The Susanne

1. Cozze alla Mar­in­ara. The best thing I’ve ever tasted, with such per­fectly bal­anced, intense fla­vours and the broth was per­fect: just light and deli­cious yet filling at the same time. My mouth threw a party at every bite of mussel and every sip of broth.

2. Fruit trucks. I bought a kilo of the famous Sicilian Bronte pistac­chios and some amaz­ing, tiny little pears from this truck. It all tasted divine. Some of the pistac­chios even made it back to Norway with me. Yey!

3. Gam­boli fritti. Sea­food is of course the greatest part of Sicilian cuisine, so no wonder I man­aged to eat fried squid sev­eral times in sev­eral res­taur­ants. With sev­eral levels of deli­cious­ness, O’Neils in Recanati having by far the best.

4. Gran­ita. It’s like a slushie, only made with real fruit and much, much, much better tast­ing. I ima­gine it might be the inspir­a­tion for slushies…

5. Prima piatti. First course. I love how they have four course din­ners that last hours. Of course I could barely fit one course in me, but I still tried out the dif­fer­ent courses and loved them. I’d love to eat like that at home. If only I could afford it, I def­in­itely would. I’d just eat teeny tiny por­tions so I’d have room for everything!

6. Risotto alla mar­in­ara. This was very much like paella and not like any risotto I’ve ever tasted. First of all, the rice didn’t stick together like a gooey mass and it didn’t taste gooey either! It tasted deli­cious, the sea­food was cooked to per­fec­tion and the rice as well. Every rice grain sep­ar­ate and deli­cious in its sep­ar­ate­ness. Yum! If only I knew how to achieve such great res­ults at home…

7. Tiram­isu. This is my favour­ite dessert and although I really can’t eat it without becom­ing ill, I dared the haz­ards and ate half of this huge block of home made tiram­isu. It tasted heav­enly. A little strong, espe­cially as I was feel­ing des­per­ately hung over after our only night out the night before. But like I said, I love tiramisu!

8. The market: fish! We got to the market when it closed having spent all day look­ing for it in the strange city that is Catania and where no one speaks Eng­lish. So I only man­aged to snap a few photos whils run­ning through it as the Sister was sickened by the com­bin­a­tion of oppress­ing heat and the smell of fish, guts and meat… I’d love to shop here though. Pick up some loveøy fresh fish and cook it up in the even­ing when the weather begins to cool, per­haps after a refresh­ing even­ing bath…

9. The market: veget­ables. It must be the lack of fresh food public mar­kets in Norway, but I am crav­ing the chance to stroll along in the midst of a bust­ling market pick­ing out the fresh food I want for dinner…

10. The market: meat. Notice the almost whole carcases?