Happy New 2009!

Happy New 2009!

May this year bring serenity and prosperity to you, your families and friends!

Christmas Eve dinner

orange salad

selection of typical Sicilian appetizers

Fourteen people at dinner for Cristmas Eve and two days for preparing all the courses.

Big families' reunions are a tradition for Christmas Eve as well as a table laid carefully and prepared for the feast with rich food.

The menu included:

a rich selelction of Sicilian appetizers:
eggplants fillets in oil

artichokes in oil

green and black olives

green olives filled with breadcrumbs and pecorino chesse

round chilly peppers filled with tuna fish

red chilly peppers filled with anchovies

cloves of sweet garlic in oil

cherry tomatoes in oil

a selection of Sicilian cheese and salami:

smoked provola cheese

(a type of cheese made from buffalo's milk from Ragusa area)

tuma cheese

strong provolone cheese

home-made salami from Sant'Angelo di Brolo

zuzzo (sort of pork in aspic)

ham and cheese mousse

two types of mignon crepes:

one filled with ricotta cheese and spinach flavoured with butter and

the other filled with bechamel and mushrooms

two types of typical Catanese scacciata

(a sort of covered pizza with fillings):

one type filled with tuma cheese and anchovies and

the other filled with wild vegetables and sausages

(these two prepared by my sister in law)

cauliflower croquettes

flavoured with bacon and cheese

dried cod croquettes

orange salad

with fennel and green onion

home made chocolate birthday cake

(it was my bother's birthday)

panettone and pandoro

During dinner, wine was red from Regaleali winery.

After dinner, together with dried fruit and nuts to munch (these are typical at Christmastime) Sicilian liqueurs and digestives made of fennel, tangerine, lemon and Moscato wine.

There was enough to feed an army!

P.S. I will post some of these recipes during the next days

Pictures: © Doriana Briguglio

About Sicily

"… A landscape in which it is possible to find what on earth
seems to be made to seduce eyes, mind, imagination…".

These are the true words of a great writer Guy de Maupassant, who didn’t just imagine Sicily but really lived it.

I was born and raised in Sicily, I work in Sicily and I love and hate it.
This is a beautiful but so complicated island.
A holiday in Sicily is a journey to the roots of the world, a journey to a rich source of nature, history and culture, melted into a small triangle of land in the centre of the Mediterranean Sea.

I like to say that Sicily is The view of time.

Sicily, with about 5.200.000 inhabitants, is the most extensive region in Italy and the largest island in the Mediterranean and it is separated from the Italian peninsula by the Strait of Messina.

Sicily has always been a microcosm: a composite world in which people of different races, religions and languages have clashed and met in different periods of its history: the Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Romans, the Vandals, the Arabs, the Normans, the Swabians, the Spanish have created in the island a unique and multifaced development and interchange of civilization leaving a rich heritage in terms of culture, architecture, food, way of living.

Sicily is a land of great conflicts and contradictions. For its richness in beauty, nature, history, food I wish there was a corrsponding wealth in awareness, self determination, public consciousness, respect of the res publica, development.

Italians and mostly Sicilians are all around the world, many of them now descendants of the first immigrand of the beginning of the 20th century, others what I define the new de-luxe immigrants, people who decided to leave Italy and Sicily for top positions in the most advanced countries of the world.

This of mine is meant to be an ideal journey into space and time, to seek and to find flavours and colours, unique and unforgettable feelings and images.
This is an invitation to experience Sicily and enjoy everything this island can offer.

A new experience

That's a new experience for me. I'm scared and excited about it.

I've always liked writing and to tell the true during my teens I thought I was going to be a journalist, a reporter or something like that. Then, life leads you somewhere else.

First of all I apologize to everyone for any kind of mistake you may find: I'm not a native English-speaker but I promise I'll try to do my best!

Why this blog? I travel since I was 14. I work in the travel business as I'm a event manager and I design, plan, organize and coordinate meetings and events. I meet thousands of people from all around the world. And, what is always surprising to me is the common opinion that Italy is a wonderful country: great food, superb wines, friendly people, gorgeous landscapes, rich in history, culture and monuments, a country where style and design are our king and queen and the motto (saying) "bella vita" is almost a religion.

That is true, but partially true.

One of my pastime is reading books about life in Italy and Sicily and most of all about Italian and Sicilian cuisine. What I find funny is that most of the time the authors are not Sicilian nor Italian even if they seem to know Italy and Sicily better that us. Expecially when talking about food, they seem to manage the secrets of our cooking even better than us.

That is sometimes true, not always true.

My commitment and my great pleasure will be to up-date you about Sicilian life through a true Sicilian point of view. It is a pure selfish need but also a way to claim the right to write and say about Sicily as a Sicilian.
I will introduce you to the Sicilian life through regular posting about food, wine, places, people and more.

I'm not a chef nor a wine maker, I'm not a writer nor a journalist. But I'm passionate about my country and I will be passionate in this new experience of mine.

And it is my opportunity to reach my teenager's dream! Thank's to technology, that's to Internet, thank's to the blogs!

Sometimes I will be the means as I would like to introduce you to great people I know: chefs, wine makers, designers, all good new and old friends of mine, to let you enjoy their Italian or Sicilian experience. Sometimes I will just write down my experience and share my thoughts with you.

So, welcome everybody, welcome to Sicily, welcome to The Sicilian Experience!