Go Media Christmas Lunch

Any invitation to Palazzo Parisio is always highly anticipated. It is the epitome of taste and elegance, very much like its owners under whose careful gaze it continues to flourish.  I always love popping into the boutique at the entrance even if I rarely purchase anything. It is full of items one does not see anywhere else in Malta and at present there is a whole vetrina full of  à la mode de Chanel costume jewellery of a very high quality. I noticed the last time I visited, before the GO Christmas lunch in fact, that big earrings are back in fashion again. So I must bring mine out from hiding and give them an airing.

The Palazzo’s gorgeous ballroom was transformed into a dining room, as many times before, for the GO lunch, with tables all napped in white damask and lovely flower arrangements. This is certainly not a dining room for capitalism in crisis. Upon entering your spirits lift immediately. No sign of Graham Green despair here or François Mauriac’s tortured and often morose characters – I write this though I love their novels and Mauriac’s Mémoires Intérieurs to bits and for years I read little else but Mauriac.  How come he understands women so well? This has always intrigued me. He was no womanizer and a practicing Catholic.

In his Thérèse Desqueyroux he shows little sympathy for girls from my old school: “But she felt she must be able to say to the young pupil of the Sacred Heart: ‘I can be as pure as you without all those good-conduct ribbons and all the hackneyed vocabulary of virtue…’ Anne de la Trave was pure mainly because she was ignorant. The Ladies of the Sacred Heart hung a thousand veils between their little charges and reality. Thérèse despised them for confounding virtue with ignorance.” This is a fair observation even if those days are now over, perhaps regrettably.

Mauriac must have been familiar with the Hôtel Biron which was once the Convent of the Sacred Heart in Paris and now the Musée Rodin. Whenever I visit this so accessible museum with its extensive gardens I cannot help wondering what the nuns who lived there with their virtuous pupils would think if they saw Rodin’s sculptures which it houses these days. Or the unfortunate but talented Camille Claudel’s work.

But back to lunch. Thank goodness no rustic chic or menus chalked up on a board, often in illegible handwriting can be found at Palazzo Parisio.  I landed on an interesting table too, with my good friend Sandra Aquilina, editor of The Circle, sitting next to me and one of my two favourite newscasters on PBS, Keith Demicoli present (the other is Joe Debono) - both professionals and good looking to boot, they being the only reason I tolerate the biased PBS in my living room.    

The new CEO who replaced David Kay in September, Yiannos Michaelides, a Cypriot, said a few words in the Sala Lombarda and so to lunch and some animated talk. The meal was delicious, as it invariably is at the Palazzo and the company enjoyable. The Pumpkin risotto – cooked to perfection, was served with Amaretti crumble then there was the Slow Roast Pork Fillet followed by Torta Mimosa.

I keep on wondering how I am ever going to shed the extra kilos already gained during ten days of receptions, lunches and dinners and various delicacies produced by members of the family.  And there is still over a week to go before Christmas, and therefore more eating.

Moreover, I have discovered a Tartinade chez Philippe Martinet in Tower Road who is now selling more than wine. This is a delicious concoction of a fine orange marmalade and on top of it a layer of chocolate. I have already consumed two jars and glad I have no idea how many calories just one spoonful has attached to it. I also found jars of rouille chez Philippe M’s which I would normally have to persuade friends and family to bring  back for me from abroad since I have never had the courage to  make it myself.

How many miles am I going to have to walk to get back to a tight size 16? Best not think about it.

But delle stelle alle stalle, as the Italians say. After Palazzo Parisio, Dana, Sandra and myself decided to go to the tea place next door for a longer and more intimate chat and so, for tea and coffee served in the traditional glass. I have to report that the taste was excellent although we almost became a curiosity sitting outside in the warm sunshine with largely workmen sitting at the other tables.

Festa Italiana concert

What is there left to say about this yearly concert, the baby of Chev. Dott. Tonio Portughese? It has lost nothing of its popularity over the years, on the contrary. There wasn’t a seat to be had at the Manoel Theatre that evening. We still love Neapolitan songs, selections from operetta and opera especially those of us of a certain age. It really was a huge success. The  audience joined in with the singers several times especially in the final encores from the popular operettas The White Horse Inn, Cin Ci La', La Principessa della Czarda and The Merry Widow reaching the climax with the unannounced classical and much loved Italian songs Tango delle Capinere, La Spagnola and Vivere.

These concerts are a ‘hobby’ more than anything else for Dott. Portughese.. His full time work takes place at ST Microelectronics where  he is company director.  He is an author too and has received several decorations from both the Italian and Malta governments and is chairman of several organizations. How does he do it all?

Tonio and his wife Marlene were guests of La Scala Opera House and they left for Milan soon after the concert.

I’m still humming some of the tunes especially those which remind me of my mother. My father never sang. He recited the rosary instead.