Mansion Parties and Granita in the Morning

Mercati Mansion Party

Small dresses in bright colours, huge heels and clutch bags

Genevieve and GiGi stay home tonight, while The Sicilian drives the rest of us to the location for the night – Mercati, an old mansion which has been reworked for partying purposes. Angel Rae, Kimmie and myself are dressed in our typical London club attire, small dresses in bright colours, huge heels and clutch bags. Nobody in Sicily on a clubbing occasion dresses like this and when we step out of the car in our tiny dresses and walk into the Tavola Calda bar the looks we receive are so forceful they could almost push you over. Kimmie doesn’t seem bothered by the attention but me and Angel Rae are practically edging back into the car. We order our food and sit down, while The Sicilian goes to pay – one of the waiters looks at us inquisitively and whispers something to a colleague. I can’t help thinking that the waiter thinks we’re prostitutes and all three of us start to get defensive. ‘Omigod, have they never seen a girl look glamorous before?’Angel Rae huffs. When The Sicilian returns with our food he informs us that the area we’re sitting in is for table service only and that we had confused the waiter. ‘Oh, so he never thought we were prostitutes?’

Mercati plays hard core house and a little bit of funky – this place is for the true raver and in every corner, on every table and chair, behind every tree and bush there are people dancing hard. Girls have left their Sicilian classic attire at home and now resemble the trendy festival goer, dressed in flip flops and wellies, leggings and shorts.
Instead of being in a botanical garden, tonight we are in the garden of the mansion which has acres and acres of land lined with Lime Groves, which are lit with tea lights and dotted with art deco chairs and tables. Lothario Roma and his friend join us and continuously order glasses of Tequila. I say glasses, because to call these shots would be an understatement, they were literally plastic cups filled with the deadly fire water. How anyone could down this drink in one go is beyond me, but of course my friends the hardened drinkers didn’t waste a drop!

Lothario and Kimmie spent the night dancing together and taking silly pictures of each other, Lothario in his moment of rapture, Kimmie awe and drunkenness decided to start dancing on the art deco chair – the chair unable to take Lothario’s graceful dance movements fell back. Falling like a pushed domino, Lotharia also fell back with the chair, the large lime tree breaking his fall and taking a pounding from his head. Kimmie, as concerned and thoughtful as she is runs over to Lothario and struggles to help him up in between bouts of laughter. The Sicilian, somewhat quiet tonight is bent over in laughter, while myself and Angel Rae watch the whole thing in complete dismay. Unfortunately Mercati stops serving drinks at three, strangely the club goes on till the last man’s standing – we try our hardest to work our foreign charm to get the barman to serve us some alcohol, ‘Prosecco?’ Kimmie says, almost mortified when he refuses. On that note – we leave.

Genevieve is still awake when we get home, we decide to watch the sunrise and gather our towels to sit on the beach with the Tavola Calda we bought on our way home. We look out to sea and watch the sky, night is meeting dawn and the sky is mixed with a hue of pink. ‘Red sky at night, shepherds delight ...‘Kimmie re- sites.
All too tired to wait for sun rise we go back to the apartment.

Granita, Martini's and Prosecco for Breakfast

Today we decide to have a traditional Sicilian summer breakfast consisting of Granita (a crushed fruit and ice - sorbet/ice cream) with warm Brioche, the size of a large bap. On my introduction to this ice cream and bread collaboration I was almost in disbelief, thirty year old men eating ice cream in a roll for breakfast – this is absurd! But when in Rome... And like every food item in Sicily there’s a whole variety of flavours the granita comes in; strawberry, almond, chocolate, pistachio, lemon, raspberry and many other flavours.
For our granite we go to Mythos, a bar in fishing town, Acireale. Mythos faces the Cyclops Riviera, where three great stacks of rock loom over the sea. Greek mythology would have it that these three Cyclops are rocks that Polyphemus threw angrily from his home in Etna at the Greek hero Odysseus, in retaliation for being blinded by the hero. Mythos is filled with the few Sicilian tourists and the upper middle class local, draped in designer, flash sunglasses hanging from noses and one particular beautiful woman we can’t help but look at. A certain Lothario joins us for breakfast, he’s hung over from the night before and has a sprained wrist. Being a doctor he has already put the necessary accouchement on the injured arm for a speedy healing process. Luckily enough for excessive food consumption, we can barely manage to get merry let alone have a hangover! Lothario and Kimmie exchange romantic glances – could there be a possible romance blossoming between the two anti-relationship protesters?

After breakfast we head back to the apartment where we relax, sleep, beach, read and prepare ourselves for Pizza in the mountains with the whole gang for dinner!

