What I Cooked Last Night

One year, a long time ago now, probably around 2012 or '13, I went to a Christmas Day lunch that was something out of a decor magazine, or maybe a foodie magazine. It was a perfect day and long outdoor tables stretched out beneath the dappled shade of some gently swaying trees, and were covered in expensive Christmas-themed paper, with tapered candles, quality cutlery and delicate long-stemmed glassware. It was midday. Fairy lights twinkled from the trees like electric snow. Soft Christmas music drifted across the scene from some obscured speaker. Drinks came first, just to get the appetite going, and were served by a natural pool. ('By' meaning next to.) Occasional tables were scattered about the setting and bore platters of savouries that kept you from starving before the turkey came out. There was only one small problem. Clouds were threatening. If it were to start raining, the entire scene, as big as a movie set, would have to be moved inside. The hosts kept coming ...

Craven has tried to convince the creative team that two clients in one ad is a good idea . He has asked them to adapt their Buffalo Finance concept to accommodate a second client, and the creative team are nervously waiting to find out which client they have to work into their concept. GUY: Who's the second client, Craven? Or haven't you lined one up yet? CRAVEN: Yes, I have spoken to another major advertiser who is happy to share a spot with Buffalo Finance. ROB: Let me guess: Fenestre Investments? Financing your next investment with Buffalo would work. CRAVEN: No, it's not them. GUY: The new Sniper launch? Cars and finance are always a good mix. CRAVEN: No. GUY: What about Orange Residential Development Corp? CRAVEN: No. ROB: Is it Upton Furnishings? CRAVEN: No. GUY: Well who the fuck is it then? CRAVEN PAUSES FOR DRAMATIC EFFECT, THEN ANSWERS DEADPAN: Snail-Go. GUY & ROB TOGETHER: Whaaat???? CRAVEN (STILL DEADPAN): Snail-Go. Plus I'...

Cannelloni from scratch? Couldn't be easier, as long as you have a piping bag. Fry half an onion until translucent. Boil and drain 50g frozen spinach. Add 500g fresh ricotta, 70g of parmesan cheese, the drained spinach and a tablespoon of butter to the cooked onion. Stir to combine over low heat for about a minute. Make besciamella: melt 60g butter in a pot, add 60g flour, a dash of nutmeg and 500ml heated milk (don't boil) and mix to blend until flour is absorbed. Make tomato sauce: fry half an onion, add a jar of passata and a third volume again of water, add some finely chopped fresh basil and parsley, a shake of salt and a teaspoon of sugar. Simmer to reduce slightly. Pipe cheese mixture into instant cannelloni tubes. You cannot force it in with a spoon, by suction, by gravity or any other way. I found out the hard way and then I went out and bought a pack of disposable piping bags for a couple of dollars at Mediterranean Wholesalers*. Line a baking dish with a ...

Craven is trying to convince the creative team that his radical plan to change the face of advertising will work. He even has some clients in mind who, he says, are prepared to share a spot in order to reduce the cost of television advertising. GUY: Instead of jamming two clients in one thirty second spot, you could just run a fifteen second spot for each client, Craven. Have you thought of that? CRAVEN: Well you could, of course, Guy; but then you also have the possibility of placing two clients in each fifteen-second spot as well. Bear in mind the production cost savings. Two clients, one production. Plus, we can charge each client more than half the production cost so we make extra there as well. Moreover, we feel that the longer on-screen exposure will more than compensate for the fact that two clients are sharing the time. ROB: It's still nuts, Craven. PAUSE And you're a crook if you're using it to expand the margins. CRAVEN: Crap, Rob. It's called mak...

On an unseasonally hot day in October 1965, I was taken to see a movie at the Paris Cinema in Bourke Street, Melbourne. In the film, The Sound of Music , Christopher Plummer played Captain von Trapp, and was later scathing about the movie. Last week I saw Plummer play Ebenezer Scrooge in The Man Who Invented Christmas , this time at Village Airport West, which was a field of thistle with Vickers Viscounts flying over it in 1965. Right now is the time of year when Christmas-themed movies hit the cinemas, but The Man Who Invented Christmas is not really about Christmas. It is about Charles Dickens' struggle to write a book following two 'failures' after several hits. It should have been titled Famous Novelist Suffers Writer's Block for 104 Gripping Minutes , but that would not have helped box office sales. Dickens is struggling to pay the bills, his agent is getting nervous, he is continually interrupted by family members, and his destitute father comes to stay. Th...

