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Green olives.

I have at last fixed the dateline. It was set on Pacific time for the last four and a half years, so that my posts were dated the previous day. Now it's set to Eastern time. I feared that changing the date would wipe out the blog but it appears to be there still.

Real time is early afternoon on a hot 17 March. 39 degrees on St Patrick's Day? Unheard of. I just missed the St Patrick's Day schoolchildren's march era that petered out in the early '60s, but were it still to be a fixture it might have been cancelled for the heat. I remember my oldest sister going off with her class to march from the Fitzroy Gardens to St Patrick's Cathedral and then on to Spring Street. Archbishop Mannix liked to parade the sea of green - literally thousands of baby-boom era Catholic schoolchildren - in front of Parliament. He liked to think the centre of power was two blocks back from Treasury Place.

These days St Patrick's Day is a little more than a novelty event. Green beer won't be of much use in the heat today.

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Last night we crept back into the city under cover of darkness , in the relative cool of early evening. These days, the Monash tollway is virtually useless during daylight hours. It was still busy at almost nine p.m. but at least there was no stopping. I wouldn't want to be paying tolls every morning and afternoon to and from the city. It used to be called the south eastern carpark. The name is due for a return.

Late dinner: an assembly of cold boiled halved potatoes, a scattering of cherry tomatoes, twenty of so blanched green beans, the same of green olives marinated in chili and garlic, four halved boiled eggs, several anchovies and a seared piece of salmon. It's usually tuna. That's enough for two. Yes: another old favourite, nicoise salad. A cold glass of sauvignon blanc, Hewitson's LuLu (the names they give wine labels these days!).

Comments

  1. The names they give wine labels these days!

    An American humorist, Dave Barry, has a running gag wherein every time he comes across an odd-sounding phrase (anything. We'll say, just for example, Dancing Hamsters.) he writes that "'Dancing Hamsters' would be a good name for a rock band."

    My personal spin on this is to say that it would be a good name for a winery. Wouldn't you buy "Dancing Hamsters Chardonnay"? I know I would.

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  2. Dr. Alice, I read Dave Barry's column when it was syndicated here some years ago - and yes, I would buy Dancing Hamsters chardonnay, although here it is more likely to be Kangaroo Loose in the Top Paddock chardonnay or Wandering Wombat chardonnay.

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  3. Sounds like a delicious salad and I'd buy Dancing Hamster's Chardonnay and I don't even drink!

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