Isidora (Dora)
Born: Giarre, 1953
Mother Tongue: Italian
Grandchildren: Laura and Sofia
What they call her: Nonna
I lived with my grandmother from the age of three months. When I was 8 my mum emigrated to Australia to work at a restaurant opened by my uncle. There was no money to be made in Sicily at that time and many people left Sicily for America, Australia or Germany. My mother didn't return to Giarre until I was 17.
I had a sister but she is dead now. We were divided when we were little because she was younger and so she went with my mother to Australia. We became closer when we got married.
I am good at cooking because of my grandmother. She cooked with passion. It was effortless. I remember the smell of her making bread and her making Pan di Spagna. Everything was homemade.
After school girls in Sicily went to study stitching in a religious institute, which is what I did. Then I fell in love with my husband at 16 and we were married by 17. I liked him because he was funny and kind. Next year you must come back because we will celebrate 50 years of marriage! It's important to have a lot of patience in marriage. But mainly love. Love is very powerful. After some years it changes to a friendlier love - the same strength but with a different face.
When my mother came back to Sicily she opened a casual restaurant and I went to work with her. We made arancini, pasta al forno, rotisserie chicken...it was the first restaurant like this in Giarre. My mother was a business woman, she was very clever and hard working, while my father was more laid back.
My husband eats everything but is very particular about the quality of his food. He loves my classic sicilian sugo in the winter. First I cook big pieces of veal. After it's cooked I add pork, chopped up sausages and meatballs. It cooks for at least three hours with tomato sauce. The special ingredient is my homemade Vino Cotto - cooked wine - which has a very particular, rich flavour. It's made by boiling muscat wine with grape vine ash, which is then sieved reduced down again into a thick syrup. I learnt this from my grandmother. Four litres of red wine boils down to about one litre of vino cotto.
My grandmother was a remarkable woman. 15 days after her youngest child was born, my grandfather died, so she was left alone with 6 children. First thing she did was sell all the bedsheets. When couples marry in Sicily it's traditional that the family prepare the 'corredo' or 'kit' for them - towels, pillows, sheets and things. After she sold her own, she started buying and selling more and more and turned it into a business. She did lots of research to find the best suppliers and embroiderers.
After this business, she opened a little supermarket. But one year business went very bad. There were lots of customers buying on credit and they couldn't pay it back that year so she had to close the shop. This is when my mum went to Australia.
My mother's restaurant in Giarre was a great success. I worked there with her until I was about 35. But in that time more and more restaurants like this opened and in the end my mother decided to stop. So I started catering, from my own house. All Sicilian food - it's all I know.
I left Sicily for the first time last year to go to London and cook for journalists so they could have a taste of the villa. It was very loud and very cold. But we had fun. I didn't have all the equipment I was used to - like a meat slicer. But they found one for me.
Coming to cook at an international villa here was a big challenge. I knew sicilian recipes deeply but when I came to the villa I was a bit scared. I didn't think very much of myself. But the owners saw my talent and helped me add elegant touches to my sicilian dishes.
I find it funny when I see chefs weighing out ingredients. I don't use recipes. I just know what ingredients work together, use my hands or eye to add them, and then I taste until I know it's right.