Craven, the account man at advertising agency Blake Browning Burns, has been working in secret with the strategy planners to develop a new concept in advertising - two clients sharing one television commercial. He is briefing the creative team in the small meeting room known as 'The Cupboard'. The creative team are not impressed and, after June the tea lady interrupts, the argument resumes. Language warning. GUY: That is fucking INSANE, Craven. ROB: Totally nuts. It can't work. GUY: That's the stupidest idea I've heard since ... your last stupid idea. ROB: For example, the clients would fight over owning the end frame. GUY: Yeah. And whose typeface would you use? ROB: And what about logos? CRAVEN: Pfffffft! Minor details, guys. We have huge fights about all that shit now. An extra client in the ad isn't going to make a huge difference. GUY: Apart from that, where are you going to find two clients who want to go into one commercial? CRAVEN (...

I pulled the EP record out of its cardboard sleeve, put it on the mono turntable and lowered the needle on to the record. It hissed and crackled (the needle was worn) and then a piano introduced the song. In the next room the adults' conversation (God knows what they were talking about) slowly dried up. Someone dropped a tea cup. The parish priest was visiting and they were having afternoon tea. Let's spend the night together, now I need you more than ever. ... I'll satisfy your every need. Now I know you satisfy me ... It was 1967. I was ten. A couple of years later I put an LP album on the turntable. It was a stereo now, a speaker either side connected by wires. Lay lady lay ... lay across my big brass bed ... Again, the adults in the next room turned purple, metaphorically. "What are you listening to?" the adults asked me, somewhat superfluously. I didn't answer such a stupid question, I just held up the cover. It had a smiling man holding a ...

The Herald Sun reports on the changing nature of food retailing , in which RMIT marketing expert Con Stavros utters this gem of wisdom: "Food, in general, has become much more of an experience." More than what? He doesn't say. Meanwhile, floundering dinosaur retailer David Jones spokesman Pieter De Wet puts the following hilarious spin on having a product range of only 6,000 items compared to the average supermarket's 25,000: "If you go to a normal grocery store, you have to go through 25,000 products," he said. "We’ve got a curated collection of about 6000 products. We've chosen the best for our customers knowing what they like and expect. It's a quarter of the number of choices you have to make, we've done all the work for you."

I thought it was a dream, because I hadn't seen a mahogany staircase in a restaurant for twenty years, or maybe I just hadn't been to one. The staircase led up into complete darkness, until my eyes got used to it. I reached a landing, turned and kept going. At the top of the stairs it was still dark enough to trip over the brass strips at the edges of the axminster that led into the vast room. The carpet seemed to have tones of burgundy and deep violet, but who could tell in that light? It looked like the cover of The Zombies 1968 psychedelic album ' Odessey and Oracle ', but it might have been forest green. I looked around. Inset into the north and west walls of the room were four giant tin soldiers, standing sentinel like armour suits in a medieval castle. I thought I had stumbled into a Victorian-era children's nursery at midnight, and had shrunk. The east wall was in almost full darkness, but voices and the flash of light on glass gave it away as a bar. Figures ...

Guy, a copywriter, and Rob, his art director are a creative team at Blake Browning Burns. They have just walked into the meeting room they call 'the cupboard' because it is small and intimate enough for closed-door meetings of two or three people. (It is generally suspected around the agency that such 'meetings' have also taken place after, or even during, Friday nights drinks.) Craven, the account director, follows them into the room. Craven is tall with jet black lank hair, and has affectations, and wears loud suits. He looks like a character from a Raymond Chandler novel, possibly Lindsay Marriott from 'Farewell My Lovely'. 'Craven' is his surname but he uses it as his first name. It fits. In the room, Craven throws a fat manila folder diagonally onto the table with a thump, slewing out a bunch of briefing notes. CRAVEN: Guys! GUY (DEADPAN): Guys what? CRAVEN: I'm just saying 'Hello!' ROB: No, you're not, you said 'Guys...