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Dinner with The Godfather ...

Head to head, we tackle the horse on our plates...

Twenty or so of us gather in another of Catania’s many horse meat restaurants, this one located opposite an enormous castle situated behind the ruins of Catania. After exchanging kisses and hugs hello we get down to the nitty gritty, four bottles of local red wine are ordered and we are given plates for the Antipasti buffet. Before the antipasti are finished plates of horse meat are laid in front of us. The plates consist of a horse meat meatball, a horsemeat cut/steak and a Sicilian sausage, seasoned and filled with mozzarella. The girls look at me astonished, ‘This is too much food.’ I tell them to take their time and enjoy the meat. Mmmmm, this is probably one of my favourite Sicilian cuisines and packed with iron, horse meat is advised to eat once a week by Sicilian doctors. Throughout the meal, our Sicilian hosts watch in apprehension as we tuck into our food. ‘I know you can eat,’ The Sicilian’s friend says to me, ‘but what about the rest of you?’ Head to head, we tackle the horse on our plates, both Kimmie and I manage to give some food to some of our fellow diners, Angel Rae loosens her belt as she struggles, Genevieve hides her food with other food on her plate and GiGi slowly but surely manages to finish everything on her plate. She is crowned ‘The Honour of the Table,’ (a title I have earned at The Sicilian’s family home) and applauded her for her achievement. Complimentary of the restaurant we are given a plate of Involtini (a tenderised piece of meat, rolled up, stuffed with mozzarella and bread crumbs) for the table to share and a glass of Limoncello each.
Feeling uncomfortably full, we head to the Sicilian’s sister’s friend’s summer house overlooking the sea for after dinner drinks and ice cream.

The Honour of the Table

Dinner With The Godfather & Family

The Sicilian’s godfather stroke uncle and his wife, The Sicilian’s aunt insists on having all five of us for dinner. Dressed in our most family friendly attire we prepare ourselves for dinner with the family – and I finally christen my red Miu Miu’s. The dinner sitting consists of the girls and myself, The Sicilian, his sister, their mum and dad, the godfather and the Sicilian’s aunt, their three daughters, the youngest who speaks perfect English with an American accent (she learnt while hosting an American girl in Sicily), the daughter’s husbands and partners, the two elder sister’s children; three little boys, the oldest a child Benetton model and the sassiest little seven year old girl I ever met, she was a little madam who spent most of the evening bossing the boys around, showing off and being cheeky to her mum. ‘Remind you of someone, does she?’ Kimmie asked me, sarcastically.

Angel Rae whispers to me, ‘The family aren’t eating the way we are.’

The Sicilian’s aunt is famous for her pan fried Veal Escallops and we are, by now famous for our food consumption – it’s a perfect match. The spread of food is once again overwhelming, salami, Parma ham, pecorino, zuzzo (which looks like jellied spam to me and I’ve never been brave enough to try it), oven baked potatoes covered in rosemary, olive oil and chopped onions with Sicilian seasoned sausage, a huge bowl of rice salad, chicken and veal escallops.

We sit around the table and wait for someone more familiar to begin digging in. ‘Start!’ The Sicilian’s godfather insists – we are told to eat everything, anything left over won’t be taken lightly. So we begin. Kimmie takes potatoes, rice, cheese, salami, escallops all for the taking, the godfather watches, amused – of course in Sicily they eat by first plate and second plate, never mixing meats with the first plate. The godfather offers to give Kimme a pizza plate, ‘That should be big enough for you to fit everything on.’ He jokes.

Myself and Angel Rae both keep an eye on the potatoes and sausages, we really don’t want it to go before we get to it, but both of us are too polite to dive in – of course we have already had our first round, but with the food tasting so good the glutton in you unwillingly shows itself. Half way through the meal Angel Rae whispers to me, ‘The family aren’t eating the way we are.’ To be honest I hadn’t noticed, the escallops are out of this world and I’m just trying to figure out how I can make space for more.

After dinner we sit in the garden, where we talk to The Sicilian’s cousin, she speaks perfect English with an American accent, she learnt by hosting an American girl living in Sicily.
The tray of sweet pastries, cakes, cannoli’s and tarts we collected from the bar on the way were brought out and laid on the table, the food consumption began yet again – the crowd formed around the table. Each to their own!

