My trip starts off with a large deep-fried rice ball that I look forward to stuff into my mouth every August.  Every year we drive down to Sicily from Rome and there is a short ferry wide between the main land to this little island.  This ferry offers one of the most local food options in Italy, its 'Aranicino', the famous rice ball, is the size of a big pomelo and probably too big for a 160cm petite Asian girl like me.  The thin batter outside is deep fried to golden, when you take a bite, your teeth cuts through a pillow of soft rice until it reaches the center- a typical Italian flavour of tomato sauce, bit of meat and melted mozzarella cheese.

Many travellers to Italy would probably have come aross this specialty Arancino before, but this one on the ferry, is the very best.  If you get a chance to travel cross-country in Italy, be sure to spare 2 euros on the ferry for this oh-so-delicious rice ball.  It is also filling enough to replace two meals.

Wine tasting (drinking!) is always one of the highlights of my Italian trips, we drink wine EVERY dinner and sometimes also lunch.  My father-in-law loves wine, and he got ultra excited when he found out I work in the wine industry- throughout the year he saves up all the good bottles and we pop them open when we are altogether.

Apart from many home meals with family, relatives and friends, I also do many wine related activities in Sicily.  One of my favorite grapes, Nero d'Avola, originates from Sicily and it is available everywhere on the island at very good prices.  On the 'Night of the Stars' we went to a wine tasting event in Marzamemi.  It cost 5EUR to 'buy' a wine glass which allowed me to get wines poured freely all night long.  My in-laws had plans after so they did not get glasses, so the 4 of us shared 2 glasses.  Surprise surprise, nobody cared!  The reason for that was because this so-called wine tasting was in fact a huge party where everyone got absolutely drunk and people DID want their own glass to get the maximum they could get within a short time.  It was unlike any wine tasting in Hong Kong where people are often more preoccupied with the nose and the palate before they split everything, then talk obsessively about what they had just spit (OK I do that too).  Sometimes it is good to just relax and have a good time.

Half way through the event I got started talking to the chairman of the Sicily Sommelier Association, the only person who spoke English in the whole place, and he happily saved us all his recommendations.  We drank for a couple of hours non-stop and finished up with an amazing sweet wine, Passito, and danced the night away with a bunch of strangers next to the live band.  We topped our night by marching into a delicacy store and ate all their food samples- different kinds of olive paste, anchovies, mixed tuna and nuts paste and many other tasty things.  I did not dare to look at the shopkeeper, but I am sure he would forgive this poor Chinese tourist!

This was the kind of night I would picture as the Mediterranean lifestyle, and I can proudly say I lived up to it.