It was last Monday that I resolved to start a new diet as one does on a Monday, after the indulgences of the weekend.  Hope springs eternal. I have no idea if this diet has a name. But I saw the name of Johns Hopkins University as backdrop to the speaker and that was good enough for me. I came across it on a TED talk someone uploaded on Facebook. Well, the gist of it is that twice a week you consume just 500 calories while eating 'normally' on the other days. It sounded good. Doable. One of my daughters, ever sceptical about my plans to lose weight, pointed out that a chocolate bar alone which I tend to consume in five minutes flat, is about 300 calories. Yes, but there weren't going to be any chocolate bars or packets of biscuits, or patisserie from the French shop on those two days. "You will not last more than a week," she said with the same hopeless resignation that Robinson Crusoe felt as he watched ships passing across the horizon knowing that it was as useless to make signals as to feel envy.   

                                Well, resolve came to an end soon enough, as daughter No 2 had predicted when Charlene Le Gall, Marketing Manager for Intercontinental invited me to lunch a deux at the Paranga restaurant which has its feet in the shimmering Mediterranean and where one can watch the sea and sky meeting in eternal friendship. I said yes, with alacrity. Love the place in summer, the combination of sea meeting sky, the teak floor, napped white and purple tables and the lovely staff are a great attraction.

Charlene, who is French, has been here for ten years. She is soon to be married to a Maltese which is proof enough that she loves Malta.  Her father is a military man and the family has lived in many countries including Senegal. So once we settled down we were exchanging notes about our experiences of countries in Africa we had visited - or indeed lived in - and how they have changed over the years, for the worse. The primitivness which was so refreshing and alluring is gone forever. Charlene likes Malta, she told me, also because it is still a safe place to live and bring up a family.

I was soon offered a glass of Prosecco but had decided I was not going to have any alcohol that lunchtime. I had had a friend to lunch the day before and as we caught up with our lives we consumed quite a bit of vino tinto. It was now abstinence for a couple of days. So I had a look at the menu based on Italian and Sicilian flavours with shellfish and fresh fish brought in daily by local fisherman. With more than a little help from Charlene we decided on the starter and the main course. This was supposed to be my 500 calories day but I decided to postpone it to the morrow. I was not going to sit there and count calories.  I settled for the black meager (gurbell in Maltese) and salmon carpaccio, baby cucumber, radish and red vinegar gel. By now I had tried hard to resist the bread basket but for how long once I removed the napkin and saw the different rolls and discovered they were still warm. So, I helped myself to a roll covered in poppyseed. I noticed that although Charlene did put a roll on her plate she only consumed half of it.  That is why the Maltese are fat and French women are generally slim. They have discipline. Anyway my starter was exquisite. Everything was paper thin and looked like a modern painting. So far I had no reason to be repentant although I was not calorie counting.

Soon, there was chic on a table nearby. And who was it you may well ask. Well no other than Kevin De Cesare who was making a video of all he surveyed most of which belonged to his family, including the very well patronized private sandy beach below.  What vison this family have! Charlene told me that in the evening loungers and umbrellas are removed and tables set by the light of the silvery moon so that patrons can dine there with their feet in the Mediterrean which for centuries has nourished us and inspired our unique civilization.  It seems, as they say in marketing, that the De Cesare's have identified a 'niche'. In how many places in the world can you dine with your feet in the water?

I wanted something different for main course. Since fish oil is said to keep our joints going and helps to prevent heart disease fish it had to be. (My daughters: "All very well eating fish and cod liver oil capsules but what is the use if you then consume pastizzi,  hobs biz-zejt, Bresse Blu and Dolcelatte? Don't you see the irony of it Ma?") They are right I know. The promise of trumpets awakening the dead and a Last Judgement by no means make me want to leave this life in too much of a hurry. Even the most devout hang on to dear life. I had to review my eating habits once and for all.

Charlene told me they smoke the sea bass in their own kitchen and it was worth a try. The Chef de cuisine is Claudio Farrugia who told me that his father has a pastizzeria in Zurrieq where Claudio worked until he decided he want to cook something other than pastizzi and followed various course.

So the sea bass arrived with a soupçon of butternut squash, crispy onions, dried cherry tomatoes and just enough greens. We opted for steamed vegetables and no potatoes. No, I was not going to order frites no matter how impeccable. It was a perfect dish. I had never had smoked sea bass before and it made a change from the way it is usually prepared.

Should we have dessert, we agonized? I could see it in Charlene's eyes. No, she had to get into a wedding dress soon and had no intention of consuming more calories. I read the dessert menu: soufflé al cioccolato bianco; crème brülée al pistachio; tartelletta di arachidi, tiramisu and others. My mouth was watering. I mean why an incompete meal? So I suggested the crème brülée al pistachio to be shared. Charlene ordered it but only had a couple of teaspoons of this delicious dessert. What is more Italian/Sicilian than pine nuts?

The delightful surprise of the day was meeting Andrea Depasquale Schranz who has been working at the Intercontinental as Operations Manager for all of the hotel's beach facilities and outlets for some four years. I had known him in the days when we were both much younger, he in his 20s when he worked for the San Giuliano restaurant. He appeared from nowhere as someone had told him I was there. Always a delightful and competent young man.

The restaurant is bustling, friendly and informal. I am not going to give you a long list of adjectives about the staff - impeccable - and menu - creative. Lunch at the Paranga is an experience you should not miss.  I loved it and shall go again and take a couple of friends rather than slave over a hot stove. Thank you Charlene, such a pro and so pretty to boot.

By now I was ready to hum an aria from Carmen or indeed Piaf but my voice is not even fit for a solo in the bath.