri due clienti (you’ve lost another two customers). The only way to stop the ranting was to say this is not the time nor the place. That whole show was for him and his ex and his pride. The Sicilian male ego, I could so do without it. The friend from the other bar disappeared and the waiter glanced over sympathetically. Il barman went back over to the girls and slabbered over them and I was left there on my own. The foreigner. The ridiculous foreigner. Altra was the word in my head as if he was saying I had already lost customers because of my foreign ways. I thought that was so mean. Even if I have offended the delicate Sicilian soul, it has never been intentional, and also, others have come back precisely because of the foreignness, something new for this town.

Anyway, to make matters worse, he then sidled up to mio marito to tell him, as soon as I went off to put chairs up. I came straight back over and he moved away. I was not going to have im snitching on me to my own husband. So in the end he came over, grabbed my face in his hands and planted two kisses on my cheeks. God, the Sicilianness of it. And in a voice loud enough for all to hear, for mio marito anyway, he said, ‘Sorry I said those things in front of people, I wasn’t aware they were there.’ I thought he could have handled it totally differently. He could have apologised to the two girlfriends for my appalling foreignness and mentioned it to me later.

It appears to be difficult to get anything right here.

Lola

Local tabloids 28/09/09

2009-12-30T10:05:00.001-08:00

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 terrible accident near Rome on Saturday night involving the death of 4 people, some of them 20 year olds, and two pregnant women in the other car were injured, one of whom lost the baby. How awful. Reports on a journalist getting death threats from a mafia guy who told him in the street not to mention his name again in the paper, and a criminal lawyer who got his tyres slashed and a threatening letter as warning not to send a Mafioso to jail. Then some stupid football manager said he wanted the media to write that he accredited his team’s victory in the regional final (some agrigento team) to his ‘brother’ in jail, a mafia capo of some town who has just been arrested. So the mafia is well reported on in the paper, or apparently, so. They probably can only print certain things. I don’t know yet how free they are to report on it. But it freely alluded to anyway. Is it al true, or is It just the spin docs of Sicily making sure the islanders are kept in check with the oppressive mafia mentality?

Berlusconi just back from Pittsburgh where he met Obama and Michele and said to the press that he thought Obama was a fine man and he must go to the beach with his wife because she was abbronzata as well, alluding to his stupid comment from last year about the president being ‘inteligente, simpatico and … tanned’. How embarrassing. An ex prison centre policeman killed his wife from whom he was separating in a town outside Venezia, then killed himself. There are so many crimes like that, once a week I’d say here. Left behind three kids, 25, 21 and 17. Imagine surviving that. How would you feel? Too much violence and anger here. Such extremes of emotions. And who knows what kind of domestic violence preceded the murder. My in-laws have told me about various local women they know or have worked with who had to leave their husbands because they were beating them up.

Yesterday’s paper commented on the alarming smoke coming out of the refinery in Milazzo and the harm it has caused and causes still to its citizens …

Lola

Sicilian smoking laws 21/09/09

2009-12-30T09:43:00.000-08:00

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 she could smoke. But I knew there were not. She had helped herself to the sideboard where we kept them for outside tables. Later the same group had been joined by a short dodgy man, and I discovered he was calmly smoking away when I came down about an hour later, the astray full of stubs. So I said, ‘But you can’t smoke here,’ really surprised again, because he was with the girls I had spoken to before. I lifted the remaining two clean ones and then lifted the one they had been using along with the peanut bowls, suspecting they would use them. I clattered them about so they could tell I was annoyed. Well, when I went to the kitchen to leave the bowls to be washed, apparently the squat guy went over to mio marito to complain, haughty and irate. ‘I’m 40 years of age and I will not be treated like that. That young girl (figliola he called me – probably thinking I am much younger than I am, and just a waitress – which may in the end, have been an advantage), That is no way to treat your customers, do you know who I am?’ He probably made some mean little Mafiosi threats. Mio marito said, I just hope he doesn’t get obsessed, because I said, well they wont be back and good riddance. But he is afraid they’ll come back and smoke again on purpose, or do worse … how there sickening evil mafia minds work...

I heard him say that the problem was that the anti-smoking law had to be followed, or we all coul get fined. But mafia-man will have been thinking, ‘no one’s going to fine me!’. ‘This isn’t Dublin or Arezzo or Bath,’ said mio marito. ‘These people are dangerous and expect to be respected and do what they want.’ God, like the restaurant the English School director was telling me about on the sea front where people brought their own food and drink and the place had to close down because it went bankrupt. So mio marito is actually afraid of mafia. I asked before coming here if there was any mafia activity around and he assured me there was not. What a lie. It is full of it. He even denied it the other day when the guy at the agriturismo asked us how it was going and I said the bureaucracy and the mafia society made everything difficult or impossible. Mio marito actually said no, what do you mean, they haven’t come near us for money. I said, no, not for money, but in other ways their presence is felt and our disadvantage in not knowing the right people.

