Table manners.

Thomas bit the head off a broccoli floret and threw the stalk full force across the table at William.

So he eats his vegetables but he throws his food. What do you do? You can't reward and punish simultaneously. The dilemmas you face.

The fact is, he likes broccoli so much he eats it raw. It is growing in the garden. You pick a floret and he will eat it right there.

It was half past six on an early spring evening, an evening that was still glistening with rain. That was the rain we needed. The forecast had been cloudy and the first drops had fallen around ten in the morning when I had been driving along Bell Street and down the ramp onto the freeway where Moonee Valley falls away and you feel like you're landing at Essendon Airport. The drops only made a red mud of the windscreen dirt that had blown in earlier in the week on the dreadful winds, but by lunchtime the rain had set in properly. My rain gauge (the wheelbarrow) was full by morning.

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Thomas's next move was to steal a piece of broccoli from William's bowl. William was complicit in the crime. Happy to see it disappear. A brother who eats your broccoli! Send him around, I can hear a million children begging. William picked up another buttery potato wedge and said nothing. Thomas ate the floret and placed the stalk ostentatiously in his bowl; as if to say he wouldn't dream of throwing another child's food.

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Crumbed cutlets.

Cut from the rack, these lamb chops are among the most tender of ways to eat meat. Simply dust well in flour, coat with egg mixed with a little milk and dredge through breadcrumbs - I used a mixture of breadcrumbs and wheat germ. I fried them in ghee in a very hot cast iron pan four minutes each side.

Serve with potatoes cut into batons, boiled and rolled through butter; and broccoli.