Not-so-Sweet Solitude, and Lemon & Sage Sorbet

Not-so-Sweet Solitude, and Lemon and Sage Sorbet

Last week I ate my favourite sorbet I think ever. I was in Florence for a few days, alone for the first time in 3 years. I have been away on my own (so to speak) for work since my son was born, but I have never just travelled solo for the sake of it, which seems like the ultimate indulgence. Lorenzo is now off work for the long summer school holidays, and I had a fleeting few day’s window with no events or cooking classes (July is always eerily quiet. Too hot for tourists?). I booked a cheap day ferry with the car from Olbia to Livorno, invited myself to stay at my friend Peggy’s flat and that was it. I was free.

The Grimaldi ferry was the extraordinary mix of gloriousness and garishness that it always is. I loathe flying. I love the ferry.

Travelling by sea is majestic. I don’t care how many over-excited children, over-priced drinks, over air-conditioned lounges and underwhelming lasagnes it involves, it still fills me with unbridled joy to glide into a port with the huge horn honking, immense funnels smoking and a small coast-guard boat snapping at our heels like an excited terrier. We wave from the top of the ship at any human movement below. It waves back. The seagulls swoop and dive for tossed scraps of bread. The warm wind blows our hair in our faces. The sky, the ferry deck, the sea; all are singular but equally painful shades of blue. You just don’t get this shit on Ryanair.  

After nearly suffocating in the belly of the boat to get the car out (an hour and a half later than predicted. I still love ferries.) I drove the short journey to central Florence, where I was installed in an underground carpark below Peggy’s top floor flat. Hauling my modest luggage up 5 stories of narrow, hot, airless, stone staircase, I arrived. Her flat was expectedly charming and unexpectedly central (she has been there for 21 years, and her landlord is kind). My green-doored attic room, which was reached by more stone steps and opened with a Medieval-looking key, had windows rather than walls, three large double ones on all sides except the door with the wall. The windows looked over the tiled roof-tops of Florence and were hung with white curtains which billowed in the breeze. In the pale blue evening sky pigeons cooed, swallows wheeled. A million precarious satellite ariels swayed. The room had a tiny sink in the corner that looked like something you might find in an ancient urinal/vestry; a soft, low bed, and an old wooden desk. Nothing else. Here I could write books, I thought, before going downstairs and being fed another slab of lasagne (with wild boar ragu, delicious) which Peggy had got to take away from the trattoria round the corner. I drank saffron gin and tonic (a new favourite thing, try it) and looked out at the view. Then it began to rain, heavily and suddenly, and the sky flashed with lightning. It seemed a fittingly dramatic arrival.

The next few days were a haze of heat, antiques browsing, blisters and butter. We went to the market, ate steak with an illegal amount of caper butter at Cibreo, and I collected cards from every flea market and antiques dealer in the vicinity, kidding myself that I could get things sent over to furnish the bed and breakfast (agriturismo? Guest house? Cooking school?), or failing that, drive a borrowed van over on the boat and fill it up with old linens and bric-a-brac from the flea market. I like to scheme ludicrous plans like these. There are no flea markets here in Sardinia. And I really like old things. They make me feel at home.

Anyway, I did no sight-seeing because I am not actually very good at it, and I decided I’d come back with the boys and do it properly next time. This time I just wandered round, soaked it all up, soaked in sweat and with throbbing feet, and met up with my very distant family who have lived over the river forever and who it’s fun to talk family failings/failures with. We had an averagely eccentric evening with their friend (an Irish landscape painter and cheerful alcoholic called Tom), another distant cousin Marik (a hip sound engineer from Brooklyn) and Maria (Greek architect, also a distant cousin) where the only things to eat all evening were paprika Pringles, Ryvita and supermarket brie (but there was more than a bottle of wine a head, you’ve got to love Bohemians/alcoholics). On my last day, Maria took me to eat this sorbet, which being Greek (and thus possessed of a perfect palate, as far as I am concerned) she highly recommended. Of course, I was in love.

On the last morning, I watched a pair of pigeons building their nest at eye height, in the eaves of the palazzo in front. The male flew back and forth frantically collecting twigs, and the female inserted them busily with her beak into the nest she sat in, plump and complacent. The pair had used the convenient anti-pigeon spikes on the gutter as scaffolding to prop up their new home. I smiled at the irony. I missed my family. 

The three days flew by, and I did like being on my own, of course, eating and doing exactly what I wanted, when I wanted, without constantly catering for everyone else’s needs.  But there is no denying, becoming a family (awful phrase, sorry) changes you, without you even really realising it. On the ferry home, having learnt my lesson about the ferocious air conditioning in the lounge, I borrowed a bikini from Peggy and spent the day on the rooftop by the small ferry pool, surrounded by squealing toddlers. Instead of glaring at them, I thought wistfully of my own squealing Saint at home, and wished he was with me. Having spent three long years dreaming of getting away, it only took three short days to start longing to be back. Or at least to be here, but with him here too. That’s the thing about love. It’s like a painting. So often you have to stand back to really see it.

I had to admit, solo travel is not so sweet as it once was. Luckily, this sorbet is.  

Lemon and Sage Sorbet

This is the most refreshing and delicious thing I have eaten in a long time. It makes sense that sage, a member of the mint family, would go well with lemon. Mint and lemon, after all, form one of the happiest and freshest of marriages. And we know from stuffings that sage and lemon work in a savoury context. Sage, like so many other herbs, works wonderfully with fruit, too. Its musky, citrus-sharp fragrance is perfect with blackberries, pears, plums and here is matched perfectly with the bright, clean flavour of lemon. 

 Makes around 6 servings

150ml of lemon juice and the peeled zest of one or two of these lemons  

250g sugar

120ml water

7 or 8 leaves of fresh sage

Peel the lemons (using a simple vegetable peeler) and then squeeze the juice.

In a small saucepan heat the water and sugar, swirling to stir and allow to simmer until it feels like Vaseline between the tips of your fingers (don’t burn your fingers doing this!). set aside.

Whilst still hot, mix the syrup with the lemon juice and the sage leaves and strips of lemon zest and blitz well, with a hand blender or in a blender. Sieve and churn in an ice cream maker. Eat immediately (freshly churned is best) or decant into a lidded tub, then remove from the freezer and leave in the fridge at least 20 mins before you want to serve it.

Sage is one of my favourite herbs and one of the most underrated.