The Mafia were constantly in my thoughts as we travelled around Sicily. This may have had something to do with the book I was reading at the time, John Follain’s The Last Godfathers, which was so cram-packed with gruesome murder and body disposal methodology that I was finding it hard to look at an oil barrel without calculating its remains-dissolving acid capacity in litres. My new obsession was probably also due to the men of a certain age with cashmere coats slung casually about their shoulders, flashing gold from their wrists and forming the centrepiece of an all-male entourage of muscular, besuited Ray Ban-wearers. Our arty tutors may not have deemed it appropriate to go Mafia chasing on my previous visit to this dark isle, but now I felt it a vital part of my education to visit Corleone, the town that bred such a feared clan of dons that its mere mention can encourage an impromptu move to Brazil. In case you think it sounds familiar, this is also the town that gave its name to Francis Ford Coppola’s ‘Godfather’, Don Corleone.  

Negotiating the traffic on our way out of Palermo was frustrating, especially as the road signs were more confusing than ever and we really needed a proper road map to be sure of not wasting any more time on severely pot-holed back roads. This is where Sicilians can be pleasantly surprising  - for the way I speak Italian, you’d expect a certain black-eyed, unshaven service station attendant in grubby boiler suit to pull a crowbar out of nowhere, cleaving it through my skull with a single thwack , blood and brains all over the forecourt. Instead of which, when we stop to try and buy a map, the same service station attendant wipes the grease off his hands and slowly, kindly, patiently explains to me that no, they don’t have maps but if we continue down the road we will find another couple of places where they should. He wants to be sure I’ve understood his directions and, once convinced, waves us on our way. You see? I’ve been watching too many Mafia films and that Follain book has been doing me no good. Next time we pick up holiday reading at an airport, Monsieur says he’ll make me buy Heidi.

Map eventually in hand, we follow a winding road into the Sicilian hinterland. The temperature drop is tangible as we snake our way up to cloud level. Driving past an abbey perched on a rocky outcrop, we zig-zag through a picturesque village, where, in spite of the pretty buildings and market square, the locals stare into our car, eyes dark with suspicion. I want to cross myself. Then I remember what it said in our guide: that Corleone’s residents are keen to dispell their Mafia associations in favour of more godly connections. Nowadays it sells itself as the city of a hundred churches, promoting its various saints. This was going to be one fascinating way to experience the co-existence of good and evil in one, small community.

It was market day in Corleone when we drove into town. Leaving the Cappuccino Wagon just behind the stall-lined main street, we wandered our way through the crowd. The first stall of note sold cacti of various shapes and sizes. In Feng Shui you tend only to use sharp plants for thresholds and doors to the outside world, as they’re supposed to ward off intruders. I began to wonder if Feng Shui had reached Corleone, or if cacti were some new weapon of choice.

Further along, we found a long, covered stand selling all manner of knives – cutlery, steak, kitchen, pocket, and oh, was that a meat cleaver? The more disturbing knives were businesslike switchblades and those with fiercely-serrated edges for hunting; whether destined for animal or human prey I couldn’t be certain, but disembowelling wouldn’t take long with one of those babies.

On we went, past the flapping arrays of fake pashminas and spreads of cheap, rash-inducing jewellery to a little square. Once more, the eyes of burly men bore into us as we, the interlopers, walked on. No, Corleone wasn’t the most welcoming of towns to visit.  Now, where exactly were these hundred churches?

A grocery shop made the most of a prime corner window to promote its stock of Don Corleone, some sort of local liquor with Marlon Brando’s face etched into each label. Across the street, a vegetable barrow stacked with giant examples of local produce, was busy with local trade. But the merchant’s frontage that really stopped me in my tracks was that of the local butcher. Through the window, we spied strapping great men with watermelon-sized biceps, wielding bone-cracking cleavers as they hacked into sides of meat. Blood was smeared all over their white aprons as various sections of former livestock (PlanetRoss – Should that be ‘deadstock’?) swung from hooks all about them. CARNE (meat) was written above the door, prompting me to think of CARNAGE. Only in Corleone.

So far, so cliché. The weather was sombre. The market’s cacti were as prickly as the Corleonese. The knife stall chilled me, and now we were stood gaping as bloody men tore into hefty hunks of flesh. Was I the only visitor to find this scene more than a little Mafia-esque?

To counteract all this negativity, albeit in an overactive imagination, it was time to find some of these hundred churches and light a candle or two for the common good of Corleone, which has had such a murderous past that at some points the locals were accustomed to daily killing on their streets. Alas, wouldn’t you know it? It wasn’t even time for the Corleonese men of the cloth to lunch, yet every single church we found was firmly locked against us. There’s probably good reason for this: no more murder in the confessional because the priest hands out one too many Hail Marys, or to prevent the chalice from being nicked for the umpteenth time, but people of Corleone, listen up! If you want to promote yourselves as a god-fearing town of 100 churches, then  you’d better open their doors so we visitors have more to look at than Don Corleone-branded goods.

Monsieur and I were now keen to track down the Anti-Mafia Centre, but all the signs led us on one wild goose chase after another, until we found one pointing up a dead end, having been painted over to disguise the outline of the carved letters spelling its name. In the local museum, we checked out the glass cases filled with fragments of ancient finds from local digs but thankfully no human mandibles of recent decades. With more time on our hands, the museum staff would have taken us on a free tour of the town, but we were keen to reach Agrigento that afternoon, so we didn’t stick around.

On the way back to the car we stopped off at a point from which to view the vista of the valleys below Corleone. The panorama was certainly stunning, but the viewing point was somewhat unattractive, as it was located next to a couple of large, municipal bins, one of which was largely melted in the sort of way that suggested bored teenage thugs playing with matches after dark. Then, turning a corner, we saw a tiny old woman watching us through lace curtains. White hair pulled back into a bun, dressed all in black, she was a walking Italian grandmamma stereotype. A picture of her would have been a star in my album, but I couldn’t bring myself to take it. In spite of her thumbelina size, the look in her eye told me she’d chase me out of town with a broomstick, should I dare to point my camera in her direction, and fair enough. If someone did the same to me, I’d be off after them with a broomstick, too.

