What I Cooked Last Night

Boxing Day, we did it all again, at my youngest brother's place. It was great, but two days of food is enough. Let's talk animals. The Herald Sun print edition shows Cooper sitting on the vet's shoulder like a Professor of Surgery showing an intern what to do. A Professor of Surgery with a grey suit and a sunburnt head.

Because of the mild weather, I had set up the tables in the garden late yesterday, right where they would receive the best shade between noon and four. It was a warm morning. Half a dozen clouds wandered around the sky like lost sheep, wondering which way to go. They didn't take long to decide. Linen on all the tables, drinks servery arranged on the long tiled outdoor sideboard and cutlery station beneath the apricot tree. Condiments as well. One of the tables was covered in bread remnants. This table was beneath the plum tree by the garage - the tree the possums use as a staircase to the ground - and the possums had obviously used it as a dining table during last night's marsupial party, having stolen the bread I'd left out for the birds - from way over beyond the garden gate. I'm sure they appreciated the provision of a landing. And party food. I cleaned the table and picked some roses. Everything was done and now there was time to spare. I moved a vas...

They live in the trees next to the garage - three 30-foot conifers, standing there like giant Christmas trees, way too big to decorate. There must be enough living space in there to cater for an entire colony of possums. I think the colony is growing. They must have come down some time after midnight, when no creature is meant to be stirring on Christmas Eve. I woke to hear their growling, if growling is what you would call it. It sounds like a giant being strangled and not being happy about it. A kind of deep, guttural, insane noise. At 2am it would frighten the life out of you if you didn't know it was possums. Cute, harmless possums. The cute, harmless possums kept up their Christmas Eve racket for what seemed like hours. It wasn't just their manic song-fest; they kept going back home to the trees and then returning. To fetch what? Beer? Every time they did so, the crashing across the double garage steel roof sounded like a basketball team was up there practising their...

It reached 37 degrees yesterday. ( Handy conversion tables here . Thank you Janis.) We sat outside in the cool of the evening, except there was no cool. It was one of those semi-tropical evenings during which every bug known to man was flying about heavily in the hot blanket of still air. Tiny ones with oversized wings. Red ones that fly like a jet into your hair, buzz loudly as they get caught in it and then fall to the ground on their backs to buzz some more. Mosquitoes of course. Houseflies, blowflies. It was a good night for insects. Goldie snapped up quite a few. She's quick for an old dog. It was almost too hot to eat. Almost. Salmon patties (canned salmon, potato, spring onions) on a simple salad of lettuce, tomatoes, onions, carrot straws and steamed broccoli from the garden (the last of it). Sweet chili sauce. It remained hot throughout the night. Finally, towards maybe five in the morning, a cool breeze made its way in the window and wandered around, stirring ...

It's close enough now to Christmas Day for it to be reasonably accurate. If that makes sense. 22 degrees. Not too hot, not too cool. Probably perfect. Just like it was last year when we hosted T.'s family for Christmas. We had tables on the lawn, under the shade of the trees; and spread some rugs for the children. We had a buffet spread including roast beef, roasted potatoes, turkey, hams and salads. T.'s father sat in the dappled shade and enjoyed his last Christmas surrounded by his family. After lunch a niece gave a clarinet recital and we broke out the shortbread and Scotch. I seem to remember a lemon curd trifle and a Christmas cake with holly, but after the Scotch, who knows. It was a good day. This year we are hosting my family. We'll do much the same kind of thing. I wonder if someone will bring a clarinet.

I lay on the beach and read a book for half an hour, paddled about in the water for maybe another half an hour, left the beach and two hours had passed. It happens every time, like some weird time warp. I put the book down on the sand and walked out maybe two hundred metres. The water depth declines very gradually and you can walk out for about half a mile before the water gets anywhere near going over your head. When you venture out this far and look back at the shore it feels like you are in the middle of Port Philip Bay. It was warm. The sun was shining and there was no wind. A perfect summer day. All too rare this too-stormy early summer. I looked back to shore. I could see about a kilometre up the beach towards Sorrento and the same the other way towards Rye. An odd thing. The beach was empty, totally deserted. The week before Christmas, the children are on holidays, and a perfect beach day on one of the Peninsula's favourite beach playgrounds. Where was every...

Just checked the vegetable patch. The two-week tropical weather burst has finished and literally scores if not hundreds of tomato and basil plants have sprung up, obviously having self-seeded from last year. They should do well because they are among the best companion plants. They love each other. We also had a nasturtium which died about three years ago in the drought - that has returned as well. The plant nursery lady told me the seeds can survive several seasons. Recipes could get very repetitive later in summer. Some years ago we had an excellent tomato and basil season and seemed to be eating bruschetta - crusty bread smeared in olive oil and garlic and lightly toasted, then piled high with finely chopped tomato and basil with a little onion and a drop of balsamic vinegar - every night. And pasta caprese - with tomato and mozzarella slices, basil garnish - at least once a week. Might have to bottle some tomatoes this year. And make lots of pesto.

