What I Cooked Last Night

3RRR announcer Brian Wise plays plenty of Bob Dylan, but on Saturday he used the excuse of Dylan's birthday - and the announcement of some Dylan concerts at the Palais - to crowd the playlist. We were in the car, on the peninsula under a cold streaky sky alongside a grey heaving sea, heading for town. Music sounds better when you're driving. The two hours made the boys Dylan fans, continuing a long family tradition dating back to me. I told them Dylan's frog-like growl makes him either the worst good singer in the world, or the best bad one. They thought about that for a while. Put his voice over that Warner Brothers cartoon where the frog sings opera, I said, and you'll see what I mean. It fits perfectly. Close to town now. "Changing of the Guards" from Street Legal even took me by surprise. The year that album came out I saw Dylan play a night concert at the Myer Music Bowl; I had an open air ticket, it rained, I could barely hear the music, and I drove h...

Leek and zucchini casserole. Chop four large onions and one leek into fine rings. Slice two large green (or four small white) zucchini into thin rounds. Peel and chop two medium potatoes into thin slices. Place a layer of the onion rings in a large casserole dish and drizzle with a little olive oil. Add a layer of zucchini, a layer of leeks and a layer of potatoes. Brush each with oil as you go and add some tomato puree (or diced tomatoes with the juice), to moisten each layer. Repeat layers until casserole is three quarters full. Top up with balance of a cup of tomato puree, half a cup of white wine and half a cup of stock. Ensure there is enough fluid to cover the vegetables. Sprinkle a teaspoon of crushed dried rosemary over the top. Add salt and pepper. Place the lid on the casserole and bake until bubbling. Top with chopped parsley. Serve with crusty bread smeared with home-made pesto, tapenade or the like.

The more I think about it, the uncannier the similarities. (See previous post.) One 1980s drink-waiting job - although I was more of a plongeur carrying out jugs of beer and carafes of wine in between shifts at the sink - was at a reception centre in Melbourne's working class 'heartland' (upper classes don't have a 'heartland' - their suburbs are 'leafy' instead). The kitchen was a vast space with a central cooking area and a rabbit warren of passageways running off three sides. (The dining rooms were to the north side, through sound-proof plastic kick doors shielded from view by two enormous curtains.) In the passageways were rooms for the storage variously of foodstuffs, casks of wine, cases of spirits, rows of steel and vinyl chairs stacked at life-endangering height, spare round tables on their sides like giant cartwheels, sound equipment, cleaning items, linen, office supplies and, of course, the day manager's office which was always locked at ...

Or, in this case, non-fictional: At a quarter to five we went back to the hotel. Till half-past six there were no orders, and we used this time to polish silver, clean out the coffee-urns, and do other odd jobs. Then the grand turmoil of the day started - the dinner hour. I wish I could be Zola for a little while, just to describe that dinner hour. The essence of the situation was that a hundred or two hundred people were demanding individually different meals of five or six courses, and that fifty or sixty people had to cook and serve them and clean up the mess afterwards; anyone with experience of catering will know what that means. And at this time when the work was doubled, the whole staff was tired out, and a number of them were drunk. I could write pages about the scene without giving a true idea of it. The chargings to and fro in the narrow passages, the collisions, the yells, the struggling with crates and trays and blocks of ice, the heat, the darkness, the furious festering...

Welcome to the future of driving with the RACV Connected Vehicle app began the mailout, predictably beginning with a cliché. Welcome to the future of ... fishing? abseiling? home brewing? race walking? The app, the mailout explained, made your driving experience safer , more convenient and enjoyable . (My emphasis.) How can using a phone while you are driving be safer? The mailout did not specify. The app, it went on, provides you with personalised access to the information you need to enhance your total driving experience . Notice in that line at least five words marketers drop into their sentences - in any order - to sell you something completely useless. The app's Eco Drive function lets you get rated on your driving behaviour and compare your performance with other members ; while its My Trips feature lets you geo-tag your photos and upload (them) to Facebook . Look out, here comes a hairpin bend! Tag it! Upload it! You can check the weather (if it is not obvio...

