A FAVOURITE FOOD FOR A FAVOURITE SAINT

Our estate di San Martino (Saint Martin's summer) has been well and truly over since Sunday and I sit here writing this on a cold, rainy afternoon. A prolonged summer is named for the saint because, according to legend, in the winter of the year 335 St Martin of Tours met a freezing, starving beggar at the gates of Amiens. He cut his cloak in two and gave half to the man and, coming across another man in a similar condition moments later, gave the other half to him. It is said that the sun came out when he gave away the second half of the cloak - hence l'estate di San Martino.

Frittelle (deep-fried pastries or doughnuts)) are traditional on St Martin's Day (11th November) not only because they are small and symbolise pieces of the cloak, but also because they contain few ingredients and centuries ago could be made by rich and poor alike. They can be fried using the new oil from the olive harvest and are often served with the vino novello which is traditionally opened on this day.

St Martin is associated with the poor and is the protector of soldiers, innkeepers, hoteliers and beggars. He died in Candes, now Candes-Saint-Martin, in 397. He is one of my favourite saints so I really wanted to find some frittelle yesterday and I did, in my local fruit shop. 

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2024 - HOLD THE LIGHT

 

At times like these, when peace seems to be further away than ever, it can be very hard to write about it. Yet this is the time when it is most important to do so, to "hold the light", because we have to show that peace is possible, peace is desirable and that peace is essential, even and especially when we are being confronted with horrific images of war in our time every day and evening of our lives.

My generation, the "luckiest ever", some say, saw our first live images of combat and its effects during the dreadful conflict that was the Vietnam War and no one could say, from that period on, that they "didn't know" about it. Even at the time of the Kennedy assassinations, we had not been able to receive live reporting on them in Britain and most people there had not even gathered around a television set before the Coronation of Elizabeth II. The danger, once we were able to see those live images of horrifying events, was that we would lose our capacity to be shocked, become inured to it all. I don't think that most of my generation did, because from us sprang numerous peace movements; we wrote about peace, we studied peace, we campaigned for peace and we sang about peace.

What, then, can we do almost half a century after the fall of Saigon and all the conflicts in between, as we watch, day after day, shocking scenes of a population who are constantly being told to move on but have nowhere to go? A population with no adequate sanitation or access to healthcare, a population that is starving. No one is suggesting that the event that gave rise to all this was not also terrible, but when faced with human cruelty, do we also have to lose our humanity? 

We can protest, we can become part of a peace movement such as this and those of us who live in democracies can convey our concerns to those in power. In countries like the UK, where citizens have direct access to their elected representatives, we can write or speak to them and make our feelings known. Do you think they will not care? I assure you, they will care when they want your vote - which brings me to the matter we are all probably pondering, which is that so much will depend on what happens in the US tomorrow. Those of us in other countries can only hope that there will be light.

Light breaks where no sun shines, wrote the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. And to "hold the light" we have first to see it, so we must not look away from the harrowing scenes on our many devices or from the possibilities for doing something about them. We have to unite in peace, for peace and for the light.

With thanks as always to the wonderful, indefatigable Mimi Lenox, who continues to inspire us to blog for peace.

BlogBlast4Peace on X.

NO TRICKS, BUT MANY TREATS

 Halloween is celebrated, mainly for the benefit of children, more than it used to be here (even when I came in 2005) but less than in countries like Britain and the USA. In my experience, the evening remains peaceful and I haven't seen flour and eggs thrown in the street or been disturbed by trick or treaters that I don't know. Long may it continue in this way - a festival which people enjoy without wasting food in a world in which, particularly this year, there are people starving, and without upsetting others.

On the jolly side, I couldn't resist buying some treats from the Liolà  pasticceria in Modica:

Today is Ognissanti, All Saints' Day, and is a bank holiday. Tomorrow is I Morti, or Day of the Dead, when many people visit the graves of their loved ones and even take food. I think this is a healthy attitude to death, which after all comes to us all, and teaches children that it is part of life. 

I think it's time for tea and one of those biscuits now. 

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. 

BOOKED!

Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for miseries and yet it is itself the greatest of our miseries.

- Blaise Pascal

At around lunchtime yesterday, probably thinking that there was no one at home as it is still the holiday period, a burglar entered an apartment in Rome from its balcony but stopped to read a book about Greek mythology which he saw on a bedside table. The elderly owner of the apartment found him either sitting on the bed with the book, according to some reports, or on the balcony according to others. Either way, the owner raised the alarm with neighbours, who managed to stop the burglar from escaping and the police arrived quickly to arrest him.

