SABATO MUSICALE

We haven't heard from the lovely Patrizio Buanne lately, so, for all you romantic souls out there, here he is with an Italian version of Only You:

Patrizio Buanne - Only You

WHEN IN ROME [OR LONDON] ....

A paisi unni chi vai, comu vidi fari fai.

- Sicilian proverb

When in Rome, do as the Romans do.

When Fabio Capello was appointed manager of the England football team in 2007, he promised to learn to speak English within one month.  As I said then, such a feat is not possible and subsequent events have proved it.

If you want to learn to speak a foreign language fluently and correctly, some formal study is essential as well as spending time in the target language country .  Yes, it is true that you can pick up a "street" version of the language you wish to learn quite quickly but you will probably not be speaking in what linguists call "appropriate registers".  Appropriate registers, in languages like French, Italian and Spanish, are often demonstrated by which form of the pronoun "you" the speaker chooses to use and in most languages the way in which the speaker greets different people is important:  in my town, Cardiff, UK, I would often greet acquaintances or friends I saw on the bus with a colloquial "Hiya, love" but I would not have said "Hiya, love" to a client, my bank manager or my employer and certainly not to my Queen!  At other times, more complicated situations arise.

This, then, is one of the communication problems that Mr Capello might have faced during his time as England manager and we haven't even touched upon the vexed subject of grammar!  Of course, with interpreters and others available 24/7 to help him, Mr Capello was better placed than most to do without those English lessons but his lack of proficiency in the language cannot have helped when he found himself in an off-pitch situation which required patience, subtlety and diplomacy.

For readers who are not from the UK or Italy, I'll summarise what has happened:  The England team's captain, John Terry, had been accused, in November, of racist abuse of another player, Anton Ferdinand.  A court hearing was scheduled and everyone thought that the outcome would be known by April at the latest but early this month the hearing was adjourned until 9th July.  Because of this the Football Association, the sport's governing body in England, took the decision to strip John Terry of the captaincy and they informed Mr Capello of this decision last Thursday evening before making a public announcement.

Mr Capello was apparently upset that the FA had made this decision without consulting him and is reported to have said that his authority had been undermined.  Then, in an interview shown on Italian television on Sunday evening he stated - calmly and with some eloquence, I have to say - that as John Terry has not yet been proven guilty in a court of law, he should have been allowed  to remain as captain.

The FA board were, naturally, in turn upset that Mr Capello had spoken on Italian television without consulting them and, at a meeting held yesterday, Mr Capello resigned, with no rancour having been displayed on either side, we are told.

So there we have it:  both parties feel that the other has "gone above their head" and both feel aggrieved.  As the FA states on its website that,

"We are committed to making football accessible to everyone, regardless of race, religion, gender, sexuality, background or ability"

it is hard to know what else its board could have done, given the seriousness of the allegations. Yet, as Mr Capello pointed out in his Rai interview, the allegations are exactly that at the moment. 

Now, as many of you will know, I am not in the least interested in football.  What I am interested in, however,  are the ways in which the matter is being reported in the UK and in Italy:  In the British press the fact that Mr Capello learned little English is being emphasised and the feeling is that his employers, who were paying him a cool £6 million a year, could have justifiably hoped for more linguistic enthusiasm.   And at least one British newspaper has alluded to the fact that Mr Capello "seemed to be on holiday a lot", thus echoing a culture clash between Northern and Southern Europe that we have sometimes seen during the euro crisis.

In Italy, on the other hand, most of the coverage has focused on the fact that a man who has not yet been tried has, nevertheless, been punished and that this could have happened without consultation with his line manager.  Most people I have spoken to here have also expressed incredulity regarding this "sentence without a trial."

Mr Capello looks tired to me and I am sure that he is glad to be home, having taken the first possible flight out of London. But I can't help feeling that, had he learned more English and consequently been able to absorb more British culture, he would have gained a better understanding of how the FA, and Britain itself, work.  His stay in my native land might also have been a happier one.

