Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons

'Sicily struck me then as the most fascinating place I had ever visited. I didn't change that opinion over the intervening years, no matter where I travelled. I meant to go back. Time and again I made plans. Time and again I was thwarted.'At the age of twenty-six Matthew Fort first visited the island of Sicily. He and his brother arrived in 1973 expecting sun, sea and good food, but they were totally unprepared for the lifelong effect of this most extraordinary of islands. Thirty years later, older and a bit wiser - but no less greedy - Matthew finally returns. Travelling round the island on his scooter, Monica, he samples exquisite antipasti in rundown villages, delicate pastries in towns that clung to the edge of vertical hillsides, and goes fishing for anchovies beneath a star-scattered sky. Once again this enigmatic island casts its spell, and Matthew rediscovers its beauty, the intensity of its flavours, and finds himself digging into the darkness of Sicily's past as well as some mysteries of his own.

About the Author

Matthew Fort has worked on the food pages of the Guardian for more than ten years. He also writes for the Observer, Esquire, Country Living, Decanter and Waitrose Food Illustrated and appears as a judge on BBC2's Great British Menu. He won Glenfiddich Food Writer of the Year in 1992, and both Glenfiddich Restaurant Writer of the Year and The Restaurateurs' Association Food Writer of the Year in 1993. One of Matthew's greatest passions is Italy, which he visits every year. Sweet Honey, Bitter Lemons is his fifth book.

Prizes

Matthew Fort travels to the island that has haunted him for thirty years, in this sensuously written travelogue around Sicily