What I Cooked Last Night

Mourning the condemned. It was 1986 all over again. The Malaysian pair got as much publicity 29 years ago but still ended up in the same place as the Bali two (actually eight) did. The academics, literati and actors were on to it as usual; one male academic had a letter in the paper yesterday describing the pair as 'inspirational' who had lived 'redemptive' lives, and ended with the academic's clichéd 'I weep for you ... (and) pay tribute to your courage'. Signed, emeritus professor. Meanwhile the left-wing act-persons (if that's not redundant) got up an anti-Abbott campaign, prompting the retort: "They (the actors) are ghouls preying on the wretched plight of others to peddle their demonic Abbott hatred". Condemning the dead. Late one night last year, a woman was defiled while still alive in a filthy back street in Brunswick, murdered in cold blood, and then dumped in mud in a field in the middle of the night. Her body was still warm. ...

No. 5: Spinach The Iron Man of the vegetable world, spinach is loaded with the ferrous mineral. To maximise uptake of its iron, eat it with other iron sources such as red meat or beans if you're vegetarian. Possibly the best combination for sheer good taste as well iron uptake is fegato di vitello alla Veneziana ( calves' liver Venetian style ) with creamed spinach. Dine on that and you won't be able to walk past a magnet. For the spinach, rinse a bunch in water, throw it in a pot with olive oil, crushed garlic and cracked pepper, cook it until it crumples, add cream and reduce. Finish it with a squeeze of lemon juice and shake of salt. As children, we never had fegato di vitello alla Veneziana , but we had its second cousin, lamb's fry. Same dish, different animal. I liked it. It was good for your jaws. My mother overcooked it. You could have used the leftovers as doorstops. (A common complaint, it is nevertheless understandable that food was often overcooked in t...

The black dog stayed at our house for four weeks. A year old, he had never been in a house. He had lived in a kennel (a professional one; not a box in someone's back yard) but had never been trained to race. He was obviously well-treated and was in good condition. Typically for these dogs, he was frightened of all the usual domestic noises and jumped at his reflection in a mirror. After living in a concrete quadrangle, a house with dark rooms, and doorways, and blinds that suddenly fly up, and electronic beeping devices must, for dogs, resemble a kind of maze, or a canine ghost train. He got used to it. That's the point of fostering greyhounds; not to make them forget about chasing small animals, which is what people think. As a sight hound for thousands of years, you have as much chance of stopping a greyhound sighting small animals as you have of stopping a bloodhound sniffing or a sheepdog herding. The idea is simply to get them used to initially frightening situations. ...

3AW announcers are doing extra shifts on besieged sister station Magic 1278 . Veteran fill-in announcer John Blackman on air yesterday morning: "And now the three-aye-dub ... ah, the Magic 1278 Community Calendar ... ."

NO. 6: CABBAGE Cabbage ? Yes, cabbage. Loathed by millions, ignored by billions, the densely-packed, heavy-headed Orbness of Wonderment remains a vegetable champion, a wealth of culinary riches. The reasons are manifold and the recipes are boundless, but seven will suffice: 1. Cabbage soup. In its eastern European incarnation, made famous in Melbourne at the late Scheherezade restaurant, fragrant paprika-stung folds of wilted cabbage in a flavour-filled broth that you soaked up with dark rye bread smeared with butter, the soup topped with a mound of peppery mashed potato. Possibly the finest soup on the face of the Earth (although I've said that before). 2. Take two slices of white bread. Butter both generously. On one, lay a half-inch-thick slice of home-made meatloaf, still warm from the oven. Top the meatloaf with a thick layer of traditional freshly made coleslaw dripping with mayonnaise. Close the sandwich. Eat. The experience is other-worldly, perhaps even other-univer...

William (green shirt) listens at three-quarter time huddle during Coburg practice match (v. Frankston), Coburg City Oval, Friday April 3. (Picture courtesy Coburg FC.)

RIP Richie Benaud.

The most fragrant of all vegetables, the leek is the prince of the onion family and the national emblem of Wales. Leeks were grown in ancient Egypt and mentioned in a Chinese food guide 3500 years ago. The emperor Nero dined on leek soup, believing it would strengthen his voice for orations. Superstition? I don't know. Ask Tom Jones, Sir Harry Secombe, Katherine Jenkins, Bryn Terfel, Geraint Evans, and the Male Welsh Choir. The following recipe alone shoots leek into the top ten vegetables of all time, but that's just one. Then you have leek terrines, leek tarts, leek pie, leeks with pasta (or with mushrooms and gorgonzola - totally delicious), and leek omelette, or as it is sometimes more pretentiously known, leek frittata. (The only difference as I understand it is that with a frittata you mix the ingredients through the eggs before cooking; whereas with an omelette you dump the extras on to the eggs in the cooking pan. Big deal.) Leek and Potato Soup Leeks and pot...