VEAL STEW WITH HAIRY COURGETTES

As Italy freezes and evening temperatures plunge even in Sicily, a comforting stew is called for.   I hesitate to mention veal at times, but it is more popular than beef in Italy and that is that. This recipe is based on the Spezzatino di vitello con verdure in Il Cucchiaio d'Argento but as usual, I've added a few of my own touches:

Heat 2 tablesp olive oil with 50 gr butter in a wide pan and soften 1 large, chopped white onion in it. Flour 1 kg cubed veal - in Italy the butchers cut it specially for spezzatino - and add the pieces to the pan.  Brown them on all sides, stirring. Add the contents of a 680 gr bottle of passata or the same amount of homemade tomato sauce and season. Stir well and after five minutes or so, add 100 gr carrots cut into thin sticks. Cook for 15 mins more and then add 250 gr mixed mushrooms, 2 sliced ordinary or what I call "hairy courgettes" [zucchine verdi] - the hairy courgettes taste just the same but will give you bigger slices and, of course, you have to peel them!  Cover the pan and cook for about an hour, checking and stirring occasionally. Add a little water if the stew seems too dry.  

ANOTHER JUBILEE

Congratulations to Modica's Antica Dolceria Bonajuto upon its inclusion in the "golden list" in Sua Eccellenza Italia, a volume published in December by Gambero Rosso, the multimedia food and wine publishing group, in celebration of its 25th anniversary.   

The citation reads,

"There is no gourmand who does not know of Modican chocolate and they will know of it because of Bonajuto, Sicily's leading chocolate makers, who continue to excel in their work after almost 150 years."

A DIFFERENT TIRAMISU

Regular readers may remember that a recipe I very much like making is the strawberry tiramisù in Matthew Fort's book, Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons.  I have also adapted this dish successfully to apricots.  But when I saw a recipe for tiramisù alle banane in the January edition of Vero Cucina magazine, I admit I was hesitant.  However, I gave it a try and was very pleasantly surprised by the result:

The bananas are sautéed with a little butter and sugar before being layered with the crushed savoiardi biscuits and other ingredients and, as I don't like the taste of rum, I moistened the savoiardi crumbs with a little fichi d'India [prickly pear] liqueur.  If you don't want to use alcohol, I imagine fresh orange juice would be a good substitute.  That's freshly ground cinnamon over the top and, as it's carnival time in Italy, I decided a little colour around the edge of the dish was necessary and served it with chiacchiere.  I couldn't resist using  chocolate letters to wish everyone a good February and, if you are thinking that the second b in febbraio looks a bit odd, you'd be right - I'd run out of b letters and had to use two p ones with their tails nicked off!

Rosa and her daughter were the testers on Saturday and they pronounced the dish magnifico!

SABATO MUSICALE

For oppressed women everywhere.  Thank you for the reminder, jams.

The Weavers - Hay una mujer desaparecida

CARNIVAL TIME AGAIN

Every year, at around this time, I show you chiacchiere, the wafer-thin biscuits made in this period and I have convinced myself that I can get away with eating more of these smaller, ribbon-shaped ones!

Chiacchierare is the verb "to gossip" and the biscuits are so named either because their shape resembles that of old women's tongues or, more likely, because of the "psst" sound they make when the pastry is dropped into the hot oil.

MORE PATIENCE AMONG THIEVES

In September I told you all about a thief who, in order to steal a bicycle, patiently felled the tree to which it had been tied.  Now his efforts have been topped by a group of thieves in the Ragusan countryside, reports the Corriere di Ragusa: these thieves have been chopping down telephone poles in order to steal copper telephone cable and 2 kilometres of cable have disappeared recently, causing disruption to lines as well as economic loss   to Telecom Italia.  Fifteen instances of cable theft have been reported in the area since the beginning of January and last year over 15 kilometres of cable were stolen.

One would think that such thoroughness would be welcomed in certain legitimate jobs.

MEDITERRANEAN COBBLER

No, not a Modican shoe repairer but my name for a new dish I've invented!  The inspiration for this dish is the recipe for "Syrian Chicken" in Diane Seed's Top 100 Mediterranean Dishes, of which I think this may be an updated edition.