He blew up in front of the waiters. ‘You can’t react like that, you can’t deal with the customers like that.’ I said, it is funny how I am always always, always the only one who notices the smoking; it is right under your nose and you never do anything about it. Later, when I was drying dishes with the cameriera while the cameriere was washing because our dishwasher had taken sick, I came down because mio marito had let more people in (it was 3am) and one was smoking, the tall guy I had told earlier not to smoke. They hold the cigarette away from their body when you say something, stretching their arm in the vague direction of the door as if that will help things. So pathetic. I said to mio marito, you better say something to that guy. Makes a complete mockery of me. He said he hadn’t noticed. How can he notice everything else but not that? He said to the waiters - what are you doing, you know the antismoking law, you have to tell the clients not to smoke. So now, not only can I not take in the tables at the end of the night because I basically throw people out, but now cannot tell them not to smoke apparently.

Our dishwasher is a complete liability. Since he got his contract he has been sick all the time … First he put the stem of a wineglass through his hand and we had to take him to casualty; then he poured boiling water over his foot and it swelled up like a balloon, both occasions meaning a good bit of time off for him and dire straits for us trying to find good dishwashers – people we tried were either too slow or too puny. Last night we had the dance of the dying swan. He sank down into the steps outside the kitchen complaining of a headache, asking the waitress and cuoca to touch his forehead to see if he had a temperature. In this heat we could all seem to have temperatures, the waitress smartly pointed out. Could it be a chemical in the cleaning products? Could it be the fact that he had skipped lunch? They had to give him fruit juice and salt and sugar concoctions to try and bring him round, but nothing was working and he suggested a cigarette might help. The waitress, sharp girl, told him to catch himself on. He then worked on the cuoco’s sympathy and had him help him walk around outside to get some air. Having that weight leaning on you would not be desirable, in fact the couco looked relieved to get back in. Go home, he said. But no, instead, having exhausted the kitchen staff he came and flopped around the bar! He leaned over the bar counter and cradled his head in his arms and sighed like it was his last hour. If you felt that bad you wouldn’t want people to see you and you would get yourself home. He wanted to wait until his ‘fidanzata’ came to get him. La cameriera said, I'll give him a good talking to tomorrow, since we had to stay on to do his job!

Lola

Bella figura e brutta figura ... 20/09/09

2009-12-29T06:18:00.000-08:00

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 cooks of his age. They don’t really see it as an opportunity to do new things. But he said if he just had to do primi and secondi that was un altro discorso (a different matter). And he said he would help the under-cook if s/he were busy and he wasn’t doing anything, that he never sat about doing nothing. Which sounds totally different to the situation we have at the minute with our two aiuto cuochi - any chance they get they are outside smoking.

Then we saw il barman who had come to load up the fridges, and I remembered I had dreamt of him last night; he had put his hand on mine and said everything is going to be all right. So he said he had worked here since 2003 and that October was always a dead month, and in November and December things would pick up again (not so reassuring since it is still September!). Then he told a big story about how the previous manager had asked him to leave to save money, doing bar, kitchen and front of house all by himself. Our barman thought it was crazy because people always came up for his cocktails. He said the manager used to tell him off for offering too many shots. Afterwards mio marito and I thought he had gone on about it so much that he must think we are watching him too much. I was concerned last night because he offered the English architects shots, and the girl was already drunk and had to drive back to their house by the refinery. They had had a few mojitos but cocktails here are about triple the strength they are back home, never measured. I heard the barman tell the trainee to count to three when pouring the alcohol into the glass! Depends how fast - or how slow - you count! Also I think they aim to cover the ice in the glass as a gauge. And of course here it is common to drink and drive, there never seem to be any check points. The English pair were entertaining: they were wondering how come everyone is obsessed with la bella figura here? (looking good, making a good impression -fundamental tenet of every Italian's life)She was saying ‘I don’t know how they manage to be so dressed up all the time, the men must spend ages getting the hair just right, this greasy look - how do they get it so greasy? They must oil every curl to get it in place.’ And the boy kept saying all the men think they are gods, real studs! Where are the ugly ones? They’ve all been crushed. They are all bullies, kicking out the ugly ones from the public.’ Funny. They went on about how famous it appeared their tutor architect was and how he had friends everywhere and everyone knew him. They went up the castle at Santa Lucia and it was closed but when they saw their tutor they opened and said come in we will show you around and turned on all the lights and it was like magic they said, this would never happen in England. I like it here, she said. At first I thought, oh my god, it is awful; but the people are so happy, they just get excited about going into town, going for a walk at the marina and their drink up at the borgo, how simple their lives are. I said, you say that now because you know you are leaving and she laughed. They said their tutor brought them for coffee with famous national cyclist, and that everyone jumped up as he was leaving the café to get their photo taken with him, but they couldn’t care less. He kept coming into the office as if he were someone important but they didn’t care. And I said yes there is a big celebrity culture here, and they said maybe there is in UK too, though people tend to respect your privacy a bit more. They said something about the prevalence of porn and how they all know the names of porn stars here. It isn’t really a taboo topic here, in fact some ‘good’ porn stars are viewed with respect and admiration almost. They laughed away and said so that is what they do at home.

