BRUNCHING IN SICILY

Throughout Italy it has become fashionable for bars and restaurants to advertise lunch as "brunch" when what they serve bears no relationship to a brunch at all.  So yesterday, for St David's Day, I decided to do the thing properly for a few Italian and expat friends.

There was sausage and baked bean casserole in the kitchen for those who wanted it - the beans came from Cristaldi in Catania - and my main table looked like this:

I like to make "Glamorgan sausages" - which contain cheese, not meat - in round shapes and there they are on the left. Those are Nigella's "Welsh Rarebit muffins" next to them - what my muffins don't have in height they make up for in breadth - and that's homemade chutney and cranberry sauce being served with the cheese.

I know my bara brith, which I'd made on Sunday, didn't look perfect but sliced and served with butter and a friend's homemade marmalade, everyone thought it tasted good!

Those are my "chocolate thingies" on the cakestands, with my strawberry tiramisù at the back and almost-Cadbury's chocolate fingers on the right.  [Thanks, Lidl.]

My "tipsy cake" became rather an Italian one as, given the unavailability of sherry,  I used Maraschino in it.  I'd found the sugared sheep in the supermarket and decided they would be an appropriate decoration:

And of course there were Welshcakes:

A Welsh male voice choir CD,  my blown-up plastic daffodil, good company and a singalong completed the occasion.