It seems that our 38-year-old burglar, as well as being cultured, has refined tastes, as a bag full of designer clothes, possibly stolen from another apartment nearby, was found in his possession.

The title of the book?  Gli dèi alle sei - L'Iliade all'ora dell'aperitivo - The Gods at Six O'Clock - The Iliad at Apéritif Time by Giovanni Nucci.  Apparently it is a book about the Iliad from the point of view of the gods and how this ancient story might help us understand our own era.

Had our burglar read Pascal, he might have reflected before picking up the book! Let us hope that there is a library wherever he is imprisoned and that he will mend his ways for, as the French author Daniel Pennac says,

A well-chosen book can save you from anything, even yourself.

DROUGHT, DROWSINESS AND DUNKING

 It is Ferragosto, the Feast of the Assumption and the time of year when all of Italy seems to stop. If you are not at the beach in the daytime you are likely to be surrounded by silence which, even after all these years, seems strange in a country normally so animated and nicely noisy. 

This year there are two other factors, however, and the first word in my title leads to the effect of the second. The relentless heat of this summer has made everybody feel lethargic and every conversation begins with the words, "When will it end?"

We did have about an hour's rain on Saturday and it was bliss but, alas, not enough. Of course, only a Brit would stand out in it!

 

You may have read about the drought (siccità) and water rationing is in place in some areas. By mid-July damage to the agricultural sector was already estimated at 2 billion euros while 60% less wheat than normal was produced in the Catania area and 80% less fodder in Catania and Enna provinces. Farmers, as you can imagine, are in despair.

Here in Modica houses in the Old Town were recently without water for four days but this was due to a broken pipe in difficut terrain in the country rather than the drought. Anyone who has followed this blog from its beginning may remember that in my early days here, we always seemed to have water problems around Ferragosto so if I could type with my fingers crossed right now, I would! It is impossible to realise how much we depend on water until we have had to go without it, even for a few hours and especially in extreme heat.

There are, however, compensations for being in Sicily at this time and below are three culinary ones:

A fourth, traditional in the summer, is eating granita or ice cream with a brioche and it's OK to dunk! In Britain it is not acceptable in polite society, although Queen Victoria might have dunked her biscuits in tea privately, but here no one bats an eyelid and granita con brioche or brioscia is a traditional Sicilian breakfast. 

My granita all'anguria

But how did this tradition begin? Well, first of all the brioche used should be the Sicilian brioscia cu' tuppu (that is, it has a knob on the top) and it is not related to the French brioche. It is thought that a chef working for a rich family in Messina - no one knows exactly when but probably in the 19th century - wanted to create a bread for the ladies of the house to spread jam upon and the brioscia was the result. The tuppu was inspired either by the low chignon of the ladies' hairstyles or by the shape of a woman's breast.  Another story is that this happened in Catania. I suppose that, once the brioscia was invented, the ice cream or granita followed it one hot summer. No matter where or how it happened, it is a very good idea indeed!

So Buon Ferragosto and happy dunking!

INFIORATA DI NOTO 2024

 It was a great pleasure to be back, for the first time since the pandemic, at the Infiorata di Noto (Carpet of Flowers) on Saturday. (Last year, I was all set to go when a severe weather warning was issued and everybody in Modica was advised not to go out unnecessarily.)

The event was as beautiful and joyful as ever but more crowded than I have seen it before and that, of course, is good for Noto! The queue was long and the heat only just bearable but a conversation with some pleasant Americans standing near me helped. 

Then, once you were admitted to the "Carpet", you forgot all about the wait and just enjoyed the beauty before you. The theme this year was Puccini and music from the operas was playing as you walked along. I even shed a tear, as my dad loved Puccini and I thought how much he would also have loved this. I will now let the photos speak for themselves. (Some are inevitably wonky as you are walking along the sides of the display.)

I liked the little representations of instruments
adorning flower containers along the way.

And of course, a visit to the famous Caffé Sicilia is compulsory in Noto! The cake was flavoured with saffron and orange.

Well done, Noto!

BUONA FESTA DELLA DONNA

It's International Women's Day and in Italy that means there is mimosa blossom - or creative representations of mimosa blossom - everywhere. As I've written before, the person who inspired this tradition was Teresa Mattei, one of the "Mothers of the Constitution" and very glad I am of it, because on this day all the bars and pastry shops have mimosa-inspired cakes while shops and businesses offer discounts to women and even give us little bouquets of mimosa. This morning I didn't have to pay for a coffee in my local bar because the owner of a nearby business had paid for all the women's coffees for the whole morning!