Chop two onions into fine rings. Evenly line a large casserole with some of the rings. Add a tablespoon of Australian olive oil. (Does anyone still buy the imported stuff ?) Now chop three or four zucchini - depending on size - into rings. Add a layer of zucchini over the onions. Do the same with a couple of sliced leeks, then two or three peeled potatoes sliced very, very thinly. Add half a cup of tomato puree and a shake of salt and cracked pepper. Repeat the zucchini, leek and potato layers and tomato puree. Top with more tomato, chopped parsley, snipped chives and fresh basil. Add a little chicken or vegetable stock to almost cover vegetables. Add cheese if desired. Place the lid on casserole and bake until bubbling.

It is late morning in the boardroom of advertising agency Blake Browning Burns. During the meeting, the account executive, Angelo, has briefed the creative team, Guy (writer) and Rob (art director), on a boring job - to write and design a brochure for an automobile client. Language warning. ANGELO: So that's the brief, guys. Write a brochure promoting the Sniper Roadside Assistance Program. GUY AND ROB TOGETHER: Great. (YOU CAN HEAR THE ENTHUSIASM IN THEIR VOICES. OR YOU COULD IF IT WAS THERE) ANGELO: Happiness? GUY: As happy as we could be on a dreary Tuesday morning having just been briefed on possibly the single most boring job in the history of advertising. ANGELO: Stop complaining. You get paid. ROB: We don't get paid enough for the pain we go through. Unlike you. You just drive up and down from St Kilda Road to your revhead client in Mulgrave and deliver bullshit at both ends. ANGELO: You try it some time. The client hates me and you hate me. But that's ...

I used to have neighbours who were immigrants from India. They used to cook outside in summer, catching on pretty quickly to the local custom. The smoky aroma that came over the fence was insanely wonderful. It smelled like a Goanese street food stall. So I tried to out-aroma them. I came up with the following. Spicy barbecued chicken. Grind or process: a tablespoon each of chili and coriander powder, a teaspoon each of turmeric, fenugreek leaves, peppercorns, and salt, five green cardamom pods, one piece of star anise, two cloves of garlic, one inch each of peeled ginger and cinnamon, one clove, one pinch each of asafoetida and nutmeg, and a teaspoon of sugar. Blend all the spices with about three-quarters of a cup of vinegar. You'll end up with a grainy-textured sludge. Then fold the grainy sludge through a cup of full-fat yogurt and coat all pieces of a chicken which you have jointed and slashed. Press the mixture under the skin and into the slashes. Store chicken in the...

I was driving to Werribee on a warm Saturday. It was just after midday. I turned off the ring road where it swept around onto the Princes Freeway at Laverton and straightened up towards Hoppers Crossing. The traffic was light and I was fiddling with the radio. There was nothing I felt like listening to; eighties rubbish on the commercial stations or boring chatter on the talk stations. I flipped it again. Her voice came out of the radio and I couldn't place it. The song could have been medieval or it could have been recorded yesterday. But it might have been the most beautiful song ever recorded. They lyrics had that special quality so rarely found: once heard they can never be forgotten. By the time it finished, I had arrived. The radio station went straight on to the next track. I looked it up later .

I'm not sure if there was ever a horse called Gado Gado, but there was once a Gatum Gatum, which won a Melbourne Cup*. I was standing up to my ankles in wood shavings in my father's workshop (he was building a boat) in November 1963 when he stopped planing some timber to listen to Bert Bryant's call on 3UZ. It was one of the earliest Melbourne Cups I can recall. Now it's a lifetime later and Winx is burning herself into the memories of a new generation of children. Alex rode her first proper horse (meaning not just going round in a circle on a Shetland pony at a fair) on the Mornington Peninsula recently, and probably imagined herself steering Winx to victory. She wants to be a vet or a jockey. * In possibly the weakest segue ever written in this blog, we now move on to today's recipe. Gado Gado. Chop five or six potatoes into quarters. Chop four carrots into batons. Boil them. When half done, drop in four cubes of cabbage into the pot and, towards th...

The parish bulletin of 14 October carried the following notice: "Archbishop Denis Hart has regrettably had to cancel his visit to St Paul's parish and school on Wednesday 18th October and Saturday 21st October due to a strained wrist. He told Fr Ray that he was looking forward to this visit as he enjoyed the last visit last March." That's a week's notice for a strained wrist. The parish bulletin went on: "We pray for him in his time of need and recovery." That sentence is either the kind of exaggerated clerical cordiality as satirised by comedian Dick Emery's character 'The Vicar' ... or bitingly vicious sarcasm. I'm not sure which. But I could take a guess.