Kimmie works her charm with the Surfer dude...
For after dinner drinks we head into Catania City Centre for student night, where we meet an old school friend of The Sicilian’s, a surfer who spends half the year surfing in Catania - where he owns a surf school and the other half the year in Costa Rica. He invites us all to surf with him, before I can politely decline, The Sicilian kindly interjects for me, ‘She doesn’t do water, she has a problem with her hair.’ Err – the reason I DON’T have a problem with my hair is my adversity to water – THANK YOU.
Genevieve, GiGi, Angel Rae and myself spend the rest of the night man watching, while Kimmie works her charm with the Surfer dude.

Taormina and La Isola Bella

Angel Rae disgusted, screws her face up at the Sicilian man’s choice of swimming trunk...

We decide to have a day at the beach, although this was not particularly on mine or Genevieve's agenda, the rest of the girls all have tanning on their schedules and with the weather heating up we, head to Taormina.

Taormina is a town that come summer or winter is always brimming – the Sicilian’s, the Italian’s, general tourists, weddings and film festivals are all in Taormina. The Sicilian and I spent our Valentines here this year. Before making our way up to the town we stop off at Taormina’s infamous beach, La Isola Bella (the beautiful beach). We are joined by The Sicilian’s friends, we’ll call them Lothario Roma and Costanzo.

The Sicilian, Lothario and Costanzo strip down to their trunks and head off into the sea, Angel Rae disgusted, screws her face up at the Sicilian man’s choice of swimming trunk or should we call them Speedos. Of course I have forbidden The Sicilian from wearing such a thing, but Lothario and Costanzo and most Sicilian men see no problem with donning these – these – knickers!

‘They’re just hideous!’ Angel Rae goes on, ‘Why should they think they can wear those things?’
Next to join the guys in the sea are Genevieve and Kimmie – Kimmie slips into the water and swims off, only to notice that she has left Genevieve somewhat behind. From the shore myself, GiGi and Angel Rae can hear a loud rip of laughter coming from the sea, this is Kimmie cackling at poor Genevieve as she not only gets bashed against the rocks by the waves, but loses her bikini top in the process. When Genevieve returns her back is red and bruised!

Costanzo gets us some beers and for the first time in ages we talk about something aside from food – relationships. Recently single, Kimmie has concluded that relationships are ‘Rubbish’ and with two single men both once broken hearted as her audience, they can’t help but to agree.
After finishing our beers and enduring the looks of the other Sicilian sunbathers who have barely managed to peel their eyes away from us, we head up to the town.

Kimmie claiming that one of the brides looks like a hippo...

On our brief stay at Toarmina we witness at least five weddings, Kimmie claiming that one of the brides looks like a hippo - Genevieve angrily grunts at Kimmie’s harsh words. Taormina is a beautiful, picturesque romantic town, filled with beautiful churches, an amazing view of Sicily and some absolutely amazing restaurants. Shopping in Taormina is expensive, it’s literally all high fashion. I found myself mentally coaching myself away from all the gleaming shop windows.

Before sitting down for a drink we bump into possibly the best looking Sicilian man the girls get to witness on the holiday – from a very wealthy Catanese family, and the other half of the couple who own the resort we’re staying in – we’ll call him Angiolucci.

Angiolucci introduces himself to my friends and Angel Rae and Kimmie struggle to hold back their winning smiles as they kiss him hello. Angiolucci is dressed in a suit, attending one of the many weddings taking place in Taormina today.

‘Who the hell is that?’ Angel Rae whispers to me. ‘Married with child,’ I answer.

Me and Angel Rae are playing staring games with the Italian and Sicilian passersby ...

We sit in a bar watching the passersby of Taormina with a bottle of local wine. Considering we’re in the heart of the touristy Taormina the local wine is surprisingly cheap – we ching our glasses, ‘Salute!’ The wine tastes absolutely amazing, we all mmm and aah as we drink, this could possibly be the best local wine I’ve had on my Sicilian travels and The Sicilian agrees.

We’re all pretty tired and trying to stay lively, Genevieve looks red from the sun, Kimmie is striking up conversation with Lothario Roma, me and Angel Rae are playing staring games with the Italian and Sicilian passersby and GiGi, just about to take a sip of her wine – PLOP! A seagull decides to locate its toilet right in her glass of beautiful, full bodied, local red wine – of course for GiGi this doesn’t go down too well! But it certainly makes us forget our tiredness and stupid games for a moment.

We get back to our apartment with bottles of wine for us and a crate of beers for The Sicilian. We chill for a few hours, The Sicilian takes a nap and we drink some Fragolino, looking back on the holiday so far...

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Sicily Awaits the Spice Girls

No worries people, i am still very much here and still very much blogging! It's taken me a while to get the complete Sicilian experience into words, but all 5,ooo words of it is done, dusted and chronicled. I am likely to publish it in sections everyday or so ... so watch this space for the next entry...