That's the simple name for what the recipe specifies as lentils and rice with fried onions. Doesn't sound great, tastes amazing. Even the children eat it. Its simplicity and ease of preparation means it is on high rotation here, like a Rolling Stones hit on 3XY in 1967. Lentils and rice with fried onions. You'll need: One cup each of red lentils and long grain rice, two large onions, 2½ tablespoons ghee, 2 teaspoons salt, ¼ teaspoon each ground black pepper, ground cloves, ground cardomom, ground cinnamon and ground nutmeg and 3½ cups boiling water . Wash the lentils, removing any that float. Drain thoroughly. Melt ghee in a heavy pan that has a lid. Slice onions into thin rounds and fry until golden brown, stirring. Remove half the onions and set aside. Add lentils and rice to pan and stir for a minute or two to coat in the hot ghee. Add water and spices, stir well, bring to boil, add the salt, stir again. Turn down to a very low simmer, place the lid on the ...

I never met a spice I didn't like, and I especially enjoy throwing as many in one dish as possible. The following recipe is the most tantalisingly fragrant dish I have ever cooked and always results in people (family members, guests, passing neighbours, small children, etc) demanding some, even if they profess to dislike curry. All the spices are freely available along the Sydney Road Little India strip. Fragrant curried chicken breast. In a food processor, blitz four cloves of garlic, a large peeled knob of ginger, five whole dried red chillies, an inch of cinnamon (or a teaspoon of powdered), five cardamom pods, five cloves, a teaspoon each of black peppercorns and cumin seeds, and half a cup of vinegar until it resembles a relatively smooth paste. Meanwhile, fry two finely chopped onions in ghee or oil or some of each until soft. Then add a can of diced tomatoes and a teaspoon of salt. Cook a few minutes, stirring. Add the paste and a teaspoon of sugar. Saute a few minute...

Well, actually she doesn't wear a lot of red. I'm talking about food. (What is that song?*) Red capsicum prices have come down from the stratosphere so let's cook some. Pasta with swordfish and capsicum. Swordfish is a robust, tasty, magnificent fish that holds together when cooked, making it suitable for barbecuing, etc. According to some, it is also endangered, so get it while you can. (That last comment shocks some of my politically correct friends just like sacrilege would have shocked the middle classes fifty or sixty years ago, proving that eco-obsession has filled the need for religion in an increasingly atheist society). Slice the fish into three quarter inch cubes and marinate it in lemon juice and a dash of balsamic vinegar. Meanwhile, roast a red capsicum, peel it and cut it into strips. Cook some tomato fettucine (I use La Triestina, made locally - in Brunswick). Sear the fish in a heavy pan, cook a minute or so longer, and add it to the drained pa...

It was the first day of the second month of autumn and it reached 35 degrees. I hadn't counted, but the tomatoes must have got into the thousands; which makes growing them, especially cherry ones (slightly oval, like miniature Sherrins), worthwhile despite having to fiddle about with stakes, pinch out lower branches, and tie up vines with old stockings etc. It's not that much work if you have the time. My tomato growing rules: plenty of compost and good soil but no tomato dust and no pesticides. Plant basil and other herbs around them and they’ll keep most bugs away. Most of the tomatoes came straight off the vine and onto the table or into the pot, but I ripened some on the front window sill. Several of this year’s vines were taller than me and, late in summer, were still sending out tendrils in all directions, like a besieged Dustin Fletcher on a bad day. And now I was down to the last few dozen red orbs. I thought I’d send them out with a bang: one of summer’s great dis...

