Mediterranean Breeze Quotes

in English and Arabic. Clearly, even personal shoppers had him pegged as a complete geek. The shopper also managed to find some supplies for our magic bags—blocks of wax, twine, even some papyrus and ink—though I doubt Bes explained to her what they were for. After she left, Bes, Carter and I ordered more food from room service. We sat on the deck and watched the afternoon go by. The breeze from the Mediterranean was cool and pleasant. Modern Alexandria stretched out to our left—an odd mix of gleaming high-rises, shabby, crumbling buildings, and ancient ruins. The shoreline highway was dotted with palm trees and crowded with every sort of vehicle from BMWs to donkeys. From our penthouse suite, it all seemed a bit unreal—the raw energy of the city, the bustle and congestion below —while we sat on our veranda in the sky eating fresh fruit and the last melting bits of Lenin’s head.

It was around six in the evening, and light the colour of opal, pierced by the golden rays of the autumn sun, spread over a bluish sea. The heat of the day had gradually expired and one was starting to feel that light breeze which seems like the breath of nature awaking after the burning midday siesta: that delicious breath that cools the Mediterranean coast and carries the scent of trees from shore to shore, mingled with the acrid scent of the sea. Over the huge lake that extends from Gibraltar to the Dardanelles and from Tunis to Venice, a light yacht, cleanly and elegantly shaped, was slipping through the first mists of evening. Its movement was that of a swan opening its wings to the wind and appearing to glide across the water. At once swift and graceful, it advanced, leaving behind a phosphorescent wake. Bit by bit, the sun, whose last rays we were describing, fell below the western horizon; but, as though confirming the brilliant fantasies of mythology, its prying flames reappeared at the crest of every wave as if to reveal that the god of fire had just hidden his face in the bosom of Amphitrite, who tried in vain to hide her lover in the folds of her azure robe.

I wish I could bottle this moment. I want to remember the way it feels to be lying naked on top of Luc, the Mediterranean breeze kissing my back, the waves rocking us.

Taxonomically the bora and mistral are katabatic (downhill) winds, found anywhere that cold mountain air can make a steep escape to ground. Wind names in the Mediterranean derive largely from geography. Llevantade has roots in the Spanish verb llevar (to rise) and is one in a family of winds that originate from the east. Poniente means west in Spanish and denotes fair breezes that blow in off the Atlantic, funneling through the Strait of Gibraltar. The sirocco is drawn up from Africa, a gritty inhalation that grows wet and foggy on a diet of evaporated water as it makes its way north. Microparticles of airborne sand form nuclei for condensation, bringing tiny bits of the Sahara down with the rain onto Europe. The sirocco is called the arifi (thirsty) in Libya, and the jugo (south) in Croatia. I posit that we are experiencing the Mediterranean’s unnamed breeze, the nonwind. “Ah, yes,” she replies. “El sin viento.

So brisk! I can feel the fresh Mediterranean breeze... gently rustling the leaves of the lemon trees. I've had semifreddo desserts many times in my life. But this is unlike anything I've tasted before! And I know the taste of true Italian limoncello. Where on earth did this intense lemony flavor come from?! Is it that fourth layer? What is it?!" "That layer... ... is lemon curd." "Lemon curd?" "Lemon card?" "It isn't curd like curds of milk. It's a dessert spread made with citrus fruits." LEMON CURD A fruit spread originating in Britain, it was intended as an alternative to jams. Egg yolks, sugar, fruit juice and zest are mixed together with a blender and then cooked into a paste and chilled. A centuries-old, traditional dessert, there is even a royal version called Royal Curd. "That vibrant, citrusy tang of the curd has a fresh, refined aroma. Its smoothness combined with the satiny-soft Genoese cake melts in the mouth! What a light and downy texture. It touches the tongue like a feather! The grainy Biscuit Joconde could never be this soft!" "He turned it around! The Genoese cake was supposed to be a liability... but he turned it into an advantage by making it part of an elegant, mature taste experience!" "A British fruit spread, eh? And he put that together right on the spot?" "I'm shocked he had the ingredients." "Fruit curds don't need many ingredients. They use egg yolks, sugar, lemon juice, lemon zest... and butter." "Butter? I thought you barely had a scrap of butter left." "I substituted the butter with this." "Olive oil?!" "Oho! Is that even possible?" "He must certainly know all about it, having grown up in Italy!" "I handicapped myself by choosing Genoese for the sponge cake style. It doesn't have nearly the punch the almondy Biscuit Joconde has. So I turned to the citrusy flavor instead.

But Alexandria was different. Admittedly, it still had bodies and filth and piss. But, despite its size – perhaps half a million inhabitants – and despite being constructed with its buildings so close together that they seemed to stand almost ‘another on another’, Alexandria didn’t suffer from the stifling, stinking airs that made life in other cities so unbearable. Standing with its face to the Mediterranean and its back to a great lake topped up by the Nile, the air in Alexandria was always fresh, always moving. Sea breezes passed along its broad marble streets all summer long. As the geographer Strabo noted with admiration, ‘the healthiness of the air is also worthy of remark’, and, as a result of it, ‘the Alexandrians pass the summer most pleasantly.’6 Everyone considered the city to be a ‘fount of health’.7 There were smells here, too – but pleasant ones. You could smell the world in this single city since, every day, by camelback and horseback, by boat and by barge, from India and Arabia, Somalia and China, a world of spice and scent was brought into Alexandria, filling its air with perfume.8 Frankincense smouldered, constantly, on a thousand altars, and ‘censers, filled with spices, breathed out a divine smell.