What I Cooked Last Night

On Friday morning before the Melbourne Cup weekend, there had been furious jockeying between the creative staff to win the Cup Eve Monday off as a holiday. Creative director Jason had a kind of reverse-Solomon moment in preventing inter-staff jealousy by awarding the bonus Monday to himself (as he had in the past three years). Meanwhile, everyone had been called into the boardroom for drawing of the annual Melbourne Cup sweep, which Yasmiijn de Reverien was to draw. Jason has recently appointed her as his new personal assistant, a job title he changed to 'creative co-ordinator' to deflect any suggestion of inferiority, servitude, misogyny, sexism etc. Yasmiijn's employment was greeted with scepticism from the rest of the creative department; and raised eyebrows from management, but Jason insisted he be allowed to staff his own department without interference. Yasmiijn has flame red hair and is wearing a silky thing that looks like it was woven by butterflies. It is prob...

A cold wind blasted up from the south and the sky was steel grey. I was walking through a patchwork of emerald green paddocks where I once walked as a child with my parents, picking mushrooms. The mushrooms still pop up occasionally but these days the fields are given over to another purpose. I walked along a fence line and saw a horse standing in the cold air in the middle of the paddock. I came closer. The horse seemed to be on a slight lean. It was old. Its eye was on me. It picked up its hooves and ambled over. I walked slowly along, outside the fence. The horse followed me a little way, and then its attention was drawn by another horse in the corner of the field. I came to a gate. On it a sign read: Fields of Omagh. Suddenly I heard a thunderclap. It sounded like 30,000 people screaming, willing a horse past a finishing post on a tight, curved racecourse track. Then silence. Another paddock. Another old horse. Another sign: Might and Power. The noise and vision this time was...

It's funny how you remember where you were. 1962: Even Stevens. In the garage shed with my father in a sea of wood shavings. HMV radio on shelf. He was building a boat. I was five. 1963: Gatum Gatum. The shed. The boat. The radio. Bert Bryant, 3UZ. 1965: Light Fingers. In the backyard. Family lunch. Mother won the sweep. 1968: Rain Lover. Inside the rail at Flemington with my father, photographer. Watched the horse round the turn alone. It won by eight lengths. 1971: Silver Knight. At home in the living room. Bert Bryant on ancient radiogram. 1973: Gala Supreme. In father's studio in back yard. I used to paint and read there. Taped the race on my new cassette recorder. I still have a scrap of Bill Collins' call on 3DB. 1974: Think Big. Living room at home. 1975: Same horse, same place. 1976: Van Der Hum. Abandoned picnic in Dandenongs due to weather. Pulled car over halfway down mountain due to heavy rain. Read Peter Smark's Epicure column in The Age w...

It must have been the reminiscing about Chinese food. Or sitting on top of the West Gate Bridge for two hours. But that night, something fast and tasty was needed on the table. Was there no warning? It seemed the whole of Melbourne was on the bridge, going east or west; not that you can go north or south, but you know what I mean. 'Delay' signs are everywhere at the best of times, but that could mean five or ten minutes. Two hours is not a delay; it's half a day. Ten years ago, the State government changed a perfectly good Victorian motto from 'Victoria On the Move ' to 'Victoria The Place to Be '. 'Victoria Expect Delays ' would have been more accurate, although there were plenty of people with nothing to do but 'be' as they sat on top of the bridge on Saturday staring down at the docks and the half-loaded ships and the grimy river. By the way, avoid the bridge at weekends until Christmas. There’s always the western ring road via Thomast...

The travelling poppies have put in their annual appearance, this year a week or two early; deciding to position themselves in the very hot north-facing bed that catches the mid-morning sun, and which last summer saw the demise of the hedge of Pale Lilac Perennial Balsam, Impatiens Oliveri . 2008 poppy here (scroll down to November) and 2007 version here . Seems they're travelling north year by year. * Further garden clippings: this morning, I put in Tigeress and Amish Oxblood, which sound like horses from yesterday’s Caulfield Guineas but are in fact two heirloom tomatoes (Tigerella is a different, hybrid version in some countries). They went into the front vegetable strip which is currently sprouting broadbeans in all directions. * Digressing wildly, and speaking of yesterday’s races, the final seconds of the Toorak Handicap were a dramatic triumph, the kind of finish that has the caller struggling to reveal the outcome with several horses hitting the line as one, and th...