And so, with no further a-do, we left Corleone, a little disappointed by what we’d found. We’d tried to visit three museums, only one of which was open. Not a single church stood unlocked, not even the 14th Century Chiesa Madre that had ’given the world two saints’. Admittedly, there were some little alleys affording pretty views of pastel-painted houses dropping gently down the hillside, and I did manage to find some terrible postcards for my Tacky Postcard Collection, including a nice black rectangle of ‘Corleone at Night’, and some bad Mafioso stickers for my journal, but apart from that Corleone was a dark little town. The locals gave off an unmissable vibe that outsiders were unwelcome, which is a shame given their current attempt to re-brand themselves as saintly. Even the world’s best gelateria wouldn’t tempt me back in a hurry.

As we drove out of town, I could imagine the locals cheering at our backs, farewelling another couple of unwanted Mafia trail-followers. Having said that, it occurred to me that I hadn’t seen a single local smile the whole time we’d been there. The air in Corleone crackles with misdeeds and grief. Perhaps it was wrong to visit this town, for over the years its people have been bullied into extreme wariness and now they just seem to want to be left alone. After what they’ve been through, who could possibly deny them that? For the above reasons, I won’t be going back to Corleone; not even for the best cannoli in the world. And for a girl called Epicurienne, that’s saying something.

When Jaz Cummins of Londonist approached me for an interview for their London blogger series, I was naturally delighted to oblige. As usual, I’m late with posting the result, which went live on Monday 6 July. And, as usual, ‘better late than never’ is my catch phrase. Voilà – the Epic answers to some Jaz-y questions.

The London Blogger Interviews #22: Epicurienne

What’s been your favourite cause, series or post on the blog?
I thoroughly enjoyed writing about our travels in Malaysia, which earned me a few fans in that part of the world and an interview with the Malay Mail, and you don’t have to ask me twice to write about Italy. But my favourite ever post has to be the video entry I made for the London Bloggers’ Meetup competition stating why I deserved to win a ticket to Blog08. I promised to wear big, wooden clogs to the conference, which someone obviously decided to test, because I did in fact win. And yes, I wore big cow-pattern clogs to the conference, earning me more than my fair share of odd treatment, but I’m pleased I did it.

Tips I can share with wannabe clog- wearers are 1. take them off before taking stairs OR take out comprehensive medical insurance before attempting to go up or down any number of steps. 2. they’re very warm. 3 wear thick woollen socks to make them really comfy. 4. they’re completely waterproof and 5. they make great pot plant holders when you get home.

What are your ‘last supper’ essentials if you had one day left to eat in London?
This is a really tricky one. I think if it were my last day in London, I’d go to Borough Market for breakfast, taking whatever was seasonally available for a snack. Needless to say, I’d take a tonne of photos to remember it by, and probably splurge on a few culinary bits and pieces for my new kitchen cupboard, wherever that might be.

I’d probably lunch somewhere Asian, like LiKo in Lisle street, where the tempura noodle bowls are fantastic value and you really get the feeling of being somewhere completely different from London, which is one of the reasons I like it so much. If my bank balance was looking really healthy, I might be persuaded to go to Nobu. But the main event of the day would be dinner. I’d invite our friends over for a big raclette buffet with asparagus and new potatoes, garlic button mushrooms and sweet vine tomatoes, with some fine French charcuterie courtesy of Monsieur, Epic’s herby chicken fillets and some crusty sourdough bread from the Hammersmith Farmer’s Market. I guess my last day in London had better be in May, given how much I love asparagus! The raclette would come from La Fromagerie in Marylebone, and I’d ask the nice chap at Nicolas to supply a few bottles of his driest Provençale rose to wash it all down. I have a tendancy to make myself hungry when describing food. That would be right now.

Would you feel more or less connected to London, or missed out on things without your blog?
I’ve lived in London for 15 years now, so you might say there’d be something wrong with me if I didn’t feel connected to London by now. However, the blog has made me feel a greater connection to London through extending my London-based community.

It also makes me think twice about things we take for granted as Londoners, which can be of interest to readers elsewhere in the world.

How has your blog connected you to another community of bloggers in London? The world?
In my earliest blogging days I found out about the London Bloggers Meetup Group, run by the most welcoming self-confessed marketing blagger Andy Bargery. Through the Group I have been lucky enough to meet a lot of London-based bloggers, which is definitely helpful when most of the people you might get to know through a blog live miles away. The LBM Group gives a sense of reality to writing in the ether.

As for the rest of the world, I have had the great good fortune to ‘meet’ a group of regular readers, who give me a kick up the backside when necessary, are also funny, supportive and intelligent folk. I count them as friends and they live as far afield as the States, Japan, Australia and Paraguay.

What’s the most underrated thing about London?
It might sound crazy but in my opinion the weather is the most underrated thing about London. Why? Because when the sun shines, even if it’s just for a few hours, it transforms everyone’s demeanour from grumpy to friendly. Admittedly, it can be too grey, too cold, too wet, too depressing at times, especially in the winter, but even that’s good because it means we don’t take the good weather for granted. Ever. Even the heavy snow in January seemed to unite neighbours as they moaned about not being able to get to work, whilst secretly enjoying building their snowmen and igloos.

And for some general London chat…Where do you live and why do you love it?
I live in Maida Vale, which neither Monsieur nor I knew very well before moving here. It didn’t take long to convince us that it’s a great place to be in London, though. It’s handy for getting to the West End and has good connections to most parts of London. It’s not far from Paddington. It’s leafy in summer with hidden communal gardens where we can picnic. There’s a great sense of community. On Guy Fawke’s Day there are some fantastic fireworks displays in the area and at the end of a rough day at work, it FEELS like home. There are some great pubs in the neighbourhood and people are as friendly as I’ve ever found them to be in any part of London.

At our tube stop there is one London Underground employee whom I swear must be the happiest man in their employ, writing silly messages on the whiteboard each morning to cheer us on the way to work, and Little Venice is a picturesque place to visit – with canal cruises to take with visitors and decent eateries with water views. Right now, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else in London, although now I’ve said that, we’ll probably find ourselves on the move.