Here's how I've Italianised the dish:

4 - 5 loaves Sicilian pane arabo or other flattish bread
0.75 kg chicken breast fillets
1 medium white onion
2 Sicilian or unwaxed lemons
1 jar grilled peppers
6 tablesp olive oil
c. 1 tablesp dried oregano
seasalt and freshly ground black pepper

Pre-heat the oven to 180 C and lightly oil a large, rectangular Pyrex-type dish.
Cut half the loaves in half lengthwise and line the bottom of the dish with them, crusty side down.
Slice the onion into rings and lay these on top of the bread.
Slice the lemons as thinly as you can and lay the slices of one of them on top of the onions.
Season with salt, pepper and some dried oregano.
Now lay all the chicken pieces on top of the lemons and season them in the same way.
Next, cover the chicken with the [not too enthusiastically] drained peppers and the slices of the other lemon.
Drizzle over half the olive oil.
Cover everything with the rest of the bread, sliced to more or less fit the dish, crusty side up.
Drizzle over the rest of the olive oil, cover the dish with foil and cook for 50 mins.
When the dish is ready, the bread will be impregnated with the aromatic juices and the chicken will be meltingly tender.

Enjoy.

MY GRANDMOTHER ALWAYS SAID... A "LET'S BLOG OFF" POST

Every two weeks, the blogosphere comes alive with something called a Blog Off. A Blog Off is an event where bloggers of every stripe weigh in on the same topic on the same day. The topic for this round of the Blog Off is "My grandmother always said...."

I never actually met either of my grandmothers but I do remember "helping" my grandad to wash the dishes and his saying, "Lady to the house" if I dropped a spoon and "Gentleman to the house" if I dropped a fork.  I lived in hourly expectation of these visits and, as my parents ran a newsagent's and sweet shop in Bristol, UK, people were always dropping in anyway so I was able to nod sagely upon their arrival and puzzle them with the information that "Grandad told me so."

My mother, like many of her generation, instilled in her daughter the necessity of always wearing clean underwear "in case you get run over" and, having grown up in an era when some of her classmates did not have shoes, used to angrily declare that there was "no such thing as the good old days" whenever her contemporaries became sentimental about those times.

My mother - front row on the right - at school in Pencoed, South Wales, UK

From my great aunt Mabel I learned that "This, too, will pass" and that there were few troubles that could not be assuaged by getting your nose into a good book.

My father also taught me to love books and that, as Helen Keller said, "The highest result of education is tolerance."  He deemed it important to have what is termed in one of our favourite films, The Philadelphia Story, "some regard for human frailty".  "There but for the grace of God go I", he would say of the misfortunes of others, much more often than he would utter the words, "Serve him right."

Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly in High Society

[I couldn't find the scene where Dexter talks about "regard for human frailty" in The Philadelphia Story so here is the next best thing!]

Dad believed that people should be themselves and he had no time for pretension. If the neighbours disapproved of him, he declared, "They could all move out."  This may be why his daughter, today, can say that those whom she calls the "Sicilian dust police" - women who judge another woman according to her housewifely skills - need not come to her house if it is not to their liking.  Her Sicilian friends find it hard to believe that she really does not care but it is true.

Then there was the uncle who told me that if I ate too many bananas I'd get to look like a banana;  this made me cautious about eating these fruits for years. 

What wisdom will I pass on?  Even though I'll be 62 in a couple of weeks, I'm not sure I've acquired any but I am learning some "new old wisdom" from Sicilian proverbs.  Here are three of my favourites:

"Pi fari beni l'amuri ci voli 'a forza rê picciuotti e 'u pitittu rê viecci" - "To make love you need the strength of the young and the desire of the old."

" 'U Signuri runa 'i viscotta a cu' nun avi rienti" - "God gives biscuits to those with no teeth."

And one for our times.  I wish I'd learned it long ago! 

" 'Cu accatta cosi 'nùtili, prestu vinni 'u bisugnèvuli" - "He who buys useless things will soon have to sell the things he needs."

I think I'll leave you with the advice I offered my female readers on the occasion of my sixtieth birthday, as I am still convinced that it could save generations of women to come from a lifetime of misery:

"Only weigh when you're thin!"

Below is the full list of blogs participating in this theme:

CONGRATULATIONS - HERE IS YOUR FINE

"The inhabitants of Ispica", goes a local saying, "will live to be 100".  And when they reach that great age they receive, not a telegram from their head of state, as in the UK, but a nice fat fine from their city of origin, it seems.

