A public showcase where to display a private passion for elegant food, something between innovation and inspiration, tradition and what is inside the fridge. Sharing is the only mean through which solitude, insane competition and egoism may be tamed.
Finally heading toward Bologna once again,
I left behind me the beautiful weather
of Sicily, its patisserie, its hidden gardens (which flower ahead
threatening walls) and its sense of spiritual
devotion. At my back, la donna della mia vita, the woman of my life: changing just a consonant, donna become nonna (grandmother) and the arcane is revealed! I feel a strange sense of nostalgia, yet in advance. Ragusa is so full of emotions, because a few aspects of its potential are actually developed. So when you are there you are absorbed by a continuous wondering, an never-ending projecting mood. People live sometimes in a sort of dizzy state, not really asleep, but deeply introspective, and it is difficult to read between the line of shadowy pages.
A view of the old bridge in Ragusa,
from the New Bridge
Saint Francis in Ragusa,
in honour of Papa Francesco
A lemon garden hidden behind a barbed wire!
I consoled myself with a pile of connoli in Fontanarossa, the civil airport of Catania. Catania is a great
mystery. Apparently volcano dusts block its pipes and when some drops of rain
fall, the streets become veritable torrents, with fish-heads, next to the fish
market, floating next to your feet. Two years ago, along with my cousin and his
girlfriend I had the pleasure to visit the city for a day and a half. Its
symbol, the Liotro (a deformation of
the name Eliodorus, the alleged carver), is an elephant carrying an obelisk
(A), which is to say, in Freudian terms, an elephant holding a penis.
Deplorable! I was shocked by the presence of a palm insect, Rhynchophorus ferrugineus Olivier, that
decimated the plants in town. This red monster operated especially within the
local Hyde park, Giardino Bellini or simply The Villa (B), a jewel rich of promenade
and exotic plants: something in between the Italian taste for gardens and the
Persian pleasure for paradeisa!
Finally, I was in love with a grotto restaurant, named Agora (C-D-E), for the
little overlooking square: this place is also a cocktail bar and has a
subterranean river flowing under the stone-room with a glittering natural
vault. Spectacular, tasteful (F) and affordable, check on Trip
advisor!
The Liotro statue with its obelisk from Syria,
borrowed during the crusades (A)
Bologna, instead, welcomed me with some
days of incredible sunshine and happiness. You always recognize happiness when
it is gone. It makes feel you high, and when it becomes a memory, you actually
feel like in those days, while you read a book you pass from afternoon to dusk
without paying attention. Today is one of this days and I’m listening to Händel
to cheer up (link below), while snow climbs down from its dusters in hurried whirlpools.
Bologna was an occupied territory, filled with outposts of Spring.
What I like of Bologna, is the actual
coexistence between the Middle-Ages, still towering with their uneven building
and leaning towers, and a modern joy for lightness, that a Laura’s sister
Marianna was able to capture in an unbelievable shot.
During my stay, on the 4th of
March, also took place a commemoratory concert for Lucio Dalla - a music
genius, always running after perfect melodies and ironic lyrics - who left us
last year for an heart attack, a few days before his b-day. Although I am the
last and skanker apostle of good
music, it in this case it is perhaps worth to pay attention to this hint,
especially if you are willing to learn Italian as a language and consider his
music offer. A song that always moved my intelligence and heart is called 4th
March 1943, the day of his birthday, during the war. His mother got pregnant,
aged 16and his father a foreign soldier died after the sweetest
hour before being slaughtered (l’ora più
dolce prima d’esser ammazzato).
4th march 1943 - 1st march 2012
I remained for days that passed like three
hours of luminous sleep. Being with Michelle somehow arrests Being & Time, and somehow makes them beat faster than usual. The iconic image of this feeling
is perhaps the strawberry dipped in pure
chocolate. True emotions can pass only throughout images: the mind is like
a powerful dreaming station that prefers metaphors to words. So were these
days: natural sugary fruity cores, covered by armours of dark crispy chocolate.
Strawberries in chocolate armour
Champagne and chocolate strawberries
Chocolate dip
Banana's sticks
The apogee was an incredible chocolate
mousse, I shall baptize as Isabel’s chocolate mousse, since her hands performed it and it
is true that, when she does something the spirit of Love for her husband John
is infused in it: so guests often benefit of this passage of spiritual energies
without having any merit in the whole matter. Isabel and John are a sort of
living example of wholeness and some poor spirits may have misunderstood this
fact, often exploiting their self-emanating kindness with redundant insular greed. This whole-ness is a sort of joint venture between whole-nuts and full-ness. It is like a divine bunch from which no grape can be taken away!