What’s your favourite place in London?
My favourite place in London would have to be around the river. At lunchtime I sometimes walk down to the Thames near Hammersmith, where I work. There’s always a tonne of interest going on down there – rowers in training, people walking their dogs, runners, pub-goers, interesting places to eat, strange buildings… The river gives a sense of openness. When entertaining visitors to London, it gives a lot of options. I love walking along the various sections of the South Bank, be it in Battersea Park or past the Tate Modern, or hanging out at Butler’s Wharf, or taking photos of Tower Bridge, or having a pint by the boats at St Katherine’s Dock… There’s the wobbly bridge to cross, strange river traffic to watch, not to mention the wonderful views of the city, including St Paul’s and the Gherkin. If you want to invite me somewhere, just make sure it’s on the river and I’ll be there, bells ringing loudly.

What do you know about London that noone else does?
I once met a woman whose husband fell seriously ill quite out of the blue. He went into a coma and the doctors were quite certain he wouldn’t come out of it. The woman had heard about the Tyburn Convent at Marble Arch, going there each day to pray for her husband. He subsequently made an astonishing recovery, encouraging his doctors to write about it in medical journals. They couldn’t explain it. Everyone called it a miracle and the woman has no doubt that that’s exactly what it was. So if you’re ever in the honest need of a miracle, I would recommend visiting the Tyburn Convent, which is dedicated to the Catholic nuns who were hanged during the Reformation on the site where Marble Arch now stands.

Have you ever been sick on the tube?
No, thankfully I have never been sick on the tube, as in physically lose my lunch all over someone’s Jimmy Choos. I’ve felt faint in summer and claustrophobic on sardine days and certain armpits have made me gag at times, but luckily I’ve always made it to my stop without having an Exorcist moment. Having said that, as I was thinking about this question, I overheard a guy on the street chatting to his friend about having vomited on the tube the night before. That made me chuckle.

Anything else we should know?
Nope, I think that covers it. Thank you for asking me to do this interview.

www.epicurienne.wordpress.com

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Leaving Trapani proved a little more troublesome than we’d anticipated, mostly because of the downpour that drenched us minutes after leaving the wonderful little Cantina Siciliana, where we’d refuelled in anticipation of an afternoon packed with activity. Just before the deluge began, Monsieur and I had been happily photographing Trapani’s buildings. We dashed between dripping awnings all the way back to the car where we sat for some minutes dabbing at wet faces with inefficient paper napkins. No, we wouldn’t be going to Segesta today. Greek ruin complexes + rain = mega-uncomfortable.

“So what next?” asked Monsieur, somewhat unhelpfully. You see, Monsieur books the flights and I come up with full itineraries of where we go and what we do, including plan Bs in case of uncooperative weather like today’s. I didn’t really have a plan B. Yet. But in a place like Sicily, teeming with interest and culture (and gelato), how hard could it be to come up with one?

This wasn’t to be as easy as I thought. The nearby town of Erice, on cliffs overlooking coastal Trapani (where we now sat steaming up our car windows for all the wrong reasons), would have been an obvious alternative to Segesta. Our guidebooks raved about a couple of pasticcerie, and strange rituals of ’sacred prostitution’ once practised in the Venusian temple now buried beneath the castle ruins, made us intrigued to visit. Alas, the best part of visiting Erice, which sits 750 metres above sea-level, is the view. Usually, you can see Erice from Trapani. With the current rainfall, the town was completely obscured by low, grey cloud. There wouldn’t be a lot to see in Erice today, besides which we’d eaten far too recently to take full advantage of the town’s renowned cannoli. In summary? Plan A – abort. Plan B – ditch. Plan C? Crikey. Whatever could we come up with now?

In the end we settled on a drive down the west coast to Marsala, home to the sweet Marsala wine.  The drive was unexpectedly interesting, taking us along the SS115, which follows the line of the sea. It is here that the salt with the best reputation in Italy is produced, big, white piles of it lining the road, the salt pans lying flat to either side.

Around this point I started my own game of Count the Ape. An Ape (ah-pay) is a small three-wheeled workhorse of a vehicle much favoured by Italians, especially those in rural areas. The typical Ape is a flat-bed in miniature, with room for one person only at the wheel. En route to Marsala we spotted so many Apes that I had to stop counting. Piaggio, the Ape manufacturer, must really like Western Sicily, and I ‘m sure the local salesman does, too.

It was pouring in Marsala by the time we found our way into the town. Some local chaps at a stationery store kindly helped us do our scratchy parking card, before we set off in search of interest. We were only a stone’s throw from the Cathedral, yet getting there took a while in the rain. As we dashed along the side of the Cathedral towards its front entrance, a gush of water from the overloaded gutters above splashed directly onto our heads. Monsieur looked at me with that “Are you okay?” frown, but he needn’t have worried. I was completely sodden now, as was he. All we could do was laugh like a pair of bedraggled hyenas.

The Cathedral itself was a bit disappointing. It was so large and cold that it felt unwelcoming and empty. No, we wouldn’t stay here. Running past the twinkling Christmas tree in the piazza outside, we sheltered in the Caffeteria Grand Italia, in spite of its reputation as a magnet for octogenarians. Apparently all the octogenarians were wiser than we were, sat safely in comfy armchairs at home. A couple of espressi were now required, as was gelato, a small reward for braving the rain.

Once we’d dried ourselves with yet more malabsorbent table napkins, we set off to visit one of Marsala’s museums, but in spite of the posters stating that it would be open, it was firmly closed against us and we were wet once more. So we dashed from shop to shop in an attempt to stay dry. I bought a Tiziano Terzani book in a small libreria, where we were treated like unwanted foreigners until I asked the right question about the right author. Then the shop clerk couldn’t do enough to help me.

The next shop clerk we came across was even more unpredictable. We’d run into a Marsala wine specialty shop, disturbing the sole proprietor who had the malady of mobile phone permanently attached to ear, as shown by the fact that when we’d passed him earlier, he was chatting away and was still now in the state of permanent chat. It must have been a slow afternoon for him because when we entered, he cut the call short and focussed his full attention onto us. Bearing in mind that he looked strangely like Hutch from Starsky & Hutch, only with the deep orange skin of a fake-tan addict, it was difficult to take him seriously. First he tried to steer us away from the Marsala wines which are now owned by big liquor companies, thereby losing their seasonal variance in favour of the supermarket shelf-friendly reliability of mass production. Then he allowed us to taste three or four different breeds of Marsala, feeding us morsels of bread with some of his cupboard wares – tapenades heated in a terracotta bowl over a tealight and a creamy garlic sauce. Our new curly-haired friend was a little too attentive to me, however. He asked me how I knew Italian, so I explained that I’d lived in Venice for a while.

