By way of establshing some sort of bona fides on the matter, I've eaten my way through France, most of Europe, Mexico, the North American continent, Asia and the antipodes and can safely report:
My goodness, this lady can cook!
Sicilian cooking likes strong tastes and uses a lot of sea salt. This latter doesn't particularly agree with me but the other essential ingredient - the olive oil - does and is vital to the success of many dishes, particularly the homemade breads.
Welshcakes does not just produce bread - she produces breads of varying textures and styles, each strictly according to recipe. Whereas you or I might slap in this or slosh in that, our Sicilian chef here measures precisely, times equally precisely and allows pots of comestibles to slow cook or stand as the case may be.
This allows for inventive touches, of course and many is the time that a dab of honey or the use of oranges has added that extra little something to the dish of the moment. If Welshcakes could be called "wicked", it is at these times when she adds the unexpected to the mix with a wry smile.
There is no rushing of any kind allowed. After one particular lunch, Welshcakes opined that she'd have to get a rope to tie me down to the table at lunchtime. You see, I'm one of those eat and run types - most certainly not the done thing in Sicily.
Having said that, I do like the things she just "whips up", such as the chicken and artichoke salad on a bed of greenery last evening. If we need a snack, she might take some prosciutto and greenery and wrap it round grissini or breadsticks.
This evening we are invited into the countryside and will experience Sicilian pizza of a different variety. Though looking forward to this, I am more than happy to stay home and eat what the lady here produces in her ever-planning mind. Wish I had a euro for every time we sit down with a glass of fruit juice and she has the pad out, thoughtfully thinking out which ingredients need to be bought the next day.
Incidentally, I'm not a total drone. As kitchen hand and scullery maid, I'm sometimes brought into the process and have even been known to chop a few vegetables on occasions, on the road to some new culinary masterpiece emerging from the oven two hours later.
Nigella eat your heart out. [Well actually, best to delete that last sentence.] Next report - the hairdresser, the cosmetician and the sheer elegance of Welshcakes' Italian dress style.