WORLD PASTA DAY!

It's World Pasta Day and here is a photo of a wonderful dish of risotto (I know it's not officially pasta but it counts as a pasta course) which I was served in my local bar, the Cicara Caffetteria, last week - risotto with pumpkin and crispy guanciale. I loved the presentation of this dish:

The second dish I want to show you is my own pasta with pumpkin sauce. It also contains the juice and grated rind of a Sicilian orange and saffron. It's a dish I can make very quickly and quite joyously so it has become my go-to pasta dish and I always find it comforting.

In my cookbook, Cooking in Green Lemon Land, part of my introduction to the pasta and rice section reads:

Who doesn't like a bowl of pasta? It is one of the world's most comforting foods and in Italy it is served as a first course at almost every lunch table. "La pasta scola! – The pasta is draining!" is the cry that brings everyone to the table and often the aroma of ragù being prepared for lunchtime wafts through apartment buildings and along streets from as early as 8 am. In restaurants pasta is not necessarily served as a primo (first course) as many busy people at lunchtime have either pasta or a secondo (main), rather than both, but in the home it is. There is a myth abroad that Italians do not eat pasta salads or cold pasta dishes but they do, especially in summer. Bread, by the way, is not served with pasta, even when you order it as your main in a restaurant.

In "A Place Called Siracusa" I tell the story of a neighbour of mine who ignored me for over a year when I first came to Modica, until one day, when I met her on my way home for lunch, she asked me if I was about to prepare pasta. When I replied that indeed I was, she beamed and from that day she has greeted me as if I am old friend. I have no idea why she had never acknowledged me before but I think the fact that I was going to serve pasta made me a normal person in her eyes.

I do not make pasta every day or even most days but I do always look forward to it and if I feel unwell I do what Italians do and prepare myself some brodo (meat broth) to which I add the tiny pasta shapes called pastine. It instantly makes me feel better. My favourite pasta dishes? Pasta all'amatriciana, which contains hot chilli pepper and my own pasta alla zucca (pasta with pumpkin sauce) for which I include the recipe here. Oh, and practically all pasta al forno – baked pasta. Lasagne is probably the best known of these dishes outside Italy but I have included some others that I have created. One recommendation I would make if you want to cook pasta often is to invest in a pasta pan that comes with a drainer in the lid. It is much safer and it has changed my life!

So enjoy your pasta today and every day that you have it. You never know - it might change your life!

FOR A FRIEND

A dear friend and former neighbour of mine died on Saturday afternoon at the University Hospital of Wales in Cardiff.

This lady often exasperated and even angered me because her political and societal views were very different from mine but she possessed, in abundance, that undervalued quality without which we are nothing - kindness.

In 2005, on the day when my dog Simi and I flew to Sicily, unwell and partially disabled as my friend was at the time, she dragged herself, on public transport, up to Heathrow Airport. (I had already been in London a week, saying my goodbyes to the city.) She did this because she hadn't wanted me to get on that plane, permanently leaving everything that was familiar, without having someone to wave at as I boarded. It was a gesture of friendship which will stay with me always.

Brexit drove a wedge between us from 2016 but in recent years she sought me out again and I tried to stay off the subject when we communicated!

Since Saturday I have been trying to remember the good times, such as going to the Hay Festival every year and doing the Elgar Trail one summer around Worcestershire. You loved gardens, my friend, so as I write, I am thinking of our visit to the Elgar garden in the Malvern Hills.

You embarked on many journeys in your life and you were sure that this last one would lead you to the God you so sincerely believed in. Bon voyage and say "Hello" to my mum and Simi up there.