“Ah, Venice. Beautiful place. Have you been anywhere else in Italy?”

“Yes, all over,” I answered,

“So if you love Italy so much, then tell me, how come you are with this Frenchman?” he asked, grimacing unsubtly in Monsieur’s direction.

“Because I love France, too.” I replied, keen to get Monsieur away from perm-head as quickly as possible, in case he’d understood.

We left leery Mr Hutch with a bottle of Marsala, some tapenade and garlic sauce, which we’d started to assemble just before his studliness got out of hand. Paying up we wasted no time in getting out of there. The rain was now subsiding, but we dashed away from that shop and Mr BadFakeTan almost as if the rain were still torrential.

It was completely dark, the roads slick with wet. Now we just had to get back to Palermo. Our map looked straightforward enough, but the route was far from. With a combination of impossible signage, lousy back roads, windy ways and a lack of street lighting, the next couple of hours were to be the most stressful of our Sicilian adventure. When we finally found the way to a decent autostrada, the relief of being back on a well-lit road was truly something else. We wouldn’t be taking the Sicilian motorways for granted again.

I don’t usually write about feet or shoes, apart from the fact that I’d rather spend my annual footwear allowance on travel than on a pair of Manolos and I just might have set up a  site called Clogblogger once upon a time. However, if you’ve ever worn Fit Flops, you’ll know why I’m writing about them today.

Last year, I invested in a pair of these flip flops with ‘the gym built in,’ that claim to help you tone and exercise muscles in your legs and back whilst simply walking. A couple of friends already had them and swore by them, so I bought a pair of rather unsubtle gold-sequinned Fit Flops with the suitably flamboyant style name of Elektra. By the end of last summer, including a full two weeks in Vietnam where I seldom wore anything else (on my feet, to be specific, because clothes definitely did feature. At times.), I didn’t want to take them off. No, it’s worse than that. My feet, a couple of particularly sensitive souls (pardon the pun), grieved the advent of autumn, for it meant that their beloved Fit Flops would be exiled to the back of the wardrobe. Poor feet!

Here’s the gold variety that stirs an alarming amount of interest from my male colleagues. Oo er, missus! Who knew they’d be such attention-grabbers?

And this is the black equivalent that I wear on more sombre occasions:

There are one, two, three, four more Fit Flop wearers within 5 metres of me right now. Most of my girlfriends are advocates, and when I went to a wedding recently, my feet were understandably NOT happy about abandoning the Fit Flops in favour of something high and elegant. No siree. In case of a Feet-Against-Heels uprising during the day, I stuffed a pair of ballet pumps in my bag, but as it was, most of the girls went barefoot in the grass at the reception, so the ballet pumps were surplus to requirement. Chatting to an acquaintance, I admitted being relieved not to have to trot around in my heels all afternoon,

“My feet are spoiled. They’ve been in Fit Flops all week.”

“Mine, too!” confessed the acquaintance, “and I have a pair of ballet pumps in my bag, for dancing, later.”

“Me, too!” I squeaked, so happy to have located a kindred spirit with high-maintenance feet like mine. High five, girlfriend!

Even so, I couldn’t wait to slide back into my Fit Flops when we got home.

The next question is inevitably: do they work? Well, it’s hard to tell, because my legs are the most-utilised part of me and are therefore pretty fit already. But a good test was during the recent 48-hour tube strike when I had to walk to and from work each day. That was a total of 4 hours and 40 minutes fast walking, in Fit Flops, over a two-day period, and boy, did I ache by the end of it. The aches were in unusual places, too, usually untouched by regular walking or hiking. (At least, that’s how THIS particular body behaves.) So the Fit Flop’s claims to give you a workout while you walk seem to be true. Having said that, for me it’s kinda like TV. I’m not interested in knowing  how it works, as long as it works.  

Long may the summer last, though, because in spite of Fit Flop’s foray into winter-weather alternatives, they’re lacking the funk of the spangly Elektra, and I’m not a big UGG fan. But I may have to eat my words soon, because this here high heel-phobe has been invited to an evening with Jimmy Choo. Help. I’ve never spent £368.00 on a pair of shoes in my life and I really can’t afford to start such an expensive habit now. Besides which, £368.00 could pay for a long weekend in Venice, in my Fit Flops, and that’s what I’d really rather do.

For our first full day in Sicily, Monsieur and I took the advice of a friend and headed for the north-west coast of the island, to a town called Trapani. Dark clouds loomed but, ever the optimists, we drove on, along the autostrada where anti-mafia Judge Giovanni Falcone’s convoy was blown up by an under-road tunnel of explosive, thereby meeting an untimely demise, and on past the turn-off for the airport.

As we left the coast behind for a while, the mountainous landscape to our left was nothing less than magnificent, the clouds gathering at their zeniths only enhancing their mighty appearance. Then the rain began, just as we passed the signs for Segesta, a Greek temple complex that I had been too ill to visit on my last trip here. Ah, well. We’d just have to hope that the weather would be better after lunch.

As we entered Trapani, we were initially frustrated by the mess of narrow streets and traffic lights, but eventually located a large, open lot in which to park the car. We wandered along the adjacent seafront looking out at the sea now mirroring the grey of the sky. The water was curiously clear, however the litter on the beach marred the otherwise arresting view. The shore was strewn with dented cans and bottles, its rich, green seaweed plaited with battered plastic bags.

We’d wanted to see Trapani’s fish market in action, but it was closed for the holidays, not a prawn in sight. Walking on through the old town, we found cobbled streets lined with intriguing little shops and ornate Baroque civic buildings and churches. Nothing was open, however. Everyone had gone for lunch, even the priest at the cathedral dedicated to San Lorenzo, one of the patron saints of chefs. I’d really had my heart set on lighting a little candle at the feet of his statue, asking for his protection from sharp knives, soaring gas flames and salmonella, but as the saint and the priest were off enjoying a lengthy midday repast, Monsieur and I needed little encouragement to do the same.

