A PIZZA PARTY

I was delighted to be invited to a pizza party in celebration of my dear friend Linda's birthday last night and this is what the jolly company ate:

There was tomato pizza

and then there was more

and even more!

I'm particularly fond of Linda and Chiara's rosemary pizza:

But what are these?

They were chocolate "pebbles" from the Chocobarocco Festival [which is in full swing as I write and about which I'll tell you more tomorrow].

Gino had made traditional carob puddings

and, of course, you can't have a birthday party without a cake!  This apple cake was delicious.

Thanks for a lovely evening, amici!

IN THE COOL OF THE EVENING

What you need at the end of a day so hot that even the Sicilians have been grumbling is a cool garden to sit in, cool food and a gathering of the coolest people you know.  All three were on offer at Linda and Gino' s on Sunday evening and what a spread Linda and Chiara had prepared!

There was Parma ham with local cheeses and bocconcini of mozzarella. There were homemade bread rolls plus Linda and Chiara's pizza and focaccia. There were grilled aubergines, little baked, stuffed onions and tomatoes, olives and tiny broad beans from Linda and Gino's garden.  There was also a wonderfully refreshing salad of homegrown lettuce, local cheese and walnuts. Forgive me if I've left anything out, Linda and Chiara!

There were figs from the garden:

In Sicily, it is the custom to take along a dessert when you are invited to lunch or supper so I made my semifreddo di frutti di bosco again:

Linda and Chiara had made peach granita:

Ragusa's best Yorkshire cook, Jean, had made a Bakewell Tart.  [Yes, I do know Bakewell is in Derbyshire!]

And, as you can never have enough ice cream in Sicily, other friends had brought these delights along:

Then there was Modican chocolate:

Grazie, Linda, Chiara e Gino e tutti gli amici!


Frank Sinatra - In the Cool, Cool, Cool of the Evening

CELEBRATING JANUARY

A meeting of the "international ladies" - and three gentlemen! - at Linda and Gino's today to celebrate the end of the Christmas season and the New Year.

First of all, I thought you would like to see some crib figurines made by Gino and effectively displayed on a cakestand:

I particularly like the Joseph figure in the baseball cap, don't you?

Everybody took along some goodies [yes, I contributed some of my "Cappuccino cookies"]:

Of course, it wouldn't have been a Sicilian "do" without some delicious pastries from a local pasticceria or a rounding-off-Christmas occasion without some panettone:

At the end there was grapefruit ftrom Gino's garden for everyone to take home:

Grazie, Gino e buon anno a tutti gli amici!

REACHING OUT AT CHRISTMAS

Yesterday afternoon's Multilingual Carol Service in Modica Bassa saw a huge turnout and for me, signified what Christmas should be about:  reaching out to others in a spirit of peace and tolerance.

Here is the programme, cleverly designed by my friend Linda:

And here is the scene set ready for the readings and carols to begin. Some of you may recognise Gino's collage here:

We began by singing Venite Fedeli [Oh Come, All Ye Faithful] together in Italian, the language which unites us all and then there was Italy's favourite carol [and mine], Tu scendi dalle stelle.  Carols and readings followed in French, Malagasy, Bosnian, Greek, German, Spanish, Sicilian dialect, Danish, Dutch and English.  Not all the readings were religious and I read from Dylan Thomas's A Child's Christmas in Wales.  Finally we all sang the first verse of Astro del Ciel [Silent Night] in Italian, French, German, Spanish and English.

A French ensemble

Poem being read in Malagasy

A German carol is sung

A Spanish carol sung with much jolly hand-clapping

Candlelight for a Danish carol

The British contingent

Everyone had brought along a dish from their country to share so there was a fine feast afterwards. We were happy to welcome some new friends from Somalia and Eritrea and we hope they will join us often for social events.

CHRISTMAS COLLAGE

This is Gino the artist's Christmas collage, in which he has used natural materials, such as carob pods, nuts and asparagus leaves [traditionally used to decorate crib scenes in Sicily] to suggest the shapes, colours and forms of Christmas.  I know that Gino would love to receive some comments from you.

THE OLIVE PICKERS' LUNCH THAT WASN'T

Olive picking with Chiara and family having been rained off yesterday, their friends were invited to lunch just the same and what a homely, comforting aroma greeted us, for no one makes lasagne like Linda: 

Then there was homemade bread

with ham and tomatoes.  I liked this presentation with capers:

There was a selection of Sicilian cheeses,

the new season's grapes

and I resurrected my quickest-ever lemon cake, jazzing it up with pink icing sugar:

A fine lunch for those who had spent a hard morning thinking about olive picking!

AN INTERVIEW WITH GINO

Today I interviewed my friend Gino the artist for Italy Magazine.  Regular readers may be interested to learn more about Gino  and, if you have not yet "met" him, do pop over to the mag and make his acquaintance.  There are some new pictures of Gino's for you to look at there, too.

Don't forget that you can see more of Gino's work here.

A FEAST FOR THE BEFANA

The last of the Christmas feasts was a jolly lunch with Gino the artist, Linda and fourteen other lucky friends today. Gino had designed the table centre, using yellow winter jasmine and roses from his garden:




He had also made some pretty arrangements with pine cones:




This is Gino's 2009 presepe [crib] which he made with artist's clay:




Gino's elderly uncle remembered making crib figurines from natural clay because that was all he and his brothers had.

Now to the food. First of all there was spaghetti, which Gino is serving from this enormous bowl:



Then there was pork served with spinach, peppers and cauliflower:




Afterwards there was fresh fruit and desserts made by some of the guests. There was this yummy apple strudel,



this perfect, light fruit cake flavoured with chocolate



and I took along another batch of my white chocolate salame plus my standby semifreddo of marrons glacés:



Finally there was Stilton which Linda had bought in Britain at Christmas, with port and various homemade liqueurs.

No more feasting till my - aaargh! - sixtieth birthday, by which time I'll look like this:



But she's rather a nice befana, isn't she?