There were four new girls landing in Catania...

The week leading up to the girls arriving in Sicily, The Sicilian made sure to do his PR. He let every shop owner, friend, business affiliate, street sweeper and club owner know that there were four new girls landing in Catania in the next few days. I was asked to show pictures, give brief character descriptions and inform them of their marital status. The Sicilian would revel in the excitement that he was creating – four women from London coming to Catania! It wasn’t long before the Catanese people thought they knew the girls and had even coined them ‘The Spice Girls.’

Tuesday finally arrives, me and the Sicilian have our last lunch with the family, take a quick siesta and then begin to prepare for the big arrival. On the way to the hotel we go to the Sicilian’s godfather’s supermarket where we put together a little welcome pack for the girls – this surprisingly consists of alcohol; the pack contains Local red wine for three Euros, rose and Fragolino, a deep red sparkling wine made with strawberries. I struggle to the counter holding the six bottles of alcohol - the Sicilian looks at me disapprovingly, ‘Don’t you think you’ll need some food?’ I pick up a bag of crisps and we check out.

We rush to the Cucaracha, (where me and the girls are staying) a beach resort owned by two powerful Catanese families and good friends of the Sicilian. I get ready at lightning speed, it’s quarter to eight in the evening, the big arrival happens at nine and by ten thirty we have to be at The Garden for aperitivo. The girls are yet to find out that they have less than an hour to be ready before we hit the bars and clubs.

There they are, waving, jumping, blowing kisses with huge grins...

The Sicilian and I stand in Catania Fontanarossa airport – I seem to be attracting a slight crowd, it’s probably not often that women in airports are dressed in Zebra Print dresses and huge towering heels. Trust me, it looks tasteful! So, once again we are stood at the frosted glass doors, waiting apprehensively. I can’t help but notice that the Sicilian seems far more excited than I am – he can’t wait to show off his country! The doors open then close, open then close – there’s no sight of the girls, the clock is ticking, time is running away leaving less time for them to get back to the resort, get ready and head out to The Garden. The doors open again and some pale, back pack carrying people arrive, me and the Sicilian decide they must be British and must have got off the same plane as the girls. The doors close and then open once again – there they are, waving, jumping, blowing kisses with huge grins plastered across their faces. Well – apart from frequent flyer Angel Rae, who seems to be cool, calm and as though she’s been here twenty times over. Kimmie Parker, who I was told had sent out instructions for all girls to travel in heels, is wearing Carvela wedges – evidently her fellow flyers never listened.

The Garden

Dressed to impress, a bottle of wine in the back of the car being shared out into plastic cups we head towards the coast for drinks at The Garden. On our journey the Sicilian acts as a tour guide, he ensures that all bags are kept on the floor and never on laps and that the door remain locked at all times. It has been known for thieves to smash the car windows in order to grab purses and bags. This seems to freak Kimmie out more than expected and when driving through what you might call ‘ghetto’ ensures that not only do we have doors locked, but that we keep our windows up and make eye contact with nobody.
We arrive, The Garden is an outdoor bar, situated on a roof terrace. The terrace is lit with pinks and purples and dotted with Olive trees, a DJ playing eighties funk in an open space towards the end of the terrace, located opposite a complimentary buffet. The complimentary buffet and food is common practice in Sicily, particularly in bars, they often don’t serve drinks without a mini pizza, a bread crumbed mozzarella ball, mini arrancini or at the, least some fruit. Of course we find our spot by the buffet - eyeing up the food eagerly, a little apprehensive to go and help ourselves, all but Genevieve. She helps herself to a plate, gets her food and begins to munch away – it doesn’t take long before the rest follow suit. As usual the Sicilian asks the bar man to make us a deadly cocktail, which consists of three different vodkas; peach, strawberry and normal, with proesecco and strawberry syrup. The cocktail, as you can imagine takes effect very quickly and amongst The Garden patrons we begin to dance to the eighties music. Aperitivo consists of dressing up, heading out to the location of the night, meeting friends, acquaintances and associates, having a drink, maybe two and some general chit chat to get you in the mood for the rest of the night, very rarely do you see the locals singing, dancing and drinking the way we were – for the first time is Sicily we stood out and I didn’t care. We spent the rest of our time at The Garden taking pictures, laughing and dancing – The Sicilian’s sister – the organiser of our night tells us it’s time to head on to our second location for the night.