We walked along the docks where ferries were anchored, rear ends open to a motley crew of vehicles destined for the little islands of Egadi just off the coast, but turned away from these giants, back to the tangle of Trapani streets. There we saw fake Santa Clauses hanging from ladders attached to various windows, (judging by how many of these we saw, it was THE 2008 decoration of preference in these parts), and braving the suspicious stares of local folk, sought out a  restaurant for lunch.

We’d heard good things about a little place in the Old Jewish ghetto, called Cantina Siciliana . It had been bestowed with the Slow Food badge of approval for authentic, home-cooked Trapanese food and had its own wine shop just next door  in case you sipped on something scrumptious and wanted to take a bottle or two of the same to your cellar at home. The entrance was about as unprepossessing as is possible for an eatery, and once inside, the small front room was simply decorated with Moorish blue tiles from floor to mid-wall, high shelves bearing rows of wine bottles, presumably of revered vintage, and the unexpected accessories that bore little resemblance from one group to the next, for instance, from the ceiling was suspended a carriage wheel and above the entrance stood a line of mismatched vases in the shapes of ancient Greece.

Towards the back of the room sat a family gathering, including kids of all sizes, from new-born to around ten years old. A very pregnant waitress with long, dark hair and a kindly face seated us near her station at the front. The sky outside darkened, dimming the room. Across from us, a well-dressed Italian couple finished their lunch and in the midst of the room, a young couple courted over the remainder of a bottle of red.

Monsieur and I decided to share a starter of mixed seafood, as is so often our preference when travelling in the sort of environment where fresh seafood and fish thrive. Today, we were blessed with slices of smoked tuna, its texture dissolving gently against the palate, and bright red prawns which were so fresh and slippery that they almost escaped our grip each time we tried to shell one. The octopus was fresh and juicy, somewhat unexpected on a dark December day, and the sardine in breadcrumbs, one of Cantina Siciliana’s signature offerings, was quite possibly the best sardine I’ve ever tasted. Why? The little fish were first marinated in a little vinegar before being lightly floured and fried. It’s incredible what a little vinegar can do to a dish when added in the right way. The end result is often not even vinegar-y to the tastebuds.

Monsieur followed this lip-smacking selection with scaloppine al limone, whilst I stuck to local fare, ordering the pasta alla Trapanese, made with a salsa of tomatoes, basil and garlic so incredibly fresh that it stung to eat. Traditionally, this dish often includes a handful of processed almonds, but in this case the garlic was so mouth-igniting that I couldn’t honestly tell if nuts made it into the salsa or not.

The women and children from the family gathering had now left the restaurant, with all children and related baby paraphernalia in tow. Three menfolk remained, whispering misdeeds with mean eye whilst polishing off a last bottle of blood-coloured wine. For once, I was quite pleased that I couldn’t eavesdrop.

A couple of espressi and a very reasonable bill later (tip refused and discount given for cash payment – what is it with Sicily and cash? No need to answer that…), we left Cantina Siciliana, in the hope of reaching Segesta for a wander through its ruins. Unfortunately for us, the weather had quite a different plan in mind.

On a bone-chilling day in December last year, keen to walk off some of that devillish foie gras that French people (and this particular Kiwi) love to consume at Christmas, Monsieur and I and a couple of the in-laws visited Vaux le Vicomte. For those men who salivate over Eva Longoria Parker and for the women who aspire to be her, this is where she chose to marry Tony Parker on 7 July 2007, on a day which was a lot warmer than the one we’re talking about now.

Vaux le Vicomte is a château located 55km southeast of Paris near Melun. It was designed by architect Louis le Vau with landcaping by André le Nôtre and interiors by Charles le Brun. The team’s masterpiece of collaboration is characteristic of the Louis XIV style, taking a mere 3 years (1658-1661) to build for Nicolas Fouquet, who, apart from being a marquis AND  a viscount, was also the superintendent of finances for Louis XIV. Judging by the end result, Fouquet’s bonus structure must have been generous indeed.

We visited the carriages, collected through the many ages and fashions that Vaux le Vicomte has seen passing by,

admiring the many life-size fake horses sporting some truly inspired headwear.

 It was cold in the carriage museum, but it was bone-bitingly bitter when we walked back outside, where we found that, in spite of the stunning grounds, seasonally planted with Christmas trees, we couldn’t wait to warm up a bit inside.

 The dining table caught my attention, with its welcoming red tablecloth and burning candles. Do you think their insurance man knows about this?

Then we wandered through a foyer with its giant Christmas tree scraping the ceiling high above. At ground level, stuffed animals foraged around its roots.

One of my photos of the tree room displays a mysterious orb. Light was far from bouncing off the walls that day. It was dull with winter. Perhaps the orb was a Vaux le Vicomte guardian spirit checking out the visitors?

Moving through the rooms, past painted ancestors and gilded furniture, we found the Nativity. I could have stood for hours studying the little figures, but the queue pushed us on.

It was now dark, but we couldn’t leave without visiting Marie-Christine in the kitchen. That would have been rude. You can probably see that the chill air was making her feel a bit wooden, so before bidding her adieu, we suggested she sit by the fire for a while to warm up.

Then, bristling against the December wind, we shivered all the way back to the car, past fairy lights twinkling in the topiary. I was frustrated by my camera’s inability to capture the beauty of the garden at night, but my hands were so blue with cold that were now incapable of hitting the right tiny button to make the right functions work.

The rows of Christmas trees standing in soldier-straight lines were the only twinkling thing to come out of my frozen-fingered attempt at night photography, so I pinched a photo from Tour Magazine to show you what I’m talking about. Vaux le Vicomte has a massive reputation for arranging some of the most beautiful animations de Noël (Christmas lights) in all of France.

It’s also hardly surprising that such a beautiful place has been used as a location for many well-known films, such as Marie-Antoinette, Jean de la Fontaine and Molière, but hypothermia was kicking in so we had to go. Besides, (more) foie gras was waiting for us at home with a nice, crackling fire by which to thaw.

If you visit Vaux le Vicomte in the summer, you may like to check their concert series which proves very popular, or so I’ve heard.