We just sat at the same table exactly six years after the event below.

The tomatoes are in, assisted by that three-day heat wave we just had. Now it's raining.

The electricity generators, newly converted to the green religion, are planning to pay you to turn off your air-conditioning . The politicians love it: Mr Frydenberg said the pilot program could save enough power to support more than 100,000 homes — or as much as is generated by a small power station. How about I turn out the lights as well and you can shut another one and give me money? NSW Energy Minister Don Harwin compared the plan to the way people learned to reduce their water use during the last major drought. Bad comparison, Mr Energy Minister. Everyone has water, but not everyone has air-conditioning. Water falls from the sky, humans generate electricity. At least, they are supposed to so that people's life support equipment doesn't go off, among other things. (See Arthur Hailey's Overload , 1979.) Aside from that, I never installed aircon, so can I get the rebate for all the power I never used? Ms Zibelman ... said it would make the power system more reliable ...

Front of Himalayan Pink Salt pack: This salt is 250 million years old. Back of Himalayan Pink Salt pack: Best before April 2019.

2010: Playing computer games with your children can be just as valuable as reading to them, an expert claims. ... Jeffrey Brand*, head of media and communications at Bond University ... likens concerns over the effect of computer games to 19th century fears that reading novels was bad for children because it would stop them from playing outdoors. ... And he believes it's only a matter of time before there is a "canon" of classic computer games, just as there is a literary canon of classics by great writers such as Shakespeare, Austen and Dickens. (For 2010's 'computer games' read today's more correct 'hand-held devices'.) 2017: Tech consultants won't tell you, for example, that excessive screen use transforms your child's brain structure, which can result in issues with emotional processing, executive attention, decision making, and cognitive control. They won't tell you that it also may result in a myriad of psychological and physi...

Another cat has appeared. It visits late in the evening when I sit outside on my north-facing porch and gaze across the impatiens and roses and lavender, and the viburnum and photinia beyond them, to the clear horizon. Collarless, it is all-over grey and has a white face and white paws. It prowls up the pathway from the street, and turns left onto the porch and buffets me with its head, just like the last one did. Is history repeating ?

Throw half a cup of flour, a teaspoon of salt and the same of pepper into a plastic bag. Now add two veal shanks. Twist the bag closed and shake it to coat the shanks in the seasoned flour. Warm some oil in a heavy pan and sear the shanks. It is difficult to sear a cylindrical shape all over, so roll them around by shaking the pan gently. Remove seared shanks to a baking dish and add to the pan a finely chopped onion, a diced carrot, a diced zucchini, two scored garlic cloves and a splash of stock. Shake the pan, put a lid on it and leave it for three minutes to steam the vegetables. Then tip the whole thing into the baking dish and add a cup of red wine, a tin of diced tomatoes, a tablespoon of tomato puree, a couple of dozen pitted black olives and enough stock to cover. I also empty the rest of the seasoned flour from the plastic bag into the dish to help the fluid thicken. Two hours in the oven should do it. The meat will fall off the bone if you're not careful when removin...

Another tree gone. I took out the stump on Tuesday. Good riddance. I have a book in my reference library titled Who Planted That Damned Thing! by Graham Calcutt, a gardening landscaper and writer of some note. As you can tell by the title, it is a light-hearted read but it packs a deadly punch. Its subject is the unsuitable shrubs and trees that people put in their gardens - mainly due to gardening fashion - and which landscape gardeners are eventually requested to remove. Calcutt advises his reader, 'Do your homework well, because to have to remove a tree that in five years is already too big, is a futile exercise.' But the book was published in 1985, so it talks about plants that were fashionable in the 1960s and 1970s, and only matured into monsterdom a decade or two later, like pampas grass or gum trees. Sometimes you still see pampas grass the size of a forest on those large blocks in the foothills of the Dandenongs, or giant gum trees in small Fitzroy courtyards. One...

