A BIRTHDAY LUNCH IN POZZALLO

Valentine's Night is a night to stay in for many single people, as who, when they are on their own,  wants to tread a restaurant floor covered in rose petals, listen to romantic music or watch couples gazing into each other's eyes all evening? It would be like twisting a knife further into your own wound and it never ceases to amaze me that couples don't get this.

However, it's my birthday and it's been a lovely day in Sicily so I was delighted when my friend Carol invited me to lunch at a restaurant in Pozzallo, a town whose main street backs directly onto the beach.  First, here are a few photos of Pozzallo as it looked this afternoon:

XV century Cabrera Tower

Now I want to introduce you to Carol.  She writes about Sicily and other places where she has lived or which she has visited and you can find some of her articles here.

OK, let's get to the food and these are the dishes we ordered:

Cavatieddi pasta with ricotta and peas for me

and lolli pasta with fava beans for Carol:

Then I had what Italians call a "mixed roast" but is really a mixed grill 

with a mixed salad

while Carol enjoyed chicken cutlet and chips:

There was my favourite gel al limone for dessert and you could just tell that this had been made with the freshest Sicilian lemons:

Simple food, perfectly cooked - the best!

And finally, here is your birthday girl blogger:

I had a great time.  Thanks, Carol. xx

FOODIE FRIDAY - A LUNCH FOR 1st MAY

A lovely lunch out in the country with Gina and family today and the aroma of Sicilian sausages being cooked on the barbecue greeted me as I arrived.

To start there was pasta with tomatoes and chilli:



Then the sausages were ready



along with barbecued pancetta and veal



served with green salad and a dish of grilled aubergines dressed with oil and mint. [All good Sicilian cooks will tell you that where there are aubergines, there must be mint]:



There was a tray of magnificent dolci like these:



Then a basket of fresh fava beans was brought in and we ate them raw to clear the palate. [I'm not normally keen on them but I do like them like this]:



And the Sicilian countryside looked particularly pretty today:

SICILIAN BEANFEAST

I visited Gina yesterday and found her happily soaking dried broad [fava] beans. After draining them and removing the black parts, she was going to boil and cook them with tomatoes, celery and onion.

She told me that, in times gone by, the women would gather together around a brazier on winter evenings and remove the hard, black parts of the beans whilst telling each other family tales or stories from local legend. They didn’t bother to soak the beans first because they liked this way of keeping warm and passing the time.

Maccu, a thick soup of dried broad beans, is an ancient Sicilian dish and a special version is prepared for San Giuseppe [19th March]. People give thanks to the saint for delivering them from famine.

The broad bean [possibly the first vegetable known to man] was and is much loved all over Sicily but particularly in the Modica area which produced the tenderest ones on the island. Personally I am not keen on them [though don’t mind them as an ingredient ] but when I tasted some fresh, very tender raw ones with a slice of pecorino [a famous combination here] even I had to admit that this was a culinary marriage made in heaven.

Sadly, Gina says, young people do not have the pazienza to prepare the dried beans so she fears that both her dish and maccu will disappear within a generation.

CRAZY CLIMATE

The fava [broad] bean has been available in Sicily for a month now, and that is much too early in this lovely region where the idea that each food has its season is still respected. Some varieties of plum and apple are ripe 10 days earlier than usual, whilst mulberries, cherries and apricots are ready 5 days before they would normally be on sale. Quality, it is feared, is at risk and already, because of climate change, these days the best cherry tomatoes are said to come from the north , rather than the south, of Italy.

Now, some of you will know that I'm a city girl so farming and environmental issues usually leave me cold, but even I can see that the long-term effects of this situation on my beloved Sicily could be devastating.

2008 is expected to be one of the hottest years since records began and it is reported that the winter of 2007 was the warmest since 1800 here.

47% of Italians fear the effects of climate change more than they do an earthquake.

FULL OF BEANS

I have my work cut out this afternoon, podding and freezing these fava beans which the kind gentleman who lives opposite has just brought over from his garden in the country. Last week I received a similar batch from Linda's garden, so what a lot of lovely vignarola I'll be making!

A STROLL ALONG MY STREET

Come for a walk with me along my street on this fine, Sicilian Monday morning. Last week's bad weather has disappeared, spring is in the air and there is a spring, too, in my step. [There certainly wasn't last week, the dampness having triggered an arthritic flare-up so that by Thursday I could hardly walk!] Today I am going in the opposite direction to the one that leads to the Via Sacro Cuore with its fashion stores and beauty salons and I am making for the small supermarket at the far end of my own street.

On Monday mornings all but food stores, newsagents, ironmongers, stationers and florists are closed, but that does not mean that the shopkeepers are not working: some can be seen out and about doing their banking, whilst others are attending to their artistic and perfect window displays.

Passing the fresh pasta shop, I smell the dough that will soon be turned into a myriad varieties of Italy's staple food and through the window I can see tubs of bright red 'strattu on the counter. It is a little early for a queue of customers here, but in another half an hour they will come!

The wine merchant's is open and he is standing outside in the sunshine, enjoying a chat. A notice in his window announces the arrival of the new Frappato. In this shop you can take your empty mineral water bottles to be filled with a more Bacchic liquid and you can taste before you buy.

As I walk, the scent of fresh pastries wafts towards me on the breeze: I imagine sugar being sprinkled over hot biscuits and I catch just a hint of vanilla. Then, as I reach the corner of the side street where Caffè Moak has its premises, the aroma of good, fresh coffee is almost overwhelming.

The supermarket resembles an early incarnation of the genre in Britain: narrow aisles, a black and white check vinyl floor which needs replacing and untidily stacked shelves. But I find what I need and the women pack for me and are so obliging that not even the layout there can irritate me today.

On the way back, at the larger greengrocer's they are still setting out the newly delivered goods. The bananas look startlingly yellow and are hanging from a column; enormous, bright green grapes have just arrived and sacks of dried chickpeas and other pulses are stacked beside the door; above them there are boxes of fresh dates. One thing that strikes me about Sicilian greengrocers is that the price labels nearly always tell you which town the produce has come from. Come to think of it, it is usually labelled thus in supermarkets as well. I cannot resist looking in on our newer greengrocer's at the other end of the street and today his trestle table is groaning under the weight of what looks like several tons of fava beans, quite possibly the first vegetable known to man and the true herald of spring in Sicily. The greengrocer himself is busy hacking artichokes off their stalks, watched by a group of men [ and the men are incredibly discerning food shoppers here, as I've mentioned] who are waiting to see what will arrive next. The little old gentleman in a wheelchair who always greets me kindly and asks after Simi is there, too: he seems to spend most of his day there, chatting to the owner and watching the world go by.

11.30 and in the café opposite they have decided it is time to set out their arancini [stuffed rice balls] and scacce [focaccia breads] on the hot counter. I can smell them from over the road and soon you will see many Modicani stopping off there and then hurrying home with their well-wrapped antipasti. Shall I buy some? I think I should.... something fresh and warm to celebrate the freshness of spring...

In the salumeria another group of men is waiting, this time for the midday delivery of fresh bread. The first delivery arrives at 6 am., the owner has told me, and then there are several further ones throughout the day. None of these customers is going to go home with the bread of a few hours ago!

Well, I have everything so it is time to go home now. On a day like today, just a little stroll like this will remind me that there is still so much to see and marvel at right on my doorstep and that I am, after all, in the place where I want to be.