**If you go in winter, like we did, please please please wear plenty of thermal underwear and the like. At the risk of sounding like your mother, hats, gloves, scarves are also necessary so that seasonal discomfort does not distract from this wonderful château. I was wearing most of these items but still the cold broke through.  Brrrr.

(photo courtesy of TFL’s press images)

The Epicurienne Day Job has zero to do with food or travel, apart from having to travel to and from work each day on The Dunderground. The frequent long waits on one of the lines I use are frustrating. I can never predict when I will reach work. If I’m running late at the home end, sometimes everything will go to plan and I’ll get to work early. But only sometimes. On the other hand, if I leave home early because of a deadline or early meeting, sod’s law dictates that everything will be delayed and I’ll arrive at work late and flustered.

As many of you know, The Epicurienne Day Job involves HR so it’s safe to say I know a fair amount about the devastating effects of the current recession on good, hardworking people. We’ve lost a lot of staff to redundancy due to the domino effect of incoming projects being cancelled or failing to materialise because a client has pulled the plug. Our directors have taken pay cuts and the remaining staff have had a 0% pay increase at a time when the cost of living has risen, in spite of a cut to VAT and talk of deflation. As are many others, I am much worse off financially because of this, but I’m one of the lucky ones; I kept my job. So far, anyway. And yet, in January, tube fares went up but the economists talk about deflation. How about telling that to London Underground?

Last week we had two days of tube strike in London. Why? Because tube staff think that in the current climate they are worth a 5% pay increase for fewer hours. FEWER hours, people. I mean to say. WHAT??? Do these folk not read the papers?

Naturally, there was mayhem. Those who could, drove, creating nightmarish traffic conditions. Others cycled. One colleague complained that on her overground train which was already a human sardine can, one man brought his bike ONTO the train. Methinks he should have just hopped on it and ridden instead of taking up valuable sardine space. Then one of our directors had his state-of-the-art cycle nicked while he was at the theatre, to which he’d had to cycle because there was no tube.  Meanwhile, I walked to and from work on both days, clocking up 2.5 hours a day of exercise. And one large, bleeding blister. But the buses were full and bus stops overcrowded and the overground trains are nowhere near me so my Tube Replacement Service simply had to be my feet.

On the second day of the strike, there was apparently a reduced service on my line, but when I walked past the stop nearest home, its shuttered gate was firmly locked, so I kept going. When I finally reached the stop nearest work, it was open. Somewhat confused, I stopped to read the update sign. Just then, a striking tube worker, sat cross-legged on the ground, said:

“take the tube at your peril today! No safety staff are working.”

Hrmph. That really ticked me off.

“What you’re doing is greedy.” I retorted. “Most people are happy to just be in paid employment right now and you want a pay rise? Unbelievable.”

This wasn’t exactly what Tube Woman wanted to hear. With venom, she spat back. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Actually, lady, I know EXACTLY what I’m talking about.” Or so I thought.

End of exchange, I stomped off, toe bleeding, to work.  

Then yesterday, the man who sells papers and soft drinks at the tube station told me he’d heard there were going to be more strikes. This is a man who lives outside of London and who therefore had to get up at 3.30 each morning of the strike in order to open his shop at 7.30am, not to mention his lengthy commute home. He’d had about 4 hours sleep each of those two days. Needless to say, he wasn’t too impressed about the potential of a repeat performance, and I was seriously considering applying to be a tube driver because they earn more than I do and get guaranteed pay rises each year and a tonne of holiday and free travel on public transport and additional days off whenever they feel like striking, which seems always to be when the weather’s nice. So I told him this and as I did, his friendly face froze as his eyes moved to a point behind me. I turned around, to find a tube driver in his nice blue syntheticky uniform. Woops. He’d heard my moan and smiled.

“It’s really not that bad being a tube driver.”

“That’s what I was saying. You’re much better off than I am and I figure, if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.”

Tube Driver’s grin widened. “Yep, and our job security is top.”

The way he said it was spiteful. Boastful jerk. Ticked off yet again, I stomped off to work wondering how on earth it is that I have four sets of letters after my name, yet struggle every month whilst a tube driver laughs all the way to the bank. Even Monsieur seems to think it’s a joke that tube drivers earn more than I do. Yep, I’m laughing. Oh yes, I’m laughing hard at that one. NOT.

So this morning I googled London Underground to see what I could expect to take home if I worked for them. Here’s a typical TFL benefits package:

• 30 days annual leave plus 8 days stats (That’s 9 more than my current entitlement. Oh, the travel possibilities with those extra days!)
• Self and nominee oystercard giving free travel on London Underground, buses, Docklands light railway, Trams (NB not contractual benefit) (that would save me somewhere between £1,032.00 and £2,720 per annum multiplied by 2 users)
• Private Medical insurance if over the threshold on payband one (that would save another £600.00 per annum)
• Discounted Eurostar travel (more beans saved, especially as Monsieur and I are high-end Eurostar users)
• TFL Pension fund – contributory, final salary scheme (5% employee, 15% employer contribution) (our firm does 5% and 5% and it is not a final salary scheme)
• 75% reimbursement 75% of an Annual Season Ticket for National Rail travel (which would make train travel affordable again instead of ridiculous)

And we mustn’t forget the 5% pay increase for FEWER hours that will soon be added to this list because the RMT always gets its way. Nor should we overlook the benefit of belonging to a highly effective union. I think I’ve just about convinced myself to send off an application to work for the TFL ‘cos in this climate, every penny counts and as I obviously can’t beat ‘em, I just might have to join ‘em.

When I was a wide-eyed early twenty-something, I moved from my hometown of Auckland to Sydney to work at a hotel in King’s Cross and no, it wasn’t offering ‘private client services’. At work, I made many wonderful friends, most of whom were gay because (a) the hotel industry is known for being a pink profession and (b) this particular hotel was located within a stone’s throw of the gay mecca that is Sydney’s Oxford Street.

My education there was manifold. The (male) switchboard manager knew more about face creams than I did and during Mardi Gras another manager offered me a ‘bonus’ of those little tablets that would make you see the good side of Ted Bundy, serial killer. I declined. Perhaps Obama is right when he says we need to regulate bonus structures.