The less you mess about with fish the better. Proof: (a) the Japanese eat it raw, and (b) turning salmon into mousse and stuffing it into a salmon mould is not as popular as it was in the 1980s. I have to point out that the dishes was so common it was frequently served at open-air luncheons with the temperature in the high 20s and the table in the sun ... If you don't fancy raw fish, steaming might be the the next best thing. Despite the fondness I occasionally display for the food I ate as a child, the fish I was served was quite often cooked Cajun-style, but without the exotic spices: blackened. It might have been my fault. I always came in late for dinner. The other night I steamed some firm white flesh fillets in foil in the oven using a few Asian flavour enhancements. Oven-steamed fish. Take your fish fillets, lay them in some double-folded foil, and add some finely grated ginger, a splash of soy sauce, a splash of mirin or rice wine, and a couple of finely chopped spr...

Trends come and go, some faster than others. In some cases, keep the original article and you won't have to buy another every time it comes back into fashion. You'll save a fortune. Take table decoration. There are three types of people in the world. People who dine on tablecloths, those who use placemats, and others who eat from plates set on the naked table top. I have been each of these at various times, but returned to the first category thanks to my collection of retro tablecloths. The collection includes cloths of Irish linen that are virtually indestructible. Tablecloths went out of fashion somewhere around 1970; the only ones you could buy subsequent to that were horrible cheap imports that pilled when you looked at them, or bunched up exasperatingly when you moved a plate. They also lost several shades of colour after one hour on the clothesline after the first wash. By contrast, the earlier ones were so heavy you had to starch them and the colours in the retro-pat...

Tuesday night was pancake night and this year we made potato pancakes for a savoury change. It’s usually maple syrup, or lemon and sugar, or blueberry and ice-cream or even mandarin segments and lemon yogurt. The pancakes were crunchy and delicious. They have to be cooked well to develop that crisp, salty, potato flavour, like classic potato cakes from old-style fish and chip shops. Next morning, the children were walked over to the church at ten o'clock from their classrooms for the Ash Wednesday mass. The school principal had invited parents and grandparents to attend if they were free. The priest distributed the ashes. Towards the end of the service, a phone rang. Or, to be more precise, it chirped. Whoever owned the phone had made its ring tone a bird's noise. In the church, it sounded odd, like someone had brought their pet budgerigar along. Some people looked around. A woman at the end of the pew in front of the one I was in put her hand into a handbag and pulled ...

Last time I was in Mexico, a housewife passed on to me the following deceptively simple recipe .... That was never going to work. I've never been to Mexico*, but I kind of like the music, to quote a 1970s songwriter; but he was talking about Spain. This is a deceptively simple recipe, but it works well if you like the intense heat of your chili hit softened by a smoky cocoa and cumin background, like a Gulf breeze rolling across the Yucatan peninsula. Chili con carne. Brown 500g of beef mince in a little oil. Remove. Dice an onion and saute in the same pan with a little more oil. Dice a red capsicum, crush a clove of garlic, chop one, two or three small hot chili(s) and add these to the softened onion. Cook a minute or two. Add a tablespoon of cumin powder, two teaspoons of coriander, and half a teaspoon each of cinnamon and cocoa powder. Stir to combine. Add the cooked mince, two tablespoons of tomato paste and a cup of vegetable or beef stock or plain water. Stir and co...

Now let me get this straight. The federal government refused to hand over a fistful of dollars (yours and mine) to the Shepparton Preserving Company so the canner could build, I don't know, some new sheds? A mechanised fruit picker? A bin for peach and apricot pits? A new office for the managing director? Despite this obvious, sensible and prudent move, the Victorian government's premier, Dr Denis Napthine*, stepped into the dispute and handed over $22 million (yours and mine, but only if you live in Victoria) to the 'embattled' canner for product 'development', embattled meaning no-one is buying its tins of fruit any more. Now to the point. I went to the supermarket. Rows and rows of cans with convenient ring-pull tops. Then the SPC cans of fruit. No ring-pull tops. You have to rattle around in your kitchen drawer and find a manual can opener (I also have an electric one dating to the 1960s in my collection of kitchen oddities) and physically open your c...