Savoury City’s Food Blog

It’s been a long cherished dream that my close friend Robert and I would spend our respective fiftieth birthdays in Italy. Many hours and countless glasses of wine were needed to bring the plan to fruition but, I must confess, the dream always seemed so far-off and remote that the possibility of it being realized was wishful at best and damn near impossible at worst.

As it would turn out in hindsight, the trip was predestined as I’m now writing from our shared villa in southern Sicily in the aftermath of a glorious birthday celebration in Robert’s and my honour. As the celebrated guest, Robert and I didn’t participate in the day long preparations for the feast, but we certainly can attest to its breadth and sumptuousness…

The cooking duties fell on a Lysanna, Gayle and Julia; a triumvirate of skilled chefs who used the best local ingredients this area has to offer for our memorable dinner. Freshly caught swordfish carpaccio with lemon and salt was the opening salvo, followed by a pasta course featuring hand rolled busiati combined with freshly filleted sardines, pine nuts, raisins, bread crumbs and orange rock salt….heaven! Our next course again was seafood – a simple combination of grilled red mullet and scampi.  We put some space between the next course with a bit of dancing, which allowed appetites to recover slightly. Next, was a beautifully prepared dish of braised beef slowly cooked with cipolinni onions and served with seasonal vegetables. 

Dessert arrived around 1:30 in the morning and was a trio of cakes from a famous pasticceria in Ragusa – mine had baby strawberries on top, and Robert’s was a complete cake made from pistachio nuts, and the cake for the table was a Cassata Siciliana…needless to say the evening was a smashing good time!