One of my best friends from that time was a Japanese girl called Kay. If there was a gay man in the room with her, she was prone to fall in love with him. If the man was straight, she wasn’t interested. Kay was one of those girls who thought that her special breed of love could make  a gay man straight so, as she lived in the gay capital of Downunder and worked in a predominantly gay environment, she was in a near-constant state of heartbreak.

One day, Kay went shopping at a big weekend market down by Chinatown. There, she spied a rabbit in a cage and stopped to stroke it, thinking it was a pet. The Chinese stallholder was keen to make a sale, chatting away about rabbit preparation techniques. Realising that the caged fluffball was ‘fresh meat’ destined for someone’s dinner plate, Kay was horrified, quickly pressing a crush of dollars into the stallholder’s hand in a bid to save the rabbit’s life. And so, a bunny named Minnie went to live with Kay in an apartment overlooking Rushcutter’s Bay.

At work, Kay kept us all intrigued by her tales of house-training the rescue bunny and from her brightened eyes we could tell that this was one love for Kay that wouldn’t be returned to sender. Then, one day Kay (and Minnie) invited me over for lunch.

I already knew that Kay’s landlord had a no-pets policy, so we’d have to be discreet about Minnie’s existence, but hey, how much noise can a rabbit make? I wondered. As Kay prepared a delicious Japanese lunch in her tiny steam-filled kitchenette, I watched Minnie. At first, she lay full-length along the top of the sofa, looking at me hard with her stony little eyes. I wondered what she was thinking because she was definitely thinking something. It was as if she was trying to work me out in the same way as I was trying to get her measure. You have to realise that this was no ordinary bunny. To this day, I’m sure she didn’t like me.

A little later, Minnie moved, jumping down to the ground and across the pristine living room carpet to the bathroom. Then she jumped up onto the toilet seat.  

“Kay, I think we have a problem,”

I called through to the kitchen,

“Minnie’s on the toilet seat. Should I get her down?”

“Oh, no, don’t worry about that. She probably just needs to go.”

“To go?”

“Yes, you know. To go pee pee or something. Didn’t I tell you she was house-trained?”

“Well, yes,”

I replied,

“But I thought you meant house-trained like cats with kitty litter and stuff.”

Kay laughed at my lack of sophistication.

“No, no. Kitty litter stinks. This way is better because I can flush. More hygienic.”

Meanwhile, I’d watched open-mouthed as little black rabbit poo pellets fell straight from Minnie’s bottom into the bowl of the toilet. When she was done, she jumped back to the floor and headed for a patch of sun to bask as bunnies of leisure tend to do. Apparently.

Kay and I sat at her tiny table, chatting over our meal,  the rabbit dozing nearby. As we polished off the home-made red bean dumplings with some green tea, Kay suggested we go for a walk. With Minnie. Images of rabbits disappearing down holes, never to be seen again, flooded my head.

“Are you crazy?”

I said,

“She’ll get lost!”

“No, no, don’t worry about that,”

Kay reassured me,

“I’ll just put her on the lead.”

An already surreal afternoon was about to intensify as we smuggled Minnie out of the no-pets building and let her bounce along at our feet as we walked to Rushcutter’s Bay.

Minnie’s collar was regular enough. Kay had managed to find a little pink one with a bell – something you’d usually see on a cat. But she hadn’t yet located a store with little pink leads, so Minnie was currently tethered to her adoptive mother by a length of pink curling ribbon.

“Minnie’s a girl so she has to have pink.”

Kay explained. That’s when I thought I’d seen it all.

A couple of years later, I was living in London and there I received a letter from Kay. On opening the envelope, out dropped one of those photos with a printed greeting down the side. The photo was of Kay’s wonder bunny and the greeting said:

Dear Friend, I am sad to say that my daughter, Minnie has now passed away. Thank you for being a friend to her during her short life.

Oh, my sainted trousers, I’d just received a death notice for a rabbit! Now, that sort of thing doesn’t happen every day. Poor Kay was devastated. There would be no more bunny plops to flush in her loo and the little pink collar with the curling ribbon need was no longer required. On the other side of the world, I smiled as I remembered the day when I first met a toilet-trained rabbit and took it for a walk in the park.

RIP Minnie.

For the true grub-loving gastronome, the most fatal by-product of enjoying our food has to be weight gain. Monsieur and I are no different, loving our food as we do and engaged in a constant battle of taste versus calorific content. It was therefore serendipitous to catch a tweet from Quadrille Books, asking for bloggers to review Lighten Up by Jill Dupleix.

I admit that Dupleix’s name was relatively new to me, so for a girl with shelves plural devoted to cookbooks, I have had to ask myself why this is the first of Dupleix’s fourteen books to break into the Epicurienne fold. As I learn more about this seasoned kitchen whiz, I am astounded that her profile isn’t  better known in London. I thought it might just be me, so I asked some foodie friends about Dupleix. Apparently, it wasn’t just me. It would seem that unless you’re a regular reader of The Spectator or The Times food columns, you may just have missed this writer, much like I have, and that is what I’d call an absolute travesty of gastronomic proportions. Here’s why.

Dupleix’s website profile tells us that she was born on a sheep farm in Australia, growing up with ‘good, fresh, no-nonsense home cooking’. (This sentence alone makes me nostalgic for the freshness of unregulated Downunder produce). But, in spite of a growing passion for food, Dupleix didn’t enter the realm of the food writer until she’d done a spell of copywriting, encompassing such non-food-related topics as cars and fashion. Then something happened along the way and a passion for food, cookery and restaurants overtook all else. Dupleix  first took the mantle of Cookery Editor for the Sydney Morning Herald, later moving to London to do the same job for The Times. Nowadays, Dupleix contents herself with freelance food writing and cookbook work, which is a good thing indeed, especially for foodies whose nightmares involve a set of bathroom scales.

Bring on Lighten Up, the latest Dupleix offering, first released in 2007. From the moment I first flicked through this brightly-covered paperback, I was a fan. Then I read the introduction and became a total Jill Dupleix acolyte. Once I proceeded to test the recipes for myself, I started daydreaming about hanging out with Dupleix in her kitchen, making Chawan Mushi.