Signora Michela Concetta Leontini, who celebrated her hundredth birthday on 10th January, was dismayed to be handed, a few days later, a fine of over €6,000 for non-payment of a rubbish collection tax in Ispica for the years 2005 - 2010. She has not lived in the house referred to for 72 years, having left Ispica for Ragusa in 1939 and Ragusa for Rome, where she still lives, in 1950.

The house is not only uninhabited but has never had running water, electricity or gas.  Signora Leontini intends to contest the fine at Ragusa County Court.

SABATO MUSICALE

Here's a beautiful song for a winter Saturday:


Tiziano Ferro - L'ultima notte al mondo

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY 2012

"E accaduto, quindi potrebbe accadere di nuovo - It happened. Therefore it could happen again."
- Primo Levi

Mi ricordo Anna Frank [Rai film]

WOMEN AT WORK!

In November Cathy, the Director of the English International School, Modica and I were interviewed for an article in the Ragusa Province magazine Freetime and I thought you might like to see a couple of the photographs:

Cathy [right] and me at the school

Welshwoman at the chalkface in Sicily,
 talking about an American festival.

Photos:  Simone Aprile and reproduced here with his kind permission. 

If you are in Ragusa, you can see the article, our newsletter and more pictures in the December - January edition of Freetime but if you are elsewhere and can read Italian, the text of the article is here on the school blog.

LUNCH ON A JANUARY DAY

It's always nice to have lunch with a friend and this is what we had today in Bar Cicara's new extension, from where we could watch the world go by:

A plate of antipasti

Palermitana di carne
Veal cutlet in a herbed & seasoned breadcrumb mixture
[Who am I to refuse the chips?]

and prettily served fresh fruit for dessert

NOT MY IDEA OF PILLOW TALK

You didn't expect me to get close enough
to take a decent photo, did you?

There I was, almost ready for bed at around 1 am this morning when I glanced at the pillow and - eeeeeek! - there was this creature making itself comfortable.  All right, I know it's not big, by spider standards, but it's a tarantula to me!

At first, standing well back, I tried to persuade it to just go away and, when it took no notice, wondered if perhaps it would appreciate being spoken to in Sicilian dialect . Alas, my invocation to "Avattinni a cògghiri cardi" =  "Go and pick cardoons" fell on deaf spider ears - or hairs- and by 2 am I was a desperate woman.

At that time of night in a flat in Italy, you can't use the vacuum cleaner tube, try to frighten the creature with noise or even scream for fear of disturbing the neighbours, so I'm standing there, still starkers, trying to work out what to do when I realise my pyjamas are under the pillow! This is not the only pair of pyjamas I own but I was too freaked out to remember that at the time. Having what I thought was a brainwave, I managed to pull them out from under the pillow under the spider with a walking stick but this caused the spider to move and then I didn't know if it was in the pyjamas or not.  Finally  I remembered the other pyjamas and decided to don them as if ever a situation required clothes, this was it!

Being thus attired seemed to make me braver and next, I fetched my oven gloves and proceeded to strip the bed because no way was I lying down on it if spiderman or woman was still there.  Still with the gloves on, I lifted the mattress several times to look under it but there was no sign of  signor/a ragno there either.  Now only the pillow cases remained to be examined inside so I poked about in them with the walking stick and managed to slip them off using this, too - because I had to change them, didn't I?  I mean, could you sleep on a pillow case where this creepiest of creepy crawlies had made itself at home?

By 3.30 am I just had to lie down but I kept the light on and did not close my eyes for a minute, knowing that our unwelcome guest was probably still in the room. Then, suddenly at 4 am there it was under the bookcase - I might have respected it had it been exploring some books -  but it  escaped yet again.   By this time Simi the dog, who had slept through most of the drama, had begun to take an interest and, once she was on the bed too, I felt safer so nodded off uneasily. We woke up to bright sun but I'm afraid the Italian proverb, "Se il ragno fa il filato, il bel tempo è assicurato - If the spider is spinning its web, you can be sure of fine weather"was no comfort to me at all!

