—By the time I was twelve, I had visited a number of restaurants without having eaten in one. My father, of course, was a sales representative—known as ‘traveller’, as in ‘tinker’ or ‘Gypsy’—for a catering supplies firm, John Dynon and Sons. Its vast showroom in City Road, South Melbourne was a museum of 1960s dining trends. —I sometimes accompanied him on his field trips. One hot day we were driving through the snarl of humid West Melbourne—Essendon to the city was faster via Macauley Road and Arden Street than down through Moonee Ponds and Ascot Vale—but the horns I heard were not from the traffic but from a new Beatles song curling from the radio. In the city, my father parked in Lonsdale Street and handed me a shilling for the meter. With Penny Lane still in my head I watched the coin’s ram’s head disappear with an oddly satisfying metallic whirr. Mid-afternoon. Lonsdale Street was populated mostly by grey suits returning from lunch to the banks or the law co...
Recipes and ruminations from a small house in a big city.