On a more serious note, here is a poem I have written for this day:

International Women's Day 2024

A Poem for Every Woman

This poem is for every woman.
It's for every woman who has had an idea ignored
and listened to the applause when a man suggested the same thing.

It's for every woman who's been told she's too plain or too pretty,

too fat, too thin, too stupid or too clever.

It's for every woman who's walked home 

alone and scared in the dark
with her keys in her hand and her phone at the ready
and quickened her pace as the steps speeded behind her.

It's for every woman who's been cat-called,

derided, belittled, harassed

and gone home weeping

and whose story has not been heard.

It's for Sarah and it's for Giulia

and it's for Tina. It's for the woman

who was nearly my mother-in-law,

whose husband hit her every day

and left her lying in the grate.

It's for Jo and the women MPs

afraid for their safety, less for their beliefs

than because it's women who dare to hold them -

in the United Kingdom, of all countries.

It's for the women who raise awareness,

it's for the writers – for Maya, for Dacia,

for Gloria, Simone and Toni

and so many others.

It's for the 1950s and 60s women

forced to give away their illegitimate children

and never see them again -

- children like me.

It's for the 2020s women,

hostages, soldiers, medics, dissidents,

wives, mothers, facing war, starvation, enduring loss,

in scenarios we believed expunged from our era.

It's for you, Yulia Navalnya.

It's for the women who have

no access to education and read in secret

and the women who fight 

for them. So it's for you, Malala.

It's for every woman whose needs are dismissed

because she's single or childless or old

or different in some way

and does not know where to sit

at the laden festive table.

It's for Janey and the women who make us laugh,

it's for the women who hold us up,

the women who love with us and the women who cry with us.

It's for all the women who fear

and all the women who dare

and the women who fear because they dare.

This poem is for every woman.

Notes

Sarah Everard – kidnapped and killed, aged 33, as she was walking home in London on 3^rd March 2021.

Giulia Cecchettin - brutally killed, aged 22, by her ex-boyfriend in Italy on 11^th November 2023.

Tina Turner (1939-2023) – singer and songwriter who was abused by her first husband.

MPs – Members of Parliament.

Helen Joanne “Jo” Cox - British Member of Parliament who was shot and stabbed to death in Birstall, Yorkshire, UK, by a man with far-right views on 16^th June 2016.

Maya Angelou (1928 – 2014) – American writer and civil rights activist.

Dacia Maraini (b. 1936) – Italian writer focussing on women's issues.

Gloria Steinem (b. 1934) – American journalist and a leader of US second-wave feminism.

Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) – French feminist existentialist writer and political activist.

Toni Morrison (1931-2019) – American writer and Nobel Laureate focussing on the Black female experience in the US.

Yulia Borisnovna Navalnya (b. 1976) – economist and widow of Russian dissident Alexei Navalny (d. 2024). She has vowed to continue her husband's work and on 28^th February 2024, speaking in English, she addressed the European Parliament.

Malala Yousafzai (b. 1997) – Pakistani activist focussing on the rights of girls and women to education. She was shot and very seriously injured in 2012 while on her way home from school. She is the youngest Nobel Laureate.

Janey Godley (b. 1961) – Scottish comedian and writer.

© Pat M. Eggleton 2024

Happy International Women's Day!  Buona Festa della Donna!

MAKING THE CUT AT SANREMO

Long-standing readers will know that I've always been a fan of the Sanremo Festival, which this year takes place on the evenings of  6th - 10th February. It is great entertainment, comprising, of course, the music but also humour, interviews with stars of stage and screen and other personalities and usually not a few scandals to get us gossiping. 

This year, however, I will have a special reason for watching because 27-year-old Damiano Adamo, a hairdresser from Modica, will be joining the hairstyling team for the Festival. At the end of last year, Damiano achieved his dream and opened his own salon in our town and now he has another reason to celebrate. I remember Damiano from another salon where he trained and I know that he studied at ANAM (Accademia Nazionale Acconciatori Moda) and also did a course at Vidal Sassoon in London.

Congratulations and good luck, Damiano and I'll be looking at the hairstyles particularly attentively this year. When you come back, like all of Modica, I'll certainly want to know which stars you met!

If you're visiting Modica you will find Damiano's salon in Via della Costituzione, Modica (RG).

BUON NATALE A TUTTI!

 

A WELCOME RETURN

It was wonderful to see the return of our lovely chocolate festival, ChocoModica, from 7th - 10th December, the first time it had been held since the pandemic. I've always loved the atmosphere of this festival where there is something for everyone, with cookery demonstations, book launches, concerts and chocolate sculpting among the many events. And of course, there are chocolate stalls, local food stalls and craft stalls to browse. 