Doris Day - Pillow Talk

MAKING APPLE CHUTNEY IN SICILY

Every autumn in Britain, I would make a batch of apple chutney.  For American readers, chutney is a kind of thick salsa which is, however, a preserve.  The word "chutney" comes from Hindi "chatni", meaning "strongly spiced" and it was the colonising British who began eating spiced mixtures, probably as condiments, in India.  The custom spread to other colonies and tropical fruit, too, began to be incorporated into some of the recipes. Then the travelling British decided they wanted spiced mixtures of fruit and vegetables which would keep and so began adding vinegar and large quantities of sugar.  Eventually they brought their recipes and the word "chutney" back to Britain.

And now I am carrying on the tradition of chutney making in Sicily!  Sadly, it is wasted on most of my Sicilian friends who abhor the British habit of mixing sweet and savoury ingredients and when I point out that they do it themselves in several dishes such as coniglio in agrodolce [sweet and sour rabbit] they just shrug their shoulders and say that is different. Anyway, I brought my preserving pan and extremely long-handled wooden chutney-mixing spoon from Britain and I haven't given up yet!

On Saturday - better late than never -  I made my first batch of apple chutney here in three years: Once again Rosa was the willing "gofer" and once again I used a mixture of Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples in the absence of cooking apples.  The recipe I use, from a Jennifer Paterson book called Feast Days [published long before her incarnation as one of the famous Two Fat Ladies] calls for white malt vinegar, but as I like apple chutney to be quite dark and you can't get malt vinegar here, I used a mixture of red and white wine vinegars. I don't leave the chutney to cool before potting it but pour it straight into sterilised jars and then I leave it covered with a clean tea towel for twelve hours before putting on the lids, which I line with greaseproof paper, just as my mother taught me.

This time it took ages to cut out the "hats" as my pinking shears has seen better days and is getting hard to manoeuvre but all will be worth it when the flavours have mellowed after a month and I can use the chutney!


Oh, and this is a 2002 photo of me making chutney in Carson City, Nevada, USA., where a friend had cajoled me into giving a demonstration!

SABATO MUSICALE

Enjoy:

Antonello Venditti - Unica

DON'T STOP THE CARNIVAL

I always get depressed when it's time to take the Christmas decorations down but one advantage of living in Italy is that in February we have the Carnival season to cheer us all up again.

In Termini Imerese [Palermo Province] where the townsfolk claim to have the oldest carnival tradition in Sicily - it dates back to 1876 - this year's promises to be so much fun that it will be "the end of the world":  As usual, eight floats will be in the processions, six of them in competition with each other and two which will be non-competing.  These last are the children's float and the float carrying u nannu e a nanna [grandfather and grandmother], the grandfather being a hale and hearty fellow while the grandmother is a rather gaunt figure in a frilly dress with lots of lace. This float traditionally leads the procession and on Shrove Tuesday the grandparents are burned in the town square - but don't worry, as they are made of papier-mâché!  This burning is believed to ward off evil spirits and symbolises the renewal that is spring.

The floats in the competition will contain allegorical figures and in one there will be a model of Mr Monti, who will be portrayed drinking wine, perhaps in an effort to forget the economy for the duration of the processions.

One thing is certain:  nothing - not even the current economic crisis - is going to stop the Carnival at Termini Imerese!

The Termini Imerese Carnival runs from 12th - 21st February 2012.  There will be music and entertainment throughout the event and the processions will take place on Saturday 18th February, Sunday 19th February and on Shrove Tuesday, 21st February.

SURVIVING A NIGHTMARE

The video shows part of a performance, in happier times, by Antonello Tonna, the talented catanese pianist who survived the Costa Concordia disaster.  Signor Tonna told BlogSicilia that he had been working as an entertainer on cruise ships for many years but that, although he had previously survived a force 10 storm at sea, he had never witnessed anything like what happened off the Isola del Giglio last Friday night.  Clearly, he thought his last moment had come and he said he thought he was actually living scenes from Titanic.

I am sure that you will join me in sending good wishes to signor Tonna and all the survivors and that your hearts, like mine, go out to those who were lost or injured and their loved ones.

Antonello Tonna - Baia Taormina Hotel