What I Cooked Last Night

IN PART ONE , CREATIVE DIRECTOR JUSTIN IS PRESENTING A BEER CAMPAIGN TO BREWERY CLIENT EUGENE IONESCO (SIC). PLEASANTRIES OUT OF THE WAY, EUGENE ASKS FOR A COFFEE BEFORE GETTING DOWN TO BUSINESS. NOW READ ON. JUNE, THE LAST REMAINING TEA LADY IN THE ADVERTISING INDUSTRY, CRASHES THROUGH THE DOOR WITH A TROLLEY LOAD OF COFFEE CUPS. SHE SAYS NOTHING BUT PLONKS A LOADED TRAY ON THE BOARDROOM TABLE AND WADDLES OUT AGAIN, SLAMMING THE DOOR. EUGENE: I see June's in her usual high spirits today. JUSTIN: Every time there's a pitch on she gets more stressed than anyone else in the entire agency because it throws her routine out. A presentation with sixty million dollars in the balance, and June's grumpy about ten extra cups to wash up. Plus, I figure she's lost us several new accounts just by spilling coffee on the MD or being rude to the head of marketing. EUGENE: Yes, well as clients we do factor in the quality of service at a potential agency. That's only natural....

So they turned Victoria Bitter back into a beer, reissued the earlier pack design and brought back the old advertising line, a hard-earned thirst needs a big cold beer . Good*. I cooked up the following stew while camping along the Murray River recently. Browning the meat takes a little extra effort and an additional implement or two. Optionally you can throw the whole lot in together. When your pot starts steaming, the aroma will drift along the bank and you'll have visitors. Beef with beer. In a large pot over the camp fire, place one chopped onion, a dash of oil, 500g diced beef (dredged in seasoned flour and browned), a chopped carrot, two sticks of chopped celery, a bay leaf or two, a chopped leek, a sprig of thyme, two tablespoons of tomato puree or paste, a tablespoon of brown sugar, one can of Victoria Bitter and enough beef stock to cover. Let it bubble away for a few hours. Serve with potatoes wrapped in foil and buried in the coals for an hour or two ...

Seems to have been all seafood lately, or maybe I just haven’t written about the less interesting dinners; baked beans on toast, etc. (Having said that, if you add scrambled eggs flecked with chopped prosciutto or pancetta, sliced warmed avocado, grilled mushrooms and a grilled leek sausage, you have a passable supper. Interestingly, people seem to be eating this kind of thing in the morning in cafes all over town, but I can’t; just like I could never face up to the British morning fare of kippers before midday.) Nevertheless, Easter week is a good time to be eating seafood. I went into the fish shop in Sydney Road to buy some clams to make pasta vongole, but came out with a large bag of mussels instead, due to $5.99 compared to $25.99 per kilogram. I also bought some flathead tails because they are delicious and the children are not yet eating mussels. (However, William did ask me if I picked them off the pier from which they had been diving. I replied no, but not far away; just acr...

Hurstbridge was cold. It’s always cold in Hurstbridge, except in summer when it’s as hot as hell. Maybe I’ve just never visited in spring or autumn. It was the monthly Sunday farmers’ market. I don’t usually like markets when they’re full of trinkets and junk and strawberry soap, but this one is different. The market rambles across open space on the river flat below the main street, just north of where the train line ends in a pile of junk in the old rail yards. The children were queuing for pony rides at the edge of the market grounds where Diamond Creek meanders through the eucalypts, so I went over to the Grand Ridge Brewery stall just to admire the labels on the bottles. No cutting edge minimalism here. Each label has the magnificent Grand Ridge Brewery lyrebird logo over different background colours to indicate which beer variant it is. Handy, because you don’t want to be reading small type late at night when you reach into the fridge for your seventh beer, especially when the...

There comes a time when a spice jar gets so old you keep it anyway, for curiosity value. I have a nutmeg jar, nearly empty, that has ounce weight on the label. That makes it pre-1972, when we changed to decimals, much of which nobody understands. How tall is a 165cm gangster? Beats me. The nutmeg jar is a nice imitation cut glass design with a silver and blue label and a red Hoyts logo. Since spice jar use-by dates give you a few years, someone must have bought the jar in the late 1960s, possibly when Hey Jude was topping the charts. How did it come to be in my kitchen? No idea. Picked it up somewhere. Probably borrowed it from my mother's kitchen years ago. Spicy barbecued chicken. One tablespoon each chili and coriander powder One teaspoon each turmeric, fenugreek leaves, peppercorns, and salt 5 green cardomom pods 1 black cardomom pod 1 piece star anise 2 cloves garlic 1 inch peeled ginger 1 inch cinnamon 1 clove 1 pinch asafoetida 1 grate of nutmeg One half-teas...

I had an email from the Old Collegians, who organise events - usually golf, football or wine tastings - that they consider might be of interest to the college community: Dear Old Collegian A happy healthy lifestyle - that's what we all want. As a member of the Old Collegians community, you are warmly invited to the Life Insurance Advisers' Men's Health Forum on Wednesday 12th May from 7pm. Prominent speakers will discuss Nutrition Made Easy, Heart and Kidney Tips and much more. Free on-the-spot blood pressure, cholesterol and body mass index tests will be conducted, with a Doctor on hand to discuss results if required. Enjoy complimentary nibbles with drinks from the bar.

Sunday evening. Almost dark. No breeze. Warm. Embers still glowing in the grill. The helicopter had started earlier. It made low arcs in the sky stabbing the ground with a searchlight that swung around like a drunk wielding a light saber. Its engine made a nice clean treble chop, chop, chop on the approach and a rumbling bass whirr on the ebb. Sometimes this makes the glasses rattle in the cupboard, but only when I’ve placed them too close together. When this happens, I simply move them slightly apart, and then only the house shakes and I can't do anything about that. Something about helicopters and Sunday nights in this town. Maybe the pilots earn double rates on Sundays. Maybe the city goes nuts. I don’t know. It went away after a while. I like Sunday nights. I like the peace and the solitude and the warm spring air and the distant sounds of traffic and the trams trundling along a Sydney Road canyoned by crumbling Victorian verandahs over darkened fabric shops and smoky k...