Here are some photos (some of which I have had to crop so as not to show the faces of children). I did my best!

Who can resist a chocolate-flavoured panettone? Not me!
The fine gentleman in the chef's hat was handing out free tubs of freshly made chocolate ice cream.

Chocolate sculpting

Cocoa bean pods and cocoa beans

I like the craft stalls.

Who wants a chocolate coffee-maker? (In the background on the right.)

Well done, Modica!

A NEW BOOK!

Three years, thousands of tears, thrice-tested (at least) recipes, thoughts of giving up and throngs of friends to thank for listening to me and keeping me going - finally my cookbook, Cooking in Green Lemon Land, is here! If cooking had always been therapeutic for me, I can assure you that writing a cookbook was not; in fact, it is one of the hardest things I have ever done but done it is and I am pleased with it.

It is not, I hasten to say, a Sicilian cookbook, but rather a book which shows what I do with the wonderful ingredients available to me here, incorporating into my dishes what I know of international cookery and, in particular, my love of spices. Where I do give Sicilian recipes, they are with my own touches.

I am not allowed to sell the book myself, nor would I expect or wish to do so, but hopefully copies will become available in one or two bookshops here and after Christmas (with the help of a friend to adjust the file in technical ways that are beyond me) I should be able to put it on Amazon. I will keep you posted.

Meanwhile, thanks to all in Italy and the UK who have encouraged me in this endeavour and happy cooking!

DONA NOBIS PACEM 2023 - WALKING IN PEACE

 

In the midst of a situation so horrendous that most of us cannot bear to look at the images, an eighty-five-year-old Israeli woman who has just been released turns and holds out her hand towards (I am choosing my words carefully here) a member of the organisation that had held her captive.

During a press conference held later Yochevid Lifshiz said she had done so because the man, a paramedic, had treated her kindly and, with others, had attended to her physical needs. She has been criticised for her gesture, but from what I have read since, I gather that the criticism was really directed at the way in which the press conference was handled. Mrs Lifshiz may also have been thinking of her husband, still being held as far as we know, or she may have taken pity on the man's youth. Or perhaps she was simply offering a gesture of humanity in an absurd situation, and I mean “absurd” in the horrific sense.

It has always interested me that in English we talk of a “theatre” of war to denote geographical location and that we also understand the concept of the “theatre of the absurd”. Is there not a connection? Is it not absurd that in the twenty-first century, with the tragedy of World War II still (just) in living memory, we resort to war to attempt to resolve our differences? War – in which the innocent are always hurt. War, in which there are always terrible deeds because war itself is terrible. There has been much talk in recent weeks about the “rules of war” and surely if we can have rules of war, we can have “rules of peace”, rules to which all nations would adhere? Yet we who are fortunate enough, thus far, not to have experienced war in our homelands cannot know what we would do and for the moment we just look at our many screens and wish that it would stop around the world.

My own interest in the theatre of the absurd began with the study of French literature and it is to France that I turn now to bring to your attention an article, about a “theatre of war” from long ago, posted by the BBC on 27^th August this year. At the time, the events recounted in it stopped me in my tracks but I certainly did not expect it to seem so relevant just a few weeks later: Near the town of Meymac in Corrèze, central France, a ninety-eight-year-old former Resistance fighter, as the last surviving witness, recently decided to speak out about the mass execution there of German soldiers by the Resistance. This was because a German army division had killed ninety-nine hostages in Tulle and 643 civilians in the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in retaliation for a Resistance uprising. (Preparations for D-Day had been underway.) The soldiers were made to dig their own graves and afterwards faced the firing squad bravely. Coins, bullets and other objects dating from the period have been found at what was the execution site but no human remains have yet been located. The Corrèze prefecture and Mayor are determined to find the remains of the soldiers, exhume them and, presumably, bury them in a fitting way. In war, says the Mayor, “You can be on the side of the righteous and still carry out what is morally wrong” and this is the sentence that so impressed me in August. As I have said, all sides carry out terrible deeds in war because war itself is terrible.

Do I have an answer for this? No, and neither do presidents, prime ministers, generals and diplomats who are much more knowledgeable than I am. I can only say that peace must be not only the outcome, but peace must be the way.

Of course, no one can negotiate with a tyrant or a fanatic but sometimes, perhaps, it is possible to offer a gesture of humanity: On October 23rd, an eighty-five-year-old Israeli woman who had just been released turned and held out her hand towards a member of the organisation that had held her captive. That day, she walked in peace.

With thanks, as always, to Mimi Lenox, who inspires us all to blog for peace.