News | Sunday, 01 February 2009

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First Ladies

If most of the writers at Grazia can get girl crushes, I don’t see why I should not be allowed to develop one myself. Girl on girl action these days has a whole new meaning - rather than inviting men to look on, the stuff we love elbows them out very efficiently.
We are obsessed with the kind of things men are absolutely not interested in: Dior make-up, Chanel 2.55’s, Louboutin shoes (the feathered ones! OMG!), Selfridges’ sales, champagne, Juicy Couture, who does the best Botox shots, who can take the extra skin out of your face without anybody else noticing a thing, who gives the best facials, manicures and pedicures (all different people, which involves much driving), which is the bag to be toting around. The list is endless.
Our heroine is Michelle Obama: she is not just the President’s right hand - she’s there, side by side, a full-fledged, Ivy-League graduate with a life of her own, but who also loves clothes and doesn’t feel she has to fit into the musty stereotypical expectations of ‘first lady’. She doesn’t try to take over her husband either. Instead, she recreates that role all over as if it never existed, in a very natural, very un-stuffy way.
Which is why I can see myself fully justified in wanting Marlene Mizzi to be my New Best Friend. She fits all the bills, then tops them. Apart from being so utterly gorgeous that I cannot, nay dare not, try and guess her age (older than me because of her daughter’s age, but not, appearance-wise, much), she is well-read, extremely well-travelled, well-fed, and hey, she’s a fabulous business woman to boot.
In fact, this last accolade is superbly important. As far as I’m concerned, a girl crush could never be directed towards an air-head or a WAG - the object should be able to switch quickly and effortlessly between Balenciaga coats, the bankers to the Queen of England, the state of the Sterling, and yes, those Miu Miu gold sandals. I understand Marlene Mizzi has officially announced her MEP candidacy; I will most definitely vote for her (regardless of the party) if only to keep out some of the male power and money-hungry idiots she’ll be up against vote-wise.
Most of all, you know that the object of a girl crush should absolutely not base her entire life on what men think of her. If she’s demure and non-threatening, then that’s only by the by. If she looks like a ball-breaker, then we can identify. Last week I found myself sitting at a table full of these kinds of women: Marlene herself, the lovely and wonderful Maria Bugeja, who directs St. James Hospitals, the stunning Dorianne Bondin, who models and manages the Transforma clinics, Caroline and Marisa, company director and salesperson extraordinaire, and right next to me, the be-bunned hack Marie Benoit, for whom I reserve a spot so soft that it’s almost liquid.
Our conversation across the table was, especially in comparison to these kinds of do’s, anything but small talk. What differentiates people like us from people like them is that we are all women’s women rather than fag hags, even if most of us come with a Gay Best Friend. And we do not compete on shoes and dresses - we compare them. Although in the case of Marie, that would be bedroom slippers and comfy fleeces. Preferably Chanel of course.
We were at the launch of the Le Spa and it was a fabulous bash, with champagne cocktails to kick off with and an unexpectedly amazing dinner at The Arches later. Malta is not exactly teeming with do’s of this quality and maybe that’s a good thing: like this, we can never take it for granted that the ‘red’ at the table will be a St. Emilion, as it was here.
My Book Publisher called it the ‘face lift party’. ‘You have no idea what you’re talking about,’ I told him. ‘In fact, you’re just jealous because you weren’t there’. If MBP wants another cross-section of Maltese society, then I suggest he hot-hoofs it to Da Nino in Gharghur. He will not find any of the Arches’ stretch hags there. And after our first visit, he will certainly not find me.
I have no idea how some restaurants take on this ‘fully-booked’ notoriety or what happens to catapult them there. This one is like Ta’ Soldi’s ugly younger sister: smaller, newer, attracting exactly the same kind of people (who, possibly, found the earlier one full), and, on a Saturday night and much to my amazement, and wry amusement, packed.