It has rained every day this summer. OK, summer's only twelve days old. But that's a lot of rain. Unusually, the rain has been accompanied by high temperatures - into the thirties celsius, giving Melbourne a tropical climate. I don't remember this happening before. There are dozens of tomatoes self-seeding in the vegetable patch, along with what looks like zucchinis, pumpkins or cucumbers. Maybe all three. T. loves baking and took advantage of the wet weather. Here's what she baked yesterday, as the rain came down in buckets: Clootie Dumpling. A kind of cross between plum pudding and fruit cake. The name simply means pudding in cloth. I love the way they still have these middle English words in daily use. 250 grams each of sugar, bread crumbs, suet, raisins, sultanas and currants. 375 grams of self-raising flour. Three eggs. A dessertspoon of mixed spice, a tablespoon of treacle, a quarter teaspoon of bicarb soda. Brandy. The flour is sifted with the soda a...

Aria has reached that age in infancy when babies start eating solid food - with their own tiny hands - with such gusto that the food, whatever it might be, spreads itself some several square metres around the baby diner. Should the baby be sitting on you (in this case me ) you end up wearing most of it. Natalie had brought Shanra and Aria over for an early Friday night dinner. Their dad, my son, was working late. I had picked Canisha up from school so she was already here. T. had made up a hearty batch of pikelets - dainty little pancakes half an inch thick and four inches in diameter and when she came in, Canisha had demolished seven or eight with jam. At eight, Canisha is mostly past the 'I don't like that' stage. Shanra, four, is at the height of the 'I don't like that' routine. Aria, 10 months, cannot yet talk, has one tooth and not much hair, and likes everything. She sat on my knee and her mum set a plate before her with some plain fettuc...

Sometimes I just open the fridge and see what jumps out. As we all do. Other times I'll vary a recipe and give it a new name. An old favourite, spaghetti carbonara, hadn't been on the table for a while, so that's what I wanted to cook. I had eggs but I didn't have bacon. But if you can use prosciutto in place of bacon, why can't you use some other meat? No reason at all why not. I had been to Elli's deli in Sydney Road, the Greek deli that sells smallgoods from everywhere. They had a notice in the window 'Now stocking UK smallgoods'. I went in and they had a tray of UK smallgoods from Rob , the specialist UK butcher and smallgoods maker, including three kinds of black pudding, the English version, the Scottish version and the Irish version. No wonder those three tiny countries in Britain were always fighting with each other. They can't even agree on a sausage. The English black pudding varied from the Irish only in that the English v...

One red, one green. Otherwise known as bell peppers. Or capsicums. Cut 'em into salads. Bake them until their skin turns black and peels off leaving sensual, unctuous baked pepper flesh which goes very nicely in strips, with anchovies, in spaghetti. Or stuff 'em. That's what I did. Boil some rice. (I boiled four parts white rice and one part brown arborio rice - different pots, they take different times - and mixed them together for a more interesting texture.) Toast some pinenuts - careful, don't burn them. Cook some minced meat and onions. I cook the onions first in little oil, remove the onions, cook the mince, add back the onions. Then a bunch of fresh herbs from the garden - I used plenty of mint, parsley and a little sage. The meat - beef is fine, but I used ground pork and veal from the Italian butchers in Sydney Road. Try to drain away as much fat as possible. Combine cooked mince and rice. Mine was about three parts rice to one part meat. A...

Anyone with ancestors from the UK will occasionally have had the pleasure of being treated to one or more of the following dishes, all bearing wonderful old names (the dishes, not the ancestors). Colcannon: a creamy, yummy mixture of cabbage and potatoes with, variously, milk, butter or cream. Champ: an Irish version of mashed potatoes blended with onions cooked in milk. Boxty: hashbrowns made from leftover mashed potato. Stovies: a combination of potatoes and meat in layers. May be a long-lost relative of Shepherd's Pie or corned beef hash. Not sure why it's plural. (Or why Boxty was singular for that matter.) And, perhaps my favourite weird food name: Clapshot: sounds like a very serious, and possibly fatal, medical condition but is actually mashed potatoes and swede - a frequent visitor on the family dinner table when I was growing up. Even more frequent was potato and pumpkin mashed together. Then after you've eaten your 'tatties in vario...

