Okay- or "owe kayee" in Southern Italian... I know i know. I haven't been blogging. Stop your whinging. A lot has happened- the Author has been busy. I have rented an apartment in Ortigia, I am observing the scuola di Inglese in the hopes of make-a the work, I am planning to exhibit some pictures, Napoli beat Roma and Catania, I stumbled on a festa in Noto (Noto is molto buono), in another trip one of the AST bus drivers left me in the middle of nowhere a good mile from the beach fontane bianche, Max (the owner of the hostel where I was staying in Siracusa) asked me if I wanted some horse meat... oh what else... Oh yeah- the entire middle east/North Africa erupted in popular protest. Not that that's personally affected me, although I'm of the mind that it affects us all... and it certainly affects Sicily, since Tunisian refugees are desperately trying to make it here. THe ITalian government likes to put them on the Isole di Lampadusa, which is actually closer to Africa than Sicily- but the normal population of Lampadusa is about 5,000 and the refugee population has trebled that. THere is no more room on Lampadusa, which the locals say is actually a lovely place to visit and just a ferry ride away. So now the Tunisians are being sent to an American military base on Sicily that I've heard is quite close to Sircusa- which (get out your maps) is on the eastern side of the island and pretty far south. So I must investigate and get back to you on that. Interestingly, Max (who describes himself as fairly conservative politically)told me last week he'd heard that Quaddafi or Khaddafi (maybe those are two of the 20 billion ways you can spell his name) was actually aiding the Tunisian refugees- encouraging them, and maybe giving them money and supplies to make the journey. Seemed a little conspiratorial to me. But Max may have been onto something. The European leaders are meeting in Brussels today and are they discussing ways to promote nascent democracy in arab states? No, of course not. First on their agenda is dealing with the refugee crisis- because god forbid the French speaking north africans make it to Italy or France or Brussels or Germany and try to earn a living. Apparently, as part of the 2007 rapprochment between Great Britain and Khaddafi- and later America and Khaddafi (which, of course, primarily had to do with western oil companies wanted to go into joint ventures with the state owned oil company) Khaddafi agreed to use his extensive security apparatus to round up migrants attempting to make the crossing to Europe... and now that the Western "powers" are guiltily and very slowly condemning the brutal crackdown on peaceful protestors in Libya, Khaddafi has threatened to lift the cordon and encourage his disgruntled countrymen to head north. So fear of waves of arab refugees is now gripping Europe. But Sicily is destination #1 so the island is "watching developments closely" and Burlesconi (taking a break from getting indicted for hanging out with underaged prostitutes) was here last week inspecting immigrant detention centers on the island and marshalling the coast guard...
Allora, and meanwhile I successfully made cozze (mussels). They aren't hard to make and they're delicious and cheap. But you will spend more time sorting and cleaning the mussels than you will cooking and eating them. Now I will tell you the recipe for cozze di-Noah. You will sort and clean the mussels. You must cut of their beards and scrape off barnacles. If they are open- you can tap tap and see if they close. If they do not close, you do not eat- the very opposite is true after you cook-a the cozze because then- if they do not open, you do not eat. Got it?
Oh-kaye you put the olive oil in the bottom and you cook'a the garlic, pommedoro, some parsley (prezzemolo) maybe some shallots or onions- and you saute. Then you pour in the white wine- here you can buy in plastic liter bottles the homemade vino bianche. Very cheap. So use liberally. And you bring to boil. Then you put in the sorted and cleaned mussels and cover. But you do not cook'a for too long- maybe 3, 4 minutes and you can stir them maybe once. Oh-kaye- now you look'a, the cozze are open, you are almost done. You scoop out'a the cozze into the bowl... and here's the secret weapon: you gow-a to the store and buy panna di cuccina (but you have already done this by this time). Is like cream- in fact, it may be heavy cream. I don't know. What I DO know- is that if you whisk-a the panna di cuccina into the sauce at the bottom of the pan- you have a very delicious and thicker broth which you can put onto the mussels. And you can also save this stock to eat with the pasta. Is very good! Is sooo good that I ate two servings of cozze, and one serving of tortellini in one sitting and went to bed with a big tummy ache. It is oh-kaye though, because I hear there is a gym in Ortigia and also the farmacia sells something called "Bio-trap" which can help-a make a regular the stomaco.
Here we have the pic of the cozze. We also have a pic of the Festivi in Noto for the "padrone" of the city San Corrado (I think that's him in the coffin) for pics of developments in N. Africa... I guess you can go to the BBC World Service.
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