Last, a splendid vegetarian dinner took
place at Rovescio,
possibly my favourite wine-bar-inn. Despite a turbulent waiter, Michelle’s
presence at the centre of the table radiated a joyful and smiling light on the
entire evening. The one course
dish, thought and assembled by Raffaele
Fierro, the chef, was really a masterpiece of colours and tastes: in
comparison to the Italian cuisine that unfortunately Scottish citizens are
still obliged to find in anachronistic restaurants, this dish was a jump into
the future: it waves the chilometro 0
philosophy, which is to say local. Only seasonal vegetables have a resonance,
along with organic food and biodynamic wines: red chicory pure on polenta
morsels, stewed card and onion, roasted potatoes, tastes of focaccia, a spinach strudel and then I
forgot the rest, save the fact that all was quaffed by a superior Lagrain, from Trentino.
Stefano (left) and Pasquale (right) the souls of Rovescio
And the trip
Edinburgh-Malta-Ragusa-Bologna-Edinburgh was over!
Going back to Sicily is partially
discovering a newfoundland all the times and somehow digging back into my
memories as a child. I never lived there, but part of my roots are definitely
linked to that soil and I feel a sense of cultural belonging. Sicily is
uneventfully linked to the criminal enterprise of Mafia and indeed there are
several stereotypes that aren’t stereotypical at all, it’s the most transparent
truth: there are people who melted other people in acid, who became killers at
16 years old and frankly I do not envy their lives, since when you kill
somebody, you are necrotizing a part of you.
Despite this atrocious side of the medal,
it is redundant to have always the same feedback from people who have never
been there. Sicily is ancient and young at the same time and for these reasons
mysterious: the words of Augustine spring to my mind, pulchritudo tam antiqua et tam nova, beauty so old and so new (Confessiones, X, 27, 38).
Saint Augustine viewed by Sandro Botticelli, c. 1480.
Too many areas of Sicily are sleeping
giants, like the Giant Tipheus (see image above), allegedly imprisoned by Zeus under the Etna
volcano, so that his attempts to free himself out provoke the eruptions. Let’s
say he trys hard! The area of Ragusa, Noto and Modica is a veritable ruby in a
panorama often stained by cities, which still suffer, so to say, of analphabetic
disease, high ranges of unemployment, and a vicious penetration of
international crimes, which does not praise social and cultural development. Ignorance
becomes the perfect basin where to hook up almost slave labour, which is sad! Luckily
for me, my coming back had a totally different aim and the area of Ragusa,
because of the ancestral absence of that kind of large estate called latifundium is less affected by Mafia’s
omnipresence.
The portal of Saint George, the only fragment of a chuch
after the ruinous earthquake of 1693.
Modica cathedral at dawn.
On the contrary, I desired to pay a visit
to my grandma and to cook with her: she is my culinary mentor and the veracious
example of keeping-a-food-tradition within the walls of my family. She’s a wonderful
chef, yet, unfortunately - because of her patriarchal society formation - she always
used to live cooking as a necessity, rather than as a pleasure, as I do: as a
consequence she stuck to a relatively wee range of “cup of teas”, without ever
varying her menu!
Where do pork-chops come from.
A small amount of extra-virgin olive oil, fry them for 3 mins per side, then one glass (250ml of water), salt and pepper, and let it go!
When there's still some liquid, dip the lightly humid bread into the pork chop gravy and add a bit of oil, serve hot!
The first evening, even if my travelling exhausted me, I had
to confront myself with a simple but superior dinner. Pork chops and fried
bread: yes, an even pedestrian recipe, yet it is complicated to gain that
specific tenderness of the meat and overall the trick of the bread is
embarrassingly good. First moist the bread in lightly salted water and then fry
it into the meat gravy… Q_____ This is my watering mouth, the so called acquolina in bocca, in Italian.
We had numerous other meals. One with a
violet broccoli pie: violet broccolis are an early produce of February and they
taste so much better! Another lunch was based on hand made ravioli: it is
sufficient to fill them out with a sensational local ricotta, obtained by
free-range cows, and the magic takes place!
Violet Feruary broccoli,
called in the Sicilian dialect ciuriddu, little flower:
eat seasonal!
Violet broccoli pie: backed overnight to astonish my grandmother.
Recently a neighbour brought her a pie which was slightly uncooked
and i wished to rise her moral again up.
This ricotta is unbeliveble: you have to try it to define it,
perception and description do not match!
Therefore, I must mention my
grandmother deafness in terms of understanding when I was beyond fullness, in a
state swinging between sickness and food-coma. The most difficult and awkward
conversation happened when I revealed to her I almost quitted carbohydrates at
dinnertime…apriti Cielo (literally
“let the Heavens open! [for Doom’s day]”, but it can be translated simply as
“my goodness”).
An evergreen Boromir!
The third day, we had involtini or saltimbocca,
a sort of meat roulade stuffed with goodness and gently fired on a bed of onions!
