Rosemary hedge: the aroma of autumn stews.

Some years ago I put a hedge of rosemary where some old geraniums had been, in a narrow garden strip under the north-facing front window bordering the path to the front door. Now, fully grown, its pine forest-blue-green needled stems tap at the windows; and, if you brush your hand against it as you pass, leaves an aromatic earthy perfume you seem to be able to detect all day.

On a more practical level, rosemary adds an immense flavour and aroma boost to meat dishes, particularly gelatinous stews from cuts such as lamb shank.

I made the recipe below the other night, the coldest this year; a night when the pain of almost-molten sand underfoot goes from recent memory - just a few weeks ago on Point Leo beach - into some cerebral receptor vault: another summer dies (although it was already autumn). And they are finite. Tick, tick.

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I browned salted and peppered four lamb shanks in a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a pan and then transferred them to a baking dish. In the same pan, I sautéed three large diced carrots, one large diced onion and a few scored garlic cloves, throwing them into the casserole after a few minutes of stirring. Into the same pan I poured in half a bottle of red wine and half a litre of chicken stock I'd made from a chicken from the takeaway shop where the middle teenager works (yes, he gets paid in chickens as well as money!) I stirred the fluids and poured it on top of the meat and vegetables in the casserole dish, along with a can of diced tomatoes, and finally scattering in a good dessertspoon-full of chopped rosemary. Don't stint on this step.

Into the oven for a couple of hours: the aroma of rosemary and sweet, gelatinous lamb fills the house and stumbles out into the autumn garden where leaves turn, little fires burn and roses strain their late flowerheads to a sun that seems to move farther north each day.

Served with garlic mash, green salad, crusty bread and the rest of the bottle.