What I Cooked Last Night

Barbecue on a hot night. 1. Roll pieces of salmon through a marinade of soy, ginger and garlic. Wrap in foil adding some of the marinade. Place on grill. Barbecue until the package steams. Serve with coiled glass noodles with sesame oil and stir-fried Chinese broccoli. 2. Lamb chops marinated in olive oil into which you have snipped a handful of fresh rosemary. Serve with cubed potatoes boiled until very soft and then tumbled with chopped spring onion, parsley and a splash of vinegar. 3. Fat pork and sage sausages with a side of red cabbage with apple juice: Fry a couple of chopped medium size onions in oil. Shred one half of a medium red cabbage, add it to the pan and stir gently to coat in oil. Turn the heat down and add a dash of red wine vinegar, a cup of apple juice and a pinch of salt and pepper. Vary the fluid according to the size of the cabbage. Cook 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, reducing a little. When done, top with sour cream and serve alongside the pork and sa...

Happy Christmas or, if you're afraid to offend someone , happy holidays/festive season/new year/Hogmanay/yuletide etc etc. And a peaceful new year. I think that's acceptable.

From today's Herald Sun: While their meat doughnuts completely reimagined this humble snack - paprika sugar-rolled fluffy dough balls with a savoury meat centre - (and which a pork version thereof is also the must-order snack at the very fun Two Wrongs in South Yarra) the "milk and cookies" to finish at Dexter in Preston is a rudely clever, stupidly tasty full stop to a meal. Second prize goes to the same review: This "cheese" course, where a glossy-sheened smoked croissant is served with a round of what appears to be camembert that's actually cauliflower, oozing like ripe cheese, is wildly smart and inventive.

"Please prove you are not a robot."

When you have children, you eventually end up in Healesville, one way or another. One way is the Maroondah Highway. If you tell someone you took the children to Healesville at the weekend, they will ask you two questions: 'How was the traffic?' and, as an afterthought, 'How were the wombats/koalas/numbats?' The answer is always 'appalling', meaning the Maroondah Highway, not the animals; but on a Sunday in December it is even worse, given that half of Melbourne drives to the hills for Christmas picnics, obeying navigators (the GPS ones, not your wife) that push everyone onto the same road when several alternatives are available for old-school Melway-readers. The road is a traffic light-ridden nightmare. Endless minutes crawl by while you wait for green after minutes of red followed by random directional arrows. The motorcade then draws on at snail's pace towards Ringwood past about five branches of Fantastic Furniture, six Barbeques Galore, nineteen McDona...

I don't like restaurants. I don't like the cost, I don't like the noise, I don't like being a prisoner to some idiot waiter, I don't like other people's at-table habits, and I don't like sitting in a place that feels like a nineteenth century workhouse dining room. I'd rather eat at the GMH canteen, or Coles cafeteria; where the dress standard is higher, the customers are more respectful to those around them, the food doesn't cost a fortune, and the serves are bigger. The other week my wife had to go to a work dinner at one of those barn-like renovated pubs where the noise level is like an airport and a glass of wine costs $8.95. Her meal was a pork chop that cost $34 because it had some freekeh and a five-cent-coin-sized mound of smoked onion puree next to it, and you had to pay extra for something called a 'side' which, translated, means the rest of your meal. I ate at home alone that night. We had had corned beef earlier in the week, and...

From the weekend vacant position ads, a job at one of Australia's leading schools, PLC: Director of Innovation The Director of Innovation will develop and execute the vision to re-conceptualise library; space, staff and services, to create an Innovation Centre at PLC. The position plays a strategic and transformational role by providing opportunities for creativity and entrepreneurship through developing innovative and inviting spaces and a range of experiences that delight and engage students and staff as well as offering community building experiences with the wider PLC community. Just read that last sentence again. It is a masterpiece of the genre; an over-long piece of jargon-riddled bureaucrat-speak devoid of any real meaning. Who do they want? An architect? A painter? A set designer? A performance artist? Who knows. Probably they don't, either. On it goes: The incumbent (sic – but they mean the appointee) will ensure the delivery of information learning and literary serv...

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....

Aberfeldie, Saturday 14 November. Left to right: Tom and William. Picture: Gerard Feain (Tom's earlier athletics career here .)

This is probably the best Christmas shopping-for-kids idea I've ever heard. Local bookshop Pictures & Pages is having a grown-ups-only night, during which you get to enjoy champagne and nibbles while you walk around the shop pulling books off the shelf and throwing them in a box. You don't even need your wallet; they give you until December 3 to pay, and after that they will keep your book purchases hidden away out the back until you sneak them home on Christmas eve. That will have the kids scratching their heads after they've searched the house for their presents while you're at work. Interfering little brats. * Pictures & Pages 400 Sydney Rd, Coburg Grown-ups only night 19 November 7pm-9pm .

Victoria Police recently decided that OH&S issues trump pursuing drug-affected criminals in cars. That decision has given licence to the latter to simply drive at or around police to escape apprehension, with predictable results : "The driver of that vehicle accelerated hard towards the police member and ran him down," said Acting Superintendent David Griffin. But may a policeman fire his gun to attempt to save his own life? Herald Sun reporters Kara Irving, Wes Hosking and Jon Kaila (strength in numbers obviously being a necessary requisite for Herald Sun staff at police incidents) ask the question: Supt Griffin ... would not comment on whether discharging the firearm was the best response under the circumstances.

Yes, I watched it. We were up in the hills on Tuesday at a cousin's house for a picnic for the children's grandmother, and after lunch at Belgrave Lake - as pretty a place as you could hope to have a Cup Day lunch - back to the house. The children had drawn horses cut from the morning paper's form guide, and one had Big Orange who led from the start to the 700, and they screamed at the television. Then the field bunched up