‘Why are people here?’ TW asked me while taking a glimpse at the menu, stuffed with shrimp cocktail, pasta, pizzas, fiorentina and bergers bic-cips. ‘I’ll tell you why,’ I replied, ‘It’s the only similar thing in the area. This, my dear, ever suffering husband, is the neighbourhood restaurant’. I used the term ‘neighbourhood’ as loosely as an old woman’s pant elastic: I can see them hurtling down from Gharghur, but I sure as hell can’t see them tottering up from Madliena.
I have been called a bitch for many reasons, and commenting on the patrons of a restaurant is one of them. I am unrepentant. When we eat out, we want to do it in the ‘company’ of people we either aspire to be, or are already. That makes all of us bitches.
There were mother and son combos, despondently on a no-conversation night. The couples - few, but present - held their cutlery like weapons, the girls struggling with top knots and gelled curls wielding their forks at the tines and munching open-mouthed, the guys cutting their steak using their knife with their left hand then abandoning it completely and using just their fork because they can’t combine both.
Groups were loud and family-based. The dads spent excruciating minutes pulling their food out of their teeth with their tongue when they’re done with the fillit bic-cips. The mums - the kind who give birth to daughters called Xarona-Marie-Ebigejl who will grow up to wear heels and make-up at ten years of age - faked loud joy across the table and flicked their blowdrajn. They hollered ‘Parmiggian x’inhu?!’
Da Nino proposes itself as a Sicilian eatery. Neither of the terms is correct as far as I could see. Surprisingly, it smells, and not of anything appetising. The menu is so littered with spelling mistakes I had to take photos. You know it’s as far from ‘genuine’ or ‘authentic’ as it can ever be when you glimpse the ‘Pizza Americana’ with tomatoes, mozzarella, chips, ketchup, mayonaise [sic] and oregano.
Maybe that was the moment we should have shot out, back to our car and the safety of home where the ability to make a decent marrow soup (soften some onion in butter, add chopped marrows, add stock, simmer, blend, serve with parmesan) is taken for granted. Here, my starter, called the same thing, was thin, watery and had the artificially thickening cornflour added to it. I took a couple of tablespoons and left it there.
TW said his parmiggiana ‘wasn’t totally awful’. ‘Superbly greasy sliced aubergine slices, mozzarella, tomato, parmesan. What’s not to like, Mona’ he countered with a scary sneer. I am afraid that if I continue to make TW endure these places for the sake of my restaurant reviewing, I will end up without a husband: either because I would have killed him by proxy, or because he would have left me. The risks I take on your behalf make me feel like Wonder Woman.
We escaped outside to smoke a cigarette. Ten minutes later, nobody had cleared our table and all around us the noise from the loudspeakers and from people’s mouths had gone up by a couple of decibels. Some patrons were actually watching the film on the television. Eventually our mains turned up. Da Nino is meant to be ‘popular’ for pizza so that’s what I had. You cannot say that I’m not fair and devoted to my work.
It was horrendous. The ‘Pizza Norma’ is meant to come with aubergines, but you can safely say that the aubergines came with the pizza instead. Again, from the same source as the parmiggiana, they were the work of greased lightning, only lightning is probably easier to digest. The ricotta salata was grated after cooking so had no time to cut down on the fatty mouth-feel. I have never experienced a pizza like this, where the sum of the parts simply do not add up to anything.
The Writer’s mistake was much more heinous than mine: bizarrely, he ordered the veal. This came emblazoned with tomato sauce and some kind of melty cheese which we shall presume, for the sake of ingredient recognition, was mozzarella. ‘I am going straight to heaven’ he glared at me, trying to chew.
We saw some of those frozen desserts make their way to the tables and had no intention of continuing our torture by trying them or the cassatella. Throughout, the service, which is, as one can imagine, rushed off its feet, veered between studious avoidance (one guy, one girl) and some kind of interest in the client (two of the guys).
The bill was surprisingly low, but then, considering the cheap ingredients and horrid concoctions, it was certainly not value for money. Instead, I will save my money for a face lift. With all the contortions my face goes through at these places, I’m going to need it.

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