Twenty years ago - or maybe it was thirty - no-one had ever heard of gnocchi until some Italian immigrants started importing shrink-wrapped packs of them and selling them in delis in the inner suburbs. I bought some of the earliest ones and quite liked them with napoli or bolognese sauce, but these days I make my own, because home-made ones make the manufactured ones taste like Deb instant mashed potato, which essentially is what they are. Now gnocchi are everywhere, especially in overpriced hipster cafes where I even came across one dish some years ago that was entitled 'gnoccho' because it was literally one on the plate. That was probably the last time I visited a hipster cafe. The sole gnoccho had an injection of arugula walnut pesto on it, and it costed $21, but without the dollar sign, to make it sound cheaper. But gnocchi are not the only Italian dumplings. There are also 'malfatti', which means 'badly made', because these dumplings tend to take ran...

Farmed salmon is either the best thing you can eat, or environmentally unsound depending on who you ask. Something about encroaching on unfarmed fishes' territory, or their residue spoils the water for the natives, or the farmed fish can escape . In the past a riposte such as the W. C. Fields quote about fish could blow these nonsensical theories out of the water but today any rational reply is met with a sanctimonious gaze through eyes that are slightly unsteady. Salmon with beurre blanc. The sauce Reduce 3/4 white wine to 1/4 white vinegar in a pan with a sprig of tarragon, a bay leaf, ten black peppercorns and a chopped spring shallot. Cool and strain. Place two tablespoons of this reduction into a pan with a tablespoon of cream. Reduce this by half and then gradually whisk pieces of cold, diced butter until thickened slightly. Add the juice of half a lemon, salt and pepper. The fish Cook salmon fillets gently in a pan with a little butter and lemon juice. The vegetab...

This is hard to watch, but incredible. Hard because they run the wrong way in Sydney (explanations are vague but New South Wales also tried to sabotage the southern colony by building their railways on a different gauge and playing a different ball game) but incredible because of the outcome. Either a barrier attendant was holding her late, or the starter let them go before she was settled, or she reared and nearly dropped Hugh Bowman; either way Winx came out four or five lengths behind the field. Her eventual overtaking of seven horses occurs in the last six hundred on the outside, despite being almost outfoxed at the post by stablemate Foxplay. But not quite! In a mirror event, Arrogate failed went down to his stablemate. Jockey Hugh Bowman repeated how I described Winx on Saturday, but it's hardly a unique claim: "She's a freak!"

Winx v. Arrogate : Winx hasn’t been beaten for more than two years and, after this weekend, she could even be rated the best galloper in the world if US champ Arrogate has his colours lowered again at Del Mar in California on Sunday morning. She's a freak: A recent university study identified Winx’s stride and, to be more precise, the frequency of her stride as a clue to her extraordinary ability. Winx’s stride length was measured at about 6.8m, which is longer than the average. The mighty mare takes about 170 strides per minute — compared to an average racehorse’s 140 per minute — which underlines her ability to sustain top speed for longer than her rivals. A longer stride at a faster frequency? That's freakish. Could we train humans to do that? Probably not - four legs v. two means there is some kind of a gearing phenomenon at play.

Three Glenn Campbell favourites, all of whom are Jimmy Webb compositions: 1. 'Galveston' 2. 'Wichita Lineman' and the lesser known: 3. 'Where's the Playground, Susie' and maybe this as well: But she'll just hear that phone keep on ringing Off the wall, that's all Read Jimmy Webb's tribute to Glenn Campbell.

1. Armenia has very nice views . 2. Archaeological surveyors found the world's earliest known leather shoe there in 2010. 3. An Armenian edged out Elvis Presley and Bob Dylan in an 'entertainer of the century poll' in 1998*. 4. Armenia was the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion thanks to apostles Thaddeus and Bartholomew who preached there circa AD40, possibly due to the nice views. 5. Armenia's coat of arms bears an image of Mt Ararat, traditionally the place where Noah's Ark landed. 6. 'Armenian potatoes'. (See below.) * Armenian potatoes is one of the best side dishes you've never heard of. Or maybe you have. Maybe you cook it every week. But I'd never heard of it until I came across the recipe in an ancient cookbook. It takes old potatoes, dices them, turbocharges them with garlic and pairs the slow, sweet burn of paprika with the acid tang of tomato. Then it all fires up in the oven into a crunch-laden flav...

Doodle Google story here . Or visit doodle artist here .