We had to go shopping. Dreadful, I know, but it had to be done, according to T. I couldn't see it, but she insisted I needed new shorts for summer and a couple other things, and she needed this and that. 'Just don't make me try anything on,' I warned, ineffectually. (I have an aversion to trying on clothes in shops. If it weren't for women, most men would simply wear the same clothes over and over again until they turned to rags and fell off. Then we'd go right on walking around naked. Until it got cold. But let's deal with that when we come to it, huh? Let's not worry about the future, huh?) So. Shopping. Jetty Surf. Cool. Billabong. Cool. Rip Curl. OK. David Jones. OK. A few other shops. Hmm. Target. Starting to fidget. Three more shops. Then some other shop filled with exactly the same clothes as the previous three. I'm turning into a zombie. Fortunately at that point in time T. decided we were hungry and needed food instantly. ...

December 1: Out of the vegetable patch: six cabbages, a dozen large head of broccoli, far too many mustard greens for any normal person to eat, a few heads of garlic, some cute little onions, several bunches of silver beet, a bunch of russian kale and more broadbeans. And a lot of weeds. It was the wettest spring for years. Into the vegetable patch: tomatoes, basil, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchini. Mulch. Cow manure. Compost. Happy summer to all. (If you're lucky enough to be in the right hemisphere.)

The ones in Melbourne were found dead - they had received massive publicity over many years, nesting in a Collins Street building - and it is believed they were killed following the poisoning of pigeons. Prior to that, the council had employed an expert pigeon person from the UK who had recommended not poisoning the pigeons. Well, that money was wasted. The pigeons were poisoned and the Peregrine Falcons died. I've always recommended poisoning councillors. I still do. But they don't die. Like pigeons. Or Peregrine Falcons. Some more have cropped up in Ballarat. There are not many left.

Sometimes you can't be bothered going to any great lengths to cook. Like when you come in late, you're tired and there's little to inspire you in the fridge. And when you can't even be bothered going out again to Barry Road (yes, Barry Road!) where the strip shopping centre has 1. an excellent chinese takeaway, 2. the best fish and chip shop 'Barry Rd Fish & Chips', 3. a chicken shop 'Chickens on Barry Rd', 4. an old-fashioned hamburger shop 'Barry Rd Burgers' (see the pattern emerging?), 5. a turkish takeaway, 6. two pizza shops 'Panic Pizza' and another, 7. a Lebanese cake shop (the honey custard rolls 'Znood-al-sit' are to die for) and 8. two more bakeries. The fridge won. I'll save Barry Road for another night. Many other nights. I had a pack of frozen La Triestina spinach and ricotta ravioli. I opened a can of tomato puree, flung it in a pot with a dash of salt and pepper, another of brown sugar and a bay l...

Blairgowrie beach was deserted. The tide was out and the white sandbars were baking. A container ship was sliding down the bay. The water was a flat as a tack. Where was everyone? Blairgowrie is a sleepy village. There's a large retired population. They come out in their hundreds, morning and evening, walking their dogs. But at two o'clock on a broiling afternoon, they obviously have the sense to stay indoors! I had taken the dogs to the beach for a couple of days. We are fostering Clyde, an enormous blue-fawn three-year-old greyhound. It is his first foster home and he did all the usual things like try to walk through windows and be completely unable to walk up steps, especially timber steps without riser panels. I had to lift him the first time - 39.5 kgs - but he soon learned. At first he tried to leap all six steps - successfully, and both up and down - but then he twigged that he could actually place his paws on those in between. As well as getting the dogs us...

You have to be careful with surprise parties. I went to one once where the couple had had an argument. We could hear them outside the front door shouting loudly at each other. We were inside, in the darkness, champagne and glasses at the ready. The key turned loudly and jerkily in the lock and I clearly remember the bright idea of throwing a surprise party for them dying inside me like a lit candle stub being dropped into cold water. When the door opened, the lights went on and they both had that kind of look where the smile seems to go on forever but takes a wild assymetric downward turn where it should curve happily back up. And stays that way for several long and excruciating seconds. But sometimes in life, it's too late to turn back now. So the champagne popped, the crackers cracked, the music blasted and we all got drunk. What else could we do? Sit around quietly and engage in small talk? But my sister's surprise party wasn't like that at all. (In fact, I'm ...

We're going on a picnic tomorrow, it's the Greyhound Adoption Program's annual Christmas picnic. All the greyhound foster-carers and people who have adopted them are invited. And their dogs of course. We're hoping for a nice day, but against the odds given the completely unpredictable weather in the last few weeks. Hot one minute, windy the next, rainstorms the next. Provisions: The wicker picnic basket. The tartan picnic blanket (every time I lay it down the dogs jump onto it first and spread themselves out. They have no manners at all). Ciabatta rolls - havarti cheese and lettuce; curried egg; tuna and onion with mayonaisse. A leek frittata. Some fruitcake. Coffee. Raincoats. Umbrellas. Suncream. The frittata: Lightly beat four eggs with salt and pepper, cook thinly sliced leeks - about two cupsful - in olive oil until soft, about five minutes, pour egg mixture over, cook until set, on a low heat. Carefully turn onto a plate, chill.