So what makes this book different from its rivals? For a start, the inspiration. Dupleix has created a more easygoing, lighter alternative to the heavier northern hemisphere diet, which sees altogether too many antipodeans expanding sideways once they’ve landed in the likes of North America or Europe. There is proven, personal inspiration also, in the form of Dupleix’s husband, Terry Durack, a restaurant critic who, through his self-professed love of long lunches, cultivated quite an impressive girth. With the help of Dupleix’s lighter approach to eating, he managed to lose an admirable 38 kilos. Now, with Lighten Up, we can all benefit from Dupleix’s tasty, healthy food and a few lost pounds to boot.

The book’s layout is so easy to follow that even a novice cook would find it difficult to make a hash of the recipes. The instructions are short and written in a brief, bullet point style, starting with the action required for each stage: SEAR, CUT, MIX, ADD, TOSS, TRIM, SERVE. The book is separated into sensible sections, such as Morning Food, Salad Food, Soupy Food, Spicy Food, Fast Food and Slow Food. These are interspersed with snack ideas using bananas, bread (yes, the Dupleix Way even bread-based snacks can be good for you!), Japanese ingredients like nori and miso, and perhaps not surprisingly, tofu. There’s a glossary of terms so you have no excuse for mistaking your tamari for tamarind, and if you’d like to know what kitchen accessories rate high on Dupleix’s list, you will find out in Lighten Up.

That’s the summary, but in practice, what are the recipes like? So far, so scrumptious. I’ve particularly enjoyed the ease of Fast Roast Fish with Anchovies, the Fresh Salmon burgers with dill pickles and watercress and Spring Onion Scallops served in their shells, which were so professionally tasty that friends might think you’d called in the caterers. Grilled Chicken with Salsa Verde has received exacting Monsieur’s seal of approval and I’m happily working my way through the little recipes in the Extras section. But what I particularly love about Lighten Up is that it’s time-friendly to the full-time working woman, allowing weight-loss to be quick in preparation with any sense of deprivation completely eliminated.

Still on food but with a whole different slant, here are some articles by Dupleix:

How I shrunk food critic Terry Durack, where Dupleix talks about transforming her husband from Mr Piggy into Mr Fit

Hollywood audiences must think we never eat, where Dupleix wonders why Great Australians are never seen eating on film

And if you want to try out some fantastic sweetcorn fritters, here’s a Dupleix recipe for you. Oh, boy, I’m actually making myself hungry now.

Lighten Up is certainly a worthwhile introduction to Dupleix, with the tantalising photography by Petrina Tinslay spurring me on to try more and more of the Lighten Up recipes. Next on my list will be Chicken Tortilla Soup with Avocado, Watermelon Carpaccio with feta cheese and kalamata olives and the Crab Salad with pumpernickel crisps. When I’m done with those I just might let have to pop along to Books for Cooks to pick up another of the thirteen Dupleix books I have yet to read. I have a funny feeling that Jill Dupleix will be popping up again on Epicurienne, so if you like her style, watch this space.

An embarrassing while ago, Andy Bargery of London Bloggers’ Meetup Group, tagged me in Blogtag. The aim of this is to learn more about our fellow meetup compatriots and to increase our communication as a group, both in and out of the ether.

Here’s how it goes:

I tag three people from the LBM, including a link to their site/s, writing a short intro to who they are and what they blog about. I tag my post with ‘LBM Blogtag’ and include a trackback to Andy’s original Blogtag  post so he can tell when all LBM members have been tagged.

Here’s what you do if you are tagged, by me or some other lovely member:

You write a post, tagging three more people from the LBM (see above instructions), preferably people who haven’t yet been tagged.

So, here are my LBM Blogtag victims of the day:

1. Own a Film Company – this site was set up by long-term LBM member who likes to remain anonymous, but most of you have probably met her by now. It’s great fun- see below for details.

2. TikiChris - a keen photographer and fellow food-lover, Chris is one of those people who’s friendly, interesting and always happy to see you. I love his daily London Photos – there’s always something new and unexpected from this photographer’s eye. TikiChris is a busy lad, with his own blog, gigs with Qype and Londonist and other freelance activities to keep him bobbing up just about everywhere. He also has a thing for cupcakes and whisky, making him one of my kinda people.

3. PlummetOnions  and Timinator- these are blogs written by a certain Canadian ex-pat called Tim, who just so happens to be the first LBM member I met after Andy. This warrants him a special mention in Blogtag. Like Tikichris, Tim is another keen Qype Ninja with thousands of reviews under his belt. On his blogs, he muses about London’s live music scene and what life in London is like for someone who left real maple syrup and mounties behind for a local siren.  

If you’re into reading about quantum physics, the dangers of libel in medicine mixed together with Musical Migrants and Michael Jackson, then Plummet Onions is certainly for you. If, however, you prefer languid afternoons spent eating on Parisian rooftops, barbecues and gastropubs in darkest Berkshire, mixed in with zombie dressing at Shaun of the Dead showings, then try Timinator. You may, of course, like to read both.

There are many other people whom I’d love to mention here, but I must stick to Andy’s rules and stop now. Besides, at the rate of three by three, we should make it through the ranks pretty soon. That is, as long as everyone isn’t as slow as I was to respond. Shame on me. (Sorry, Andy! I was on hols. Honest injun.)

Just in case you’re interested after surfing the above links, here’s what Andy wrote about moi.

Epicurienne probably needs very little introduction to regular LBM’ers. She often pops down to our monthly socials and more importantly she frequently wins a prize. It started with a trip to Amsterdam for the Blog08 event, but then she went on to win a trip in the Stella Artois airship and more recently a T-Shirt from the Fashion Targets Breast Cancer folks. I have to say, the second I pulled Epicurienne’s name out of the hat for the T-Shirt I just couldn’t believe my eyes, how could she win again! The suggestion from her brother that there might be something going on probably expresses the shock in more clarity – just to clarify, there isn’t anything going on.. : – ). Well, there probably couldn’t be a nicer winner, so it seems fair play to me.

Epicirienne’s blog is actually a pretty entertaining read. It’s generally about life, travel , food, fashion and all sorts to be honest. But really, cold spaghetti, that truly is a “Snack of Shame”!