Finally, we had some unreal chips: lightly blanched first and
then wisely fired with a medium flame…in this way potatoes become fluffy inside
and crispy outside…what a gorgeous ending for these characterless tubers…with
all the respect!
Lie pistacchios mortadella on a thin sliver of beef
Add flakes of Parmigiano and hard boiled egg.
Secure with tooth picks and fry gently in an onion bed
Unreal chips
Another, surprising discovery has been the
presence of many Michelin star restaurants (Google maps research: ristoranti Michelin Ragusa). It is indeed a revelation yet also
a natural outcome: the triangle where all these restaurants are located is
fruitful, almost virgin in terms of industrialization, rich of hills, valleys
and coasts, and with an outstanding cultural tradition. In three words: Sicily
wake up! According to my budget, I wouldn’t allow myself a starter there, but
my cousin-in-law was seeking for a nice wedding setting and so I came across
some helpful informations, I will just list below.
When this story starts I am trudging in the
core of the night toward the Edinburgh airport. The early morning is chilly and
sharp. It’s four o’clock in the morning: stars seem even more remote, because
of my short sight. I ignore the stars palpitating in their vastness, my two
concerns are falling back to sleep on the plane and drink a green tea
(unfortunately served too hot), as soon as the Ryanair staff will stroll down
the plane corridor one million times: they would sell even seats it the company
would allow this policy. I’m heading to Malta and from Malta I’ll ferry myself
to Sicily, to commit to memory (again and again) my grandmother’s culinary
knowledge. The brisk landing of the plane, which interrupted a nice dream,
waked me up in a new sun-ful dimension. All the Scottish mist was gone, suckled
into the vacuum of space travel.
The trip begins
Malta is even more charming than my
expectations. Tall palms wig-wag in the wind their welcoming crowns. They resemble
those uncertain people who would wish to leave and are still rooted to the same
position, because it is simply too beautiful to be caressed by the February
sun. The ticket cost me only 36£, which is insane if one reasons on the fact
that I spent less than what I should have paid out for a train to London. In
the airport, I enjoy a long (in terms of time) Costa coffee with Francesca: her
flight was providentially delayed and this impediment gave us the opportunity
to see each other and talk for a while.
The café is the only Costa on the island.
Francesca, who visited me in Edinburgh, is leaving to her hometown to vote:
elections in Italy are symmetrical to its food, the latter is always a
certainty, and elections are often a dark horse (especially when
Temple-merchant Berlusconi
is capable of gaining high consent), yet food and politics are both
exceptionally colourful. Anyways, I am a bit sceptical about Costa at the
beginning, since the coffee in Edinburgh is a bit Briticised.
My wrestle with
multinational food companies witnesses a moderate pull-out: my concern is
linked to the fact that these big groups are able to operate in a sort of
monopoly regime, piloting the growth and downfall of emerging countries, often
throughout corruption and threatening. However, I have to admit coffee was
great and sandwiches quality rose to the occasion.
I do usually like to travel in an ascetic
state, so - as a result - at 12 am I am deeply hungry! All my food belongings
were fruit (an organic banana) and honey biscuits (McVites). I do not wish to
bother you wit my transfers on the island, though, and it is better to move to
the more compelling aspect of my culinary-emotional trip. On the Catamaran to
Pozzallo, in Sicily (60€), an alluring glass filled with golden brown donuts
smirked at me, yet - because of the unstable waves - I was incapable of moving
out from my seat, even if there were people promenading on the deck with no
hesitation whatsoever.
The recipe:
·2 tbsp. warm tab water;
·1 package active dry yeast;
·3 1/4 cups all-purpose organic flour, plus additional for sprinkling and
rolling out dough ;
Considering the amount of people swarming
every year toward Malta, it is quite ludicrous for me to see how the Italian
authorities do not invest more in a sort of magnetizing effect, so to encourage
at least coast tourism. Recently a new harbour (Marina di Ragusa Turistic
Port) has been inaugurated: incredible yachts made the day for people
interested in luxury private boats:
Ferrari chairman Luca Cordero di
Montezemolo’s Marhaba:
Marhaba sailing
Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s Atessa IV:
Atessa IV anchored in Venice
Apparently the luxury yacht Dubai
sailed near the harbour:
Even if Malta is an excellent target, the
Eastern corner of Sicily – with Ragusa Ibla, Modica and Noto - offers three
non-reproducible sightseeing jewels. This area has also a high concentration of Michelin
star restaurants that I wish to trace in detail within next post. Moreover, between Vittoria and Avola
there are two major grapes varieties (Frappato and Nero d’Avola) on which three
wines are based: Frappato, Cerasuolo (a combination of the two grapes), and Nero d’Avola
itself:
