In the two restaurants, with outdoor seats under shade, I ate delicious Moroccan/French dishes, such as spiced quail with herbs from the garden.
I still dream about the sultry duck liver mousse with almond biscuits; the 'State Bird' – a quail – grilled into smokiness on its bed of gently pickled, sautéed onions and crowned with Parmesan; the smoked duck ham with umeboshi.
Spring hunting is banned by the EU but the Maltese authorities obtain a exemption each year, enabling its 9,798 hunters to shoot 5,000 quail and 11,000 turtle doves, the latter a migratory bird whose British population has slumped by 95% since 1970.
I can skin a wild pig or snake, and pluck a quail.
Coming the day after the notorious menu at the Liberal fundraising dinner that boasted "Julia Gallard Kentucky friend quail: small breasts, huge thighs and a big red box", it all evoked a right-wing fantasy of a pre-feminist Australia populated by limp-wristed crimpers and sheilas who knew their place.
These former academics and teachers, startled by the abruptness of their elevation and untrained for office, quail at the approach of journalists.
Some are too poor for legal help; others quail at the prospect of taking on the government.
And past bids for secession still make Africans quail.
Christians in Nigeria's Muslim states quail at the introduction of the sharia (religious law).
I'll lodge within the stone walls of a Tuscan villa built in 1166, sip Brunello by its pool to the bells of an 8th-century abbey, dine on pecorino cheese and pici pasta with a funghi e ricotta sauce, eat quail in the Etruscan vault of Osteria da Divo in Siena, drink my espresso on the Piazza del Popolo in Montalcino, or just soak in the red carpets of the Tuscan poppy fields.
The number of hunters fell by 7% in the decade ending in 2001; the number of small-game hunters, including quail hunters, fell by 29%.