Benacherino

We pull into the club grounds and are directed to the club’s private car park. As we step out of the car we can hear the music booming from in the open field, however we can’t seem to locate where exactly the club might be. Our six inch heels digging into the ground, and drinks from The Garden in our hands in plastic cups we make our way to the unidentifiable nightclub. Not knowing what to expect evokes some nerves and excitement amongst us, Angel Rae continues to tell me that she feels nervous and isn’t quite sure why. Strange for a girl who has travelled half the world?

It oozes a sexy exoticness and is simply breathtaking...

Benacherino is a club situated in a botanical garden, huge deep green trees loom over us and the plants and flowers that surround us are amazing, it oozes a sexy exoticness and is simply breathtaking. Drinks in hand we hit the open dance floor and we dance the early hours of the morning in, locals stand around to watch these strange specie ‘the non-Italian’ enjoying themselves on their land, dancing up a storm. And dance up a storm, yes we do!

We dance in the open air till it rains, Gi Gi, Angel Rae and myself try to dance underneath a panel that shields us from the rain, Genevieve continues to gyrate in the rain, flicking her red hair about – we all know that subconsciously she is re-enacting a scene from J-lo’s Waiting for Tonight video and Kimmie Parker – well...? She reappears with a Sicilian on her tail, she claims that the attention he is giving is unwanted, of course, neither of them being unable to speak the same language can be Kimmie’s only excuse for bouncing about the club with the man without communicating her discomfort!

Prima Tavola Calda...

We leave Benacherino, miraculously our two car entourage has increased by another two cars and a mo- ped. The Sicilian’s sister tells us the addendum to our group are acquaintances of the ‘hello, goodbye’ quantity, that want to witness and take part in as much of the London Sicilian experience as possible. So all thirteen of us go to L'Etoile, the Tavola Calda bar, situated near the arches in Catania’s centre. Tavola Calda is the Sicilian fast food, translating ‘Hot Table,’ and serves a vast selection of sweets and savouries, typical of Tavola Calda is; Arrancini, a ball of rice coated in bread crumbs which can be filled with Bolognese or mozzarella and ham. Pastries filled with Frankfurters and Mozzarella with black olives, Bolognese sauce with mozzarella, ham and mozzarella, onions, Bolognese and Mozzarella, Aubergines’ with Mozzarella and Bolognese, Pizzetta’s (small pizza’s) and that’s just to name a few. And the Sicilian being the reign of the sweet food, the cakes, pastries, cannoli, tarts, pies, cornetto’s (croissant filled with marmalade, Nutella, white Nutella) are decadent, rich and indulgent. The food is presented beautifully behind a glass counter triple the size of a deli you’d generally find in Sainsbury’s. The arrangement and immensity of the food is overwhelming, and when we entered the Tavola Calda bar I’m pretty sure we all shared one thought, ‘How much can we eat?’

After getting over the party going on in our stomachs at the excitement of food, we made our selections and grabbed a corner where all thirteen of us sat, the men watched in amazement at the speed and ease of the food disappearing. And of course we all went in for round two, none of us being particularly hungry, the girls wanting to sample as much Sicilian cuisine as possible (even though they had all week to do so) and my excuse was – well, I just love Sicilian cuisine. The bar offered us all a free glass of Prosecco and complimentary cakes, we continued to eat and drink some more while we discussed how good the food was, the Sicilian struggled to make plans with us for tomorrow and decided, ‘We’ll go for something to eat in the morning and then decide.’

After a few nights of no sleep, sharing a double bed in between Kimmie Parker aka snoring bull and Angel Rae aka selfish duvet hoarder I begin to accept that this holiday will not involve much sleep. Genevieve, unable to politely wait for people to wake up in the mornings looms over the beds, singing, ‘Anybody up?’ and the Sicilian before we’re washed and dressed is knocking on our door, coaching us to get ready and get out for the events planned for the day.

Our days generally didn’t start without eating Tavola Calda and sipping a glass of Prosecco to set us up. We’d eat enough to keep us full until the evenings, when we’d head out for dinner then on to a bar or a club.

The Sicilian took us to Mount Etna, where we braved the freezing cold and harsh winds and looked at houses that had been destroyed by the active volcano. After leaving Etna we went to the Botanical Garden’s where we trailed through Olive Tree groves and walked through botanical waters set in deep gauges.

The journey home was a long one where I was unfortunately forced to listen to the shrill, deafening singing of LaRoux or the life threatening 'singing' of Angel Rae – as much as I have taken a disliking to La Roux, this was the preference over Angel.

The weather back in Catania had taken a turn for the worst, torrential rain fell, lightning split the sky and although GiGi had a moment of anger about the weather we remained in high spirits, determined to have a great holiday. . .

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