Then along came very drunk Lucia wanting to practise her English. In her snobby English accent she confided that she didn’t like fat people pushing her,’ and looked down her nose at some large people near her. There is always a certain amount of jostling in front of the bar as people try to squeeze past. She reappeared later, livid and hissing like one of the Mafioso cats of the borgo at her boyfriend who was practising his English with the two architects. 'What are you waiting for? Do you want to stay con questa (with this one - sounds very derogatory in Italian), she indicated the poor English girl who was oblivious andwandered off to the toilet. HOw possessive they are, marvelled the boy! Later on, Lucia got in a catfight outsde. We could see it from our bedroom window. She shouted at another girl, 'You are from 1961 and you are still out here doing the rounds!' The other shouted back, 'You are a prostitute!' The next thing was, her boyfriend rushed to defend her honour, and pushed the other girl to the ground. Immediately two other men wanted to beat him up, and anoter bar manager had to ntevene with his booming voice; ' 'Hai alzato le mani a una donna, you pushed a woman to the ground shame on you!’ Che brutta figura! It was all show, such a performance.

Mio marito was so low today when we remembered the fight: ‘I can’t be doing with these lowlifes, working to serve these uncultured drunk drugged people.’ It is not the Pachamama we wanted, it is not what we dreamed of, the people are not open to our ideas, we’ll never get anywhere with our new ideas.’ He said there was no point; Sicily would never get out of this rut and it made him sick that he had come back. He says ten years ago when he and his family opened the restaurant there was a positive atmosphere; it was a new thing and nice people came up for a quiet evening with their families etc, but now it was drunk and drugged people coming for the last drink so we got the worst end of society. He says he doesn’t feel Sicilian at all, and needs to get out of here. But the Sicilian is in him. I can understand this rejection of the less than salubrious side of life though; the small-town mentality feels even more stiflng when you add the mafioso dimension. All that he left behind.

The news in the Giornale del Sud paper today was about a mafia guy getting 16 years only for 5 murders because he is a pentito and collaborating with the police. His worst kill was three women: mother, sister and aunt, as a vengeance kill against a man they had lost in the late 80s...

Lola

Rain and table service 19/09/09

2009-12-29T06:10:00.000-08:00

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 won’t charge that, and glared at me as usual in front of the waiters. I said your father put on the service charge, and I agree. Mio marito said no, again, and mio suocero said, ‘I see it in a different way,’ quite calmly, and stuck with it, so mio marito gradually moved away and la cameriera said she said to them, ‘Look it is service charge and other places charge cover charge just for sitting in the place so you could have been charged a lot more.’ Good for her – she manages to say what I would like to say, but they wouldn’t accept it from a foreigner, they’d be off complaining with my husband. Other tables assumed I was Spanish and told me where they had been in Spain and how they wanted to have Spanish lessons.

A table of 4 waited 45 minutes for their main course last night. They had the tapas to start and then two swordfish roulades and two tuna steaks, so the cook had the perfect amount of time to start them. They also requested strozzapreti (pasta twists) al pesto siciliano to be brought with the seconds, an unusual request, so I had brought it to the cook's attention when I stuck the order on the board. I had seated them at 9.30, and saw that at 10 there was still no sign of the seconds and had gone in to check – there were no other orders at the moment. Who knows what they were up to. Anyway, as they hate me checking up on them, the cuoca then sent the waiter off to ask me if I had made a mistake when I wrote the pasta was to come out with the seconds – the cuoca was trying to get some kind of school girl revenge! Today I went to speak to the two cooks when they were having coffees after dinner; can you be more collaborative? I suggested, ‘can you,’ I asked the aiuto cuoco who does the tapas and starters, ‘give her a hand if you are not doing anything?’ But she got uppity again, challenging everything, complaining she was doing it all single-handedly. She didn’t seem to understand I was actually trying to support her so things would run more smoothly next time. She disputed the time factor, but she was unlucky that I had actually noted the whole procedure since they were the only table dining at that time. The tuna steaks and the swordfish rolls take five minutes on the grill … I can’t say anything to these people – yet they wouldn't say a thing to my husband.

The lovely Rex Sicilia crew came up with a few friends and recommended heartily the Gnocchi Pachamama. The Palermitan complimented me on my green stone necklace, and asked how my trip to Spain had gone, and the girl told me she is going back to study lettere and anthropology in her office in Rome where she researches. How interesting she does something different all summer, to get out of the office. Very down to earth. Captain Maurizio caught us as we were flying past – ‘Please, come and have a drink with us, it’s not every day we are here!’ It was great to sit down for a minute because we were run off our feet. ‘You weren’t expecting all these people,’ they smiled. And I said, ‘no, but every time you lot come, it is busy: come more often!’ He declared it was the best restaurant they had gone to all summer, that we had everything right; atmosphere, service, décor, food, cocktails, everything! he said beaming, a compliment indeed as they go round all the islands and Calabria and Sardinia. How nice. Emmanuela said it was the only place he stayed on after 10.30 and they all laughed. Mio marito said every day we think of improvements, and I said, every day we ask ourselves why? Is it worth it?’ and she laughed.

Lola