It's always a thrill to find out something you didn't know. Today, Herald Sun economics reporter Paul Gilder revealed that: A Deloitte Access Economics report this week found Victoria's generation capacity had been reduced in the wake of the March closure of the Hazelwood power station. Ignorance-busting revelations to come include (a) most birds fly (b) sun rises in the east (c) KFC is delicious (d) the side with more points wins. It must be fun working at Deloitte. Get all your self-evident reports out of the way in the morning, and you've got all afternoon to sit around leveraging diversity .

Everyone talks the talk about supporting farmers but few walk the walk. It's all very well paying an extra forty cents for milk, but it's mere gesture purchasing if you then go to the next aisle and load up on Mutti passata, or any Italian tomato product for that matter. Mutti preaches a responsible approach to nature, so why spoil that by shipping the things halfway round the earth? I'm turning locavore one can at a time. Australian canned tomatoes including cherry tomatoes are sitting right next to the imports, so use them instead. Rigatoni with tomato, herbs and chick peas. Chop an onion finely, and cook in olive oil 1 until translucent. Add a crushed clove of garlic. While it's cooking, puree two cans of diced tomatoes. Add the pureed tomatoes, a dash of salt, a dash of sugar, a dash of chili pepper and half a teaspoon of dried basil to the onion. Cook gently. Add a little water if necessary to achieve a smooth, saucy consistency. Toss in half a can of c...

The Australian Football League is planning a return to its spiritual home, and will move its headquarters back to East Melbourne after 17 years in Docklands. AFL CEO Gillon McLachlan said the return to East Melbourne placed the AFL in the best position to play a leadership role in the nation's ethics. "2 Cathedral Place is not just a couple of drop punts from the MCG," he said, "but it also has a history of moral high ground which is a perfect fit with our corporate ethos." McLachlan was excited about the move, saying the additional building on the site could be utilised for special events. "St Patrick's Cathedral is the perfect location for media conferences," he said. "Its heritage-listed pulpit will allow me to be well-heard on a range of current issues," he added. McLachlan said it could also be used on Brownlow night to read votes, subject to the venue gaining a liquor licence. The former tenants of 2 Cathedral Place have b...

These books were common in the 1950s and early 1960s when they were imported from Britain for the huge Australian baby boomer market, then still in their infancy to early teens. They were often given as birthday or Christmas gifts; Lego, electronic devices and gift vouchers were yet to be invented. (However, there was Airfix.) Today they are hardly collectors' items but their retro illustration styles are of interest. I found the above example above in the Melbourne CBD's last second-hand bookstore, a goldmine in a basement off Flinders Street. You could spend a week in there and not get bored. I got Film Fun Annual 1955 home and opened it. Just before the title page was a feature common to older books. This was the 'This Book Belongs To ...' page, shown below. I looked closely at the inscribed name. Now, just a moment. That is not a common name. Could there have been two - or more - Ralph Doubells in Melbourne in 1955? Quite possibly. But somehow I doubt i...

"The first zucchini I saw I killed it with a hoe," goes the famous quote, complete with superfluous pronoun. Presumably the author gave up after his first kill, especially if he were to find Dave Barry's zucchini experience accurate: "You can't grow just one zucchini. Minutes after you plant a single seed, hundreds of zucchini will barge out of the ground and sprawl around the garden, menacing the other vegetables. At night, you will be able to hear the ground quake as more and more zucchinis erupt." The point is that more boring a vegetable is, the more jokes are written about them. But nobody laughs at the following recipe. Spiced zucchini stew with chick peas and olives. Fry a large chopped onion in olive oil until soft. Add two scored garlic cloves, a tablespoonful of grated orange zest, a teaspoonful of cummin and a half teaspoonful of dried crushed red pepper. Stir until well combined. Now add about a half kilogram of diced white zucchini, ...

A. Coles Tuna in Brine, 80c. B. Dine Tuna Slices in a Light Jus $1.89. Answer below. A is normal canned tuna. B is cat food.

I usually make lasagna from scratch but of the frozen ones from supermarkets, the Aldi 2kg pack is very good value at $8.99 and looks and tastes like the real thing. The front of the pack proclaims that it 'serves ten', so I put it to the test. I cut the cooked lasagne into sections and served them, and the children (age 11, 10 and 6) despatched these in minutes. Second serves disappeared likewise. Alex dropped out first, but she hadn't played two hours of football. It was a race to the finish for Thomas and William but William prevailed. The pack served three. Three children. But it was still excellent quality and good value: these children eat like horses. Or is the expression "I could eat a horse"? I can never remember. Another variation on the baked pasta category is one I have made many times over the years and may have posted once or twice in this blog. Baked giant pasta shells . You can find the large ones at Italian delis (such as T-Deli in Sydney...