NO. 8: CAULIFLOWER There's no getting around it. A cauliflower is a cauliflower. It is not an asparagus spear. It is not a zucchini flower, nor is it a porcini mushroom. It is not a superstar. It is not sexy. As far as vegetables go, cauliflower is Mr Plain, cooked by plain people who happen to be hungry. You could fiddle about with cauliflower and cook in it curries with chickpeas and cashews; or you could impress your dinner party guests by cutting a cauliflower into fancy look-at-me florets, cooking them with tortiglioni and pine nuts and red pepper flakes, and calling it by some regional Italian name that you've dragged out of some cookbook or just made up; but cauliflower, basic as it is, rockets into the Top Ten Vegetables of All Time thanks to one transcendent recipe of perfection: cauliflower cheese. The ultimate vegetable comfort food, a dish that was a smash hit the first time cauliflower and cheese collided, possibly by accident, cauliflower cheese is outstandi...

The whole thing has gone on for well over two years, after the 'blackest day in Australian sport' circus, starring a cast of glowering bureaucrats, politicians and sports administrators. During the two years, the letter writers just didn't go away, like those 4 a.m. mosquitoes you'd like to swat but can't make yourself wakeful enough to do so. Not to mention the social media twits. 'I have torn up my ticket,' they proclaimed. 'I no longer wish to be associated nor identified with such an organisation.' Pomposity meets verbosity. 'I will never attend another game. Nor will my children.' A bit harsh. What if they were to change their mind? 'I do not want my children exposed to such a culture.' 'I am no longer a follower.' 'I have written to the board expressing my dismay.' What, as well as a letter to the editor? Some people had nothing better to do than sit around the house writing sanctimonious lett...

Thanks to Ilana of Inner-FM who played our four-track request on her fabulous Saturday night show Rock'n Roll Heaven on which she plays all the legends. Our set ended with greatest bluegrass song of all time, Bill Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky , performed by Mr E. Presley. Thanks Ilana.

NO. 9: ASPARAGUS Although commonplace now, the semi-mystical asparagus still provokes sighs of pleasurable anticipation when served to grateful diners. People go to any lengths (pardon the pun) to collect this delicacy, even risking encounters with snakes and traffic, as Donaldo Saveiro observed: Robust ladies in rubber boots, carrying sticks to ward off vipers, can be seen constantly patrolling the highways and backroads here in Umbria from March through June in a perennial search for wild asparagus ( asparagi selvatici ) that grow along the roadways, so fond are the Umbrians of spaghetti alla boscaiola and tagliatelle con salsa di asparagi . - La Vera Cucina Italiana , Macmillan, 1991 Unceremoniously chopped into pasta is one thing, but chefs are often tempted by the long, delicate slenderness of the asparagus spear to over-design. I was once served twelve asparagus placed radially on an oversize white round plate. A cherry tomato sat in the centre and black drops of some kind...

A panel of experts commissioned by Mr Kitchen Hand has come up with a definitive list of the world's top ten best-loved vegetables. The panel was plied with pizza and red wine during a marathon session behind locked doors before announcing the results. We commence the countdown at No. 10, below. The Top Ten Vegetables of All Time NO. 10: ZUCCHINI . Zucchini is the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of the vegetable world. Boil the hell out of it and you'll serve up a bland vegetable with a slightly bitter aftertaste - and you'll never cook it again. But treat it with the respect this green marrow-like vegetable deserves, and it turns into a completely different article. Marry zucchini with fiery flavours, barbecue it after marinading it, or stuff it with ... just about anything. Cheap, easy to cook, and widely available, the zucchini deserves its place in the Top Ten, despite the reservations of some of the panel. Steamed zucchini. Sounds innocuous, but makes a great sid...

I've posted the following recipe before, but it bears repeating. It works well at this time of year in Australia when, during the cooler days of early autumn, thoughts turn to casseroles and stews. While today is forecast to reach 28 degrees, the sky is slate grey and the wind is whipping drizzle across the city, where sentimental workers are right now lining up at pubs and bars for Guinness. Irish stew. Roughly slice two large onions; cut four large potatoes into rounds as thick as the head on a pint of Guinness; chop four carrots the same way. Place lamb forequarter or neck chops in a large pot with alternate layers of onions, potatoes and carrots. Add water to just cover; add salt and pepper and plenty of chopped curly-leaf parsley. Bring to boil, skim and simmer 90 minutes. Cool and chill overnight. Next day, remove fat before reheating. Serve with barley, colcannon or simple mashed potato. Colcannon. Some consider this more delicious than the actual stew and they c...