... teach it to sing. When it went missing last week (original story not online), it was reported that the bird sang a particular tune, but did not mention what tune. Smart move, reporter - plenty of people wanted to claim it. Anyone for a round of La Cucacaracha? I love the way this bird mimics the telephone when its owner is in the garden, ignoring it.

I love the gentle heat that paprika imparts. Along with its warm colour, paprika can lift a meal to another plane. Goulash. There are hundreds of goulash recipes, some have tomato; some have potatoes; some have carrot and celery. Just don't leave out the meat or the paprika. So you can make goulash how you want (I stand to be corrected by Hungarian readers). Here's how I made it on Saturday afternoon, as Melbourne was whipped with rain squalls yet again: Brown onions in butter, dredge cubed veal in flour then brown with the onions, toss in a tablespoon or two of sweet paprika and a little salt and pepper then add a can of tomato puree. Cover with water. Simmer for an hour or two then mix through half a cup of cream and serve with some buttered pasta such as tagliatelle or papardelle; or with mashed potatoes. I used the pasta. * Largely unrelated facts: Budapest in Hungary once had the largest tramway system in the world. Today, Melbourne's tramwa...

... but this is ridiculous .

The eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. At that precise moment, a shaft of sunlight strikes and then passes over the word Love on a tablet - the Stone of Remembrance - bearing the words Greater Love Hath No Man, on the central floor of the Shrine of Remembrance , marking Armistice Day. At that moment, the entire city comes to a halt, to remember the 19,000 Victorians - of 62,000 Australians - who fell in the Great War: the war to end all wars. Huh. * We were in town to visit the Queen Victoria market - Thursday is its busiest day. The seafood stalls were staggering, loaded with magnificent fish of all kinds. We bought some fresh Tasmanian Atlantic Salmon (yes, I know Tasmania is nowhere near the Atlantic) and some oysters; then walked through the fruit and vegetable section and picked up some mangoes fresh from Queensland. The variety was astounding, red papaw, melons of all kinds, chinese greens of every type, bunches of fresh herbs most people have...

Comfort food is the best food of all. Easy, unpretentious and most importantly, redolent of years gone by, a taste of the past. For me, it was baked meatloaf , among other things. For T. it is sometimes this: Mince and tatties. Heat some oil in a pan and saute a large chopped onion until brown. Add a pound of beef mince and cook until well browned. Add two medium carrots, sliced thinly, and a tablespoon of toasted oatmeal. Pour in enough water to just cover. Crumble in one or two beef stock cubes, season with salt and pepper, cover the pan and simmer for about twenty minutes. Then, thicken with three teaspoons of gravy powder or corn starch mixed with a little cold water. That's the mince. Now the tatties. They're easy: Boil your peeled potatoes. Then mash 'em. Serve the mince and the potatoes side by side. (Note: do not serve the mince over the potatoes. Why? 'Because you just don't,' says T.) T.'s father cooked this for her and he...

We were looking forward to hosting my brother-in-law, his wife, their two children (15 and 12) and their two dogs ( miniature fox terriers ) at the beach and we had been planning lazing on the sand, unpacking picnics with all manner of delicious goodies, watching the dogs tear around in the sunshine and the children frolicking in the sparkling blue waters of Port Philip Bay before returning to the beach house for maybe a barbecue and some cold beer and ... It rained all weekend. Well, most of the weekend. It's not a large beach house. But then, six people and four dogs is a tight fit in any household. The dogs, however, were exceptionally well behaved (as were the children). Blueboy, the foster greyhound, slunk off to the bedroom - two foxies were way too boisterous for him; Goldie spread herself out in the guest foxies' wicker bed; and they in turn settled on her mat after jumping up on the couch. After lunch (salad sandwiches, prosciutto, home-made cold lamb meatbal...

Apparently fegato originally meant figs, don't know what figs have to do with calves liver and onion, maybe someone can enlighten me. Or maybe I should have studied Latin beyond Year 8. I was such a lazy student. I hated everything about school except lunchtime. Ah, the aroma emanating from the pie-warmer in the canteen! That's five different angles in the first paragraph. I really should be more disciplined in my writing. Now, where were we? I've been doing calves liver with onions every now and then for years and I can't remember where I found the recipe. So I googled it and couldn't find one exactly the same (which is kind of good in a way). Cook two or three finely chopped onions in half butter, half olive oil until well coated and on the point of becoming translucent, then add half a cup of white wine and three quarters of a cup of lemon juice. Plus a good dash of nutmeg and a shake of salt and pepper. Set on a low heat and let the onions cook away fo...

Horseracing. Sport of kings. And losers. Lucky I've never been a gambler since reading Frank Hardy's The Four-Legged Lottery at age 12. What an eye-opener that was. After all the barbecuing and picnicing over the last few days, something a little blander is called for. Not that this is boring: it's simple but really packs a flavour punch. Cook your spaghetti . Cook the silverbeet until it is well wilted. Drain, add salt and pepper. Fold silverbeet through cooked and drained spaghetti. Toss your sliced chile peppers (which should ideally have been marinating in olive oil for 24 hours) over the top and then crown it with paper-thin slices of parmesan. A glass of red and a thick slice of buttered vienna. Heaven. Even if your horse came last.

Despite predictions of heavy rain overnight (there was none) and showers this morning with possible thunderstorms during the afternoon, Cup Day has dawned warm and sunny. So how can you pick a winner with all that uncertainty? It's difficult . But here's mine: 1. Vinnie Roe. 2. Elvstroem. 3. Pacific Dancer. We're going to pack a picnic - egg and lettuce rolls, cheese and gherkin relish rolls, some nice buttercake and a flask of tea - and find somewhere nice to spread a blanket in the sun, under a tree ... and hope the rain holds off. UPDATE Vinnie Roe's connections were to announce at 8am this morning whether the horse would run - and it would only run if there is a heavy track. They have just now confirmed Vinnie Roe is a starter, yet the weather bureau has just advised the rain should hold off until after the race. Clearly, there's plenty of bluff being called. UPDATE 2 The heavens broke open two hours before the race. Makybe Diva he...

The ominous mid-afternoon clouds drifted away as our barbecue guests drifted in around six. Two brothers and partners; two sisters, one with daughter; other with second husband and three children from first marriage; son and partner with their three girls; mother. We sat outside at tables covered with white linen and watched the sun sink between the massive conifers. The children sat on a tartan rug spread on the lawn under the fruit trees. The calamari was a hit (marinated in garlic and lemon, tossed with continental flour and dried oregano and fried very, very quickly in very hot oil) as were the lamb kebabs (marinated in garlic, oil and lemon juice, skewered with alternate onion, red and green bell pepper sections), bratwursts and fresh turkish and lebanese breads with eggplant, spinach and chickpea dips. Forgot the olives, they were behind something in the fridge and forgot to dress the mustard greens ('Hmm, they're a little bitter,' someone said). To add to t...

The Melbourne Cup is on Tuesday and I had planned a Cup eve family barbecue. It's a matter of picking the right break in the weather, so it can be like, OK, Monday evening's looking fine, do a phone-around ... 'Barbecue's on!' However, the forecasts can be erratic at this time of year and it looks like yesterday's Derby Day was the pick of the carnival for good weather. They are now forecasting rain for Monday and possibly Tuesday, so yesterday, we called everyone up and changed our barbecue to tonight - Sunday - the first night of daylight savings for the season. Fortunately, this suited everyone OK. Everything is ready. Calamari, lamb kebabs, bratwurst sausages, felafels, salads, turkish and lebanese bread, hommous, eggplant dip, yogurt, fat black olives in a dish, hot tomato relish, hot mustard, pickled turnips and cucumbers, white wine, red wine, beer, fruit juice, trifles and crumbles, vanilla ice-cream swirled through with crushed pistachios an...

And I got it. It's been hot and the garden was drying out. But, next time, weather-gods, could we arrange maybe just a light shower in the morning? Just enough to water the garden? My brother, who formerly lived in Queensland, once complained to me about the predictability of the weather, the endless blue skies, the monotonous sunshine, up there in Hervey Bay , near Fraser Island. You know, like paradise. He was missing the changeability, the volatility, the sheer capriciousness of Melbourne weather. You gotta be kiddin', bro. He lives in Alice Springs now. The wild weather in spring means you never know what you'll be eating. You kind of feel like eating different things when it's 30 celsius than when it's 13. Take my leeks, for instance. They may have ended up in a simple frittata - good for a picnic or eating out of doors - but it turned cold so I made leek and potato soup instead. Not the pureed version, but my favourite chunky leek and potat...

It was a hot day in northern Victoria (it's always a hot day in northern Victoria - the clouds magically disperse once you cross the Great Dividing Range) for lunch at the golf club in honour of Jack. He had been a favourite on the fairways where the feisty five-foot-six-and-a-quarter dynamo with his trademark highly polished shoes was reputed to have the shortest backswing and fastest follow-through ever seen; and at the nineteenth hole where his wit and good humour endeared him to all. Some hundred-plus golf club members, friends and neighbours gathered; the speeches and anecdotes were in turn heartfelt and hilarious - many of course, to do with golf. One member recalled that Jack was such a bad driver that the others conspired never to let him take the wheel on their many trips to golf courses around the region; Jack had thought they were merely deferring to age - little did he know they had been whispering behind his back 'he's going to kill us if we let him behi...

The speeches are one thing but the music is another. Will Ye no' Come Back Again followed by Skye Boat Song brought a tear to the eye, but Amazing Grace gets you and won't let you go. Before jointly delivering a eulogy and readings, Jack's five children leant against each other at the front of the chapel, arms around each other like so many little children, but there they were in their late thirties, forties and early fifties. Their mother gave a speech, brave and touching. Afterwards, tears, reminiscences and laughter preceded a homely but magnificent supper for family and friends at brother-in-law's house; prepared by in-laws, friends and neighbours. The scotch flowed. Will ye no come back again? Will ye no come back again? Better lo'ed ye canna be, Will ye no come back again?

He'd been ill for many years. My father-in-law, T.'s father, finally succumbed late last week, aged 78. Emphysema had set it in many years ago, when a doctor told him if he didn't stop smoking, he'd end up having to cut his legs off - doctors have such a sense of humour. A keen golfer, Jack took his advice. He may not otherwise have done so. Jack spent his latter years playing golf around the district, taking to the motorised cart when he could no longer walk. Later, he suffered a heart attack which he blamed on a corned beef sandwich my mother-in-law had made for him. A bout of cancer saw most of one lung removed. In recent years, Jack had suffered minor heart attacks, gout, asthma, diabetes and various other ailments. But Jack never panicked by doing anything silly like changing his diet or giving up the scotch. * My in-laws live in a small farming town 180 kilometres from Melbourne. Our weekend stayovers commenced with the offer of a whisky upon entr...

Well, these days, not always. But my memories of Friday night fish are as strong as the aroma, no - smell, that wafted through the house when I was growing up. As a child, I thought all cooked fish was hard and brown. But it wasn't! That's just the way mum did it! I didn't mind the smell and I didn't mind the overcooked fish. In fact, I loved it. Those crunchy bits and the blackened silver skin were delicious, especially with too much salt and a squeeze of lemon. Then I grew up and discovered restaurants charging way too much for blackened fish in some five-minute trend that went through in the eighties (There's nothing wrong with blackened fish, I'm just chary of food trends). The fish and chip shop around the corner did huge business on Friday nights. It was full from about six o'clock through to eight or so. People were out on the street waiting. I think they had a number system or something. But they were fast. And you can't beat the stea...

The weather is still wild. We've had one calm, sunny spring day in about ten. The rest have been in turn unpleasantly blustery, rainy or stormy. Two nights ago the temperature at midnight was 27 degrees celsius. Yesterday was humid and cloudy. Shortly after lunchtime a white flash lit up the sky (lightning is weird when you're not expecting it) followed by the loudest clap of thunder I have ever heard. Every dog within miles started barking. Goldie was inside, she ran over to me and then started running around the house panting. Then the heavens opened up and it rained all afternoon. Clearly, the garden is enjoying the wild weather. The last of the camellias are fading, three in a row: a candy pink smaller flower, a large mid-crimson and a large deeper red with a kind of mottled pattern. Don't know the varieties. Similarly the two magnolias, the final flowers giving way to magnificent foliage which shades the west-facing bedroom window, just right for an afternoon si...

There was a can of mackerel , a can of beans, some eggs and not much else. Boil some rice. Boil two eggs. When the rice is cooked, drain it and quickly toss a generous amount of curry powder over it, stirring it through. Shell your eggs, chop them roughly and fold them through the rice together with some chopped parsley. Also fold through some beans. Mackerel over the top. Yum. Kind of like an instant kedgeree, I guess. Except the fish should be smoked. And there's no beans in kedgeree . Whatever. (I grew up with kedgeree - my mother always used the leftover smoked cod which we'd had with a white sauce flecked with parsley and mashed potatoes.) On the side, a salad of mustard greens * and chopped green onion with vinaigrette. *In the garden, the mustard greens have TAKEN OFF! And just when I tamed the rocket. The snails appear not to have touched it, maybe they don't know what it is. Beautiful broad showy foliage shooting up and flopping outwards like a fleur-de...

Late Friday, we were down the coast for the weekend. Up bright and early Saturday morning to walk Goldie along the beach and get the weekend paper. Breakfast reading the final election news and then off to the farmers' market - this week at Rosebud, a little further up the coast. It was drizzling and cloudy but expected to clear with the forecast of a fine afternoon. But first, to vote. We 'absentee'-voted (i.e, out of our home electorate) at a booth in Rosebud. Party volunteers were handing out their respective how-to-vote cards, along with plenty of jolly banter. It's generally a friendly social day and often volunteers for one party will take over handing out an opposing party volunteer's how-to-vote cards while they take a break. The House of Representatives ballot paper was manageable enough but the Senate, with something like seventy-odd candidates, must have been three feet by two in size. Something to do with minimum type or something. I had to fold...

Because it takes off like one. So I pulled out four or five four-feet-high plants and stripped all the leaves. Now what? Rocket pesto! Chop it all up, grind it with a couple of cloves of garlic, a bunch of pine nuts, plenty of good parmesan cheese and olive oil. I like the rough consistency when it is ground instead of pureed. So on Friday night we had an early dinner of breasts of chicken stuffed with rocket pesto and a slice of cheese (I used a local soft cheese but I think you could use any cheese on earth because cheese is cheese and all cheese is good cheese) and gently poached in white wine in a pan with a tight-fitting lid. With silverbeet from the school garden (masses of it came home) cooked with a dash of water and olive oil, a scored clove of garlic and cracked black pepper. Then we went out to see a show by Brian Cadd , a white-bearded piano-playing rocker, kind of a cross between Leon Russell and Elton John I guess, who had a string of hits in the sev...

... wait five minutes. Just as well I mowed the lawn the day before yesterday as the perfect spring weather didn't last. Woke up yesterday morning to howling gale-force winds followed by thunderstorms later in the day. The gusts and rain continued all afternoon, broken by short periods of sunshine. The radar map showed thick ribbons of cloud being blown across the state by a strong westerly. Later in the day, conditions worsened. The launch of the new helicopter helipad on top of the Royal Melbourne Hospital was cancelled as the chopper was unable to land in the conditions. A hospital spokesman said - what's the use of that, it's often in conditions like this we most need the chopper! I presume he and the PR guy are not talking this morning. * I had been to the market where the short, fat 'white' (actually pale with mottled green) variety of zucchini were the hit of the day. Brought home a bunch of these, made some basic tomato risotto (introduce...

It must have been about three in the afternoon, a picture book spring day, and the air was so still you could hear the bees buzzing. Magpies were chortling in the old pine tree, birds of other types were flitting and swooping over the shrubs and the vegetables, coming to rest on the fence or the edge of a pot plant or a branch in one of the blossoming fruit trees, there to chatter away before flitting off again. Busy birds. The purple heads of the newly-flowering sage reached upwards from their silvery green foliage towards the warm afternoon sun. Likewise the deep crimson flowers of the green beans, growing by the day. Goldie dozed in the shade, her bone largely now devoid of meat and any further interest. A perfect spring afternoon, ideal for a nap. Then suddenly, R-R-R-R-ROAAARRRRRRRRRR! Yes, I just had to mow the lawn. A dreadful shattering of the peace, I know, but have you seen that stuff grow at this time of year? Goldie slunk off to her bed in disgus...

A weekend down the coast found us at the Rye market Saturday morning, on the foreshore, literally metres from the gently lapping waves. It's mainly a local farmers' market but there are stalls selling second-hand lawnmower parts, hoses and tap fittings, used books and records (single 45s fifty cents each), home-knitted Barbie costumes, hand-sewn pillow cases and sheets, and various other sundries should you require anything along those lines on a Saturday morning. There's also a stall which sells nothing but socks. But most go for the fruit and vegetables, the potted plants, the eggs, the honey ... and the toasted egg and bacon sandwiches from the Rotary food van for $2.50. Have you any idea what grilling bacon and eggs and toasting bread smells like outdoors at 9.30 on a Saturday morning? Irresistible. The aroma drifts across the market and people literally stop in their tracks. We came away with green beans in their pods, young slender leeks, apples from the app...

I posted my first asparagus recipe for spring. Now here's the second. Boil the tender, juicy, green spears until soft enough to your liking in water with a generous squeeze of lemon juice. Drain, place on plate, sprinkle with crumbled blue vein cheese, capers, cracked pepper and a dash of vinaigrette dressing. Eat with buttered bread rolls for lunch in the early spring sunshine, watching the leaves coming out on the magnolia as the last winter blooms fade. And a glass of chardonnay to toast the warmer days ahead.

It's here! The first asparagus of the season have arrived. Actually, the first ones arrived about two weeks ago, but they were too expensive. Now they're here in greater numbers and the price has stabilised. So - how to eat the first asparagus of spring? Made a kind of salad, a bit like a nicoise, bed of lettuce, some boiled baby potatoes (out of the garden - walked outside one day early in spring and thought - oh, we have a vegetable garden! It's the kind of thing you let go during winter. Actually, it wasn't too bad, a couple of months ago we put in broad beans, mustard greens, silver beet, carrots, garlic, onions, cabbage and broccoli, so all we had to do was pull out the weeds encouraged by late winter rains to allow our fledgling vegetables to turn their leafy faces to the early spring sunshine. Mission accomplished, back suffering). Where was I? In the kitchen, improvising a salad. The lettuce, the boiled baby potatoes, plus quartered tomatoes ...

An easy, all-in-together soup ideal for those spring days that revert suddenly to winter. First, set three large cubed potatoes, a whole finely-chopped onion and a chopped clove of garlic to boil in chicken - or preferred - stock (this time I used an Oxo chicken stock cube in about a litre of water - they are quite salty so I didn't add extra salt). Toss in a few ground black peppercorns for some heat. Then add a bunch of broccoli - stalks can also be used if peeled and soft inner section grated or chopped finely - and cook until everything kind of melts down. You can puree it if you like a really creamy consistency; I just gave it a few swishes with my trusty old hand beater . Add milk or cream before serving. Finally, I added some crumbled fetta over the top for an extra burst of salty, creamy flavour. A nice lunch on a cold, showery spring day with fresh bread rolls or ciabatta, spread with pure creamery butter .

Bargain of the week at the market - fresh trevally $6.99 a kilo, a delicious silver-skinned fish ideal for baking. I wrapped it in foil with a dash of soy, a squeeze of lemon, a chopped chile pepper (from my magic chile pepper bush which produces chiles of all different heat intensities), some onion rings and a sprinkling of curry powder for good measure. Then I dropped some fresh udon noodles (the thick, soft ones - from Wing Cheong asian supermarket in Chinatown) into boiling water, rinsed them and then tossed them in a pan - along with some lightly steamed, crunchy broccoli florets - to lightly stir-fry in a small amount of delicious, fragrant sesame oil and a little soy. Noodles and broccoli into a bowl, baked fish over the top. Jasmine tea.

A big pot of Bolognese for a cold night: a large chopped onion and a clove of garlic cooked a few minutes in some olive oil, to which I added ground beef and cooked until brown, then tossed in a can of diced tomato and a good dollop of tomato paste, a dash of marsala, a few herbs from the garden, some ground black peppercorns and a dash of salt. And about a litre of water. I let it cook for hours, topping up the water level and letting it simmer away. Boil up a big pot of water, salt and add spaghetti. Cook to your liking. I’m not an al dente kind of guy, I like the slurpy unctuousness (-osity?) of well cooked pasta when it’s paired with traditional sauces like bolognese. It was great. But there was a heap of Bolognese sauce left over. So the next night, I tossed a can of sweet corn in the base of a baking dish, layered the rest of the Bolognese sauce over it alternately with thin slices of salted-and-drained eggplant and topped the lot with a creamy béchamel of milk, contine...

Here, Saturday was the coldest September day in seven years. So the soups and stews haven't quite gone away yet. (Not that there's anything wrong with soups and stews in warmer weather. One of my favourite hot weather dishes is a curry so hot it has you sweating.) We made a lentil and vegetable soup like this: Brown lentils soaked overnight. Next day, into a large pot with a couple of meaty beef soup bones or some gravy beef. (Meat optional, use your favourite stock.) Cook for an hour, skim if necessary. Add a chopped onion, a stick of chopped celery, half a diced carrot, a potato chopped into small cubes and a scored clove of garlic. Add a teaspoon each of cumin and dried coriander, a generous dessertspoon of tomato paste and a good sprinkling of sumac, say half a tablespoon. Salt and pepper. Cook for another hour. Remove bones, remove and shred meat, return meat to soup. This made a nice Saturday lunch with crusty bread after a shopping trip to the...

Well, this was quite funny - I heard the exchange on the radio news. Instead of leaping on the interjector, wrestling him to the ground and carting him away in a police wagon, the security guys let him talk, and then he just, like, wandered away. To the supermarket, I guess, to get some more cheese. The funniest part was the PM's rejoinder (it's not in the press report). He just stood there and when the guy had finished his diatribe, Mr Howard replied, laconically, 'Well, I've obviously lost your vote!' The laughs don't stop there. Following the incident, Tim Blair posted a poll, see sidebar asking which is the correct cheese to direct at the PM. I love the way Bega Bar-B-Cubes are way ahead in the poll. Mr Howard is so not a brie kind of guy. Of course Roquefort is disqualified on the grounds that its importation to Australia is illegal. Speaking of which, my favourite meal involving Roquefort - apart from eating it au naturel , which I can...