1 Dec
Anissa: Time for a guest post by the great Charles Perry. This time it is about an edible virgin, or to be more precise her breasts. Don’t worry, I am not being prurient and there is nothing obscene about these breasts. As Charles explains, Mediterraneans and Arabs have this habit of calling sweets after charming female attributes. Another example is z’nud el-sitt (lady’s wrists, which are slender rolls made by rolling filo pastry around qashtah, the Arab equivalent of clotted cream). The rolls are then fried and dipped in syrup. Quite delicious as are the medieval virgin’s breasts. By the way, Charles is sorry about the picture not being perfect but I am sure you don’t mind. His entry is, as always, fascinating.
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24 Nov
When my friend Roberta who I stay with when I am in the Bay Area suggested we go for a doughnut, I wasn’t sure at first. The only ‘doughnuts’ I love are the catalan xuxos which I had every morning at Bar Pinotxo in the Boqueria when I was in Barcelona testing recipes for my Fifth Quarter. That was until I went on the scales and saw that my weight had shot right up. No more xuxos for me after that. Not until St John’s opened their bakery in Druid Street. Even then, I only had the one doughnut to try. Great but fattening all the same. Still, when Roberta says something is good I listen and one morning, we went to Doughnut Dolly. Boy am I glad we did! The doughnuts (filled with cream, chocolate or jam) were exceptional. In fact, they are inspired by St John’s. Hannah Hoffman, the owner, had heard about them from a friend who’d been to London and she decided to try making similar ones.
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21 Nov
I may not have been to an olive harvest before but I have been to an olive press, including the ancient ones in Volubilis near Meknes, Morocco. However, the one Tonino and Mary use near their farm has nothing ancient about it. In fact, it is very modern with the process completely automated from when the olives are poured into an underground chamber (through a grill to catch the last of the branches) to when they are sucked onto a conveyor belt ferrying them to a washing chamber then onto another conveyor belt which carries them to the press. The process is fascinating to watch even if not very aesthetic, at least not at Sole che Sorge whose lovely owner in the picture below doesn’t seem to have much concern for a photographer’s worry about nice backgrounds to her pictures!
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19 Nov
I am just back from California where I was hoping to go to the olive harvest but I never got the time. A few weeks earlier I was in Lebanon and I had intended to do the same down south but I was there too early. Thank goodness I went to Sicily in between, and in time for the olive harvest at Mary Taylor Simeti‘s beautiful farm near Palermo, Bosco Falconeria. Believe it or not it was my first ever olive harvest despite having grown up in Lebanon and Syria, both lands of the olive. Mary reckoned that the reason must have been that I was at school during olive harvest. She may well be right — we only went to Rechmaya where my uncle had his olive groves in the summer.