I once worked in an advertising agency in a soaring city building that also housed several hundred of the types of corporate accountants and lawyers that you never see, you just know they are there. They must all arrive at 6 a.m. and leave after eight in the evening, because they only people I ever saw in the lift were couriers, lunch delivery people and the lolly lady. The building had a marble lobby that you entered through one of those rotating doors that always seem to be about to slice you in half, and the agency was on the 27th floor, away from the grime and the noise and the lunchtime joggers. I had been working there for a few years as a kind of freelance to clean up the on-staff writers' bad writing and do the jobs they didn't want to tackle. Annual report for a national office supplies company? 64-page brochure promoting a self-managed super fund? Give it to the freelancer, they said. Lazy pricks. On the other hand, I spent long periods waiting around for the next...

I once had the acquaintance of a group of Uniting Church types who used to get together to do 'Good Works'. (Normally I don't capitalise key words but these people were so upright, they resembled capital letters themselves as they strode into their church hall, once home of the long-gone choir, to discuss their next charitable expedition 'abroad'.) Mostly they were upper middle class widows from Kew and East Hawthorn who could afford to travel but some were gentlemen, retired woolly academic types or timid pastors who hadn't quite made it as zeal-filled missionaries, but still liked the travel aspect. They all got on together like a house on fire, of course. At their monthly meetings the ladies discussed the agenda fiercely – which third world country should be the next destination - while the men silently made tea in the corner, and with slender pale hands put out not enough stale biscuits on a tray. Hopeless. I used to drive one of the men to the airport f...

Today I was invited to consider a 'communications' position at the fraud-ridden Australian Taxation Office. The job description - it's in the public domain, so there's no breach of confidentiality - is beyond parody: At the ATO, you'll do work you can't do anywhere else. Nowhere else could you hide $165 million in your top drawer. Work that is meaningful, diverse and challenging. Work that makes a real difference to the lives of Australians, and that contributes to their economic and social wellbeing. Work that might take you somewhere unexpected. Jail. ... Build cutting edge systems that engage, and make it easier to do the right thing than it is to do the wrong. That last sentence would have any other organisation ripping the ad down in seconds. And I don't mean the bad grammar.

Once, a long time ago, when the offence industry was yet to be funded by the Australian taxpayer, Lou Richards made Melbourne laugh. Yesterday his Flinders Street journey ended at St Paul's Cathedral after long sojourns at the Herald Sun HSV7 building and the Phoenix Hotel. Patrick Carlyon tries to define Richards' appeal: Part insecurity, part vanity, part truth, part mockery. Mockery? Isn't mockery a crime now? Ron Joseph delivered some choice Richards scorn on the late clown's behalf at his funeral, including barbs such as "Rhodes scolar, my bum" for ex-AFL bureaucrat Mike Fitzpatrick, who hasn't cracked a smile since he lost a game for Carlton in 1981 when an umpire pinged him for wasting time. Carlyon continues: It was always impossible to read Richards' deepest motivations for his lighthearted grandiosity, except that we knew Richards was always looking for a laugh. Speaking of looking for a laugh, in the same newspaper, letter-writing barri...

Caption to photograph (Herald Sun, 17 May) of new AFL umpire: AFL football operations manager Simon Lethlean unveils new league umpire Eleni Glouftsis yesterday.

I had been dreaming about being chased by a large mosquito that kept going around my head getting louder and louder. Then I woke and the mosquito noise was a power boat doing laps of the lake. I had drifted off in a deck chair on the grassy bank of a large lake. Now it was late morning and the sun was warm and there was a light breeze. The newspaper I had dropped had blown across the grass and one piece of broadsheet was actually in the lake. Now the boat was on the far side of the water, and trailing the boat was a large round inflatable dinghy to which two small figures were clinging. The driver of the boat seemed to be flicking the steering wheel, so that the dinghy was being drawn back and forth across the corrugated wake of the boat. The two figures were hanging on like cats on the roof of a moving car. The boat came back around clockwise and as it turned, one figure loosened his grip, apparently intentionally; and the g-forces pushed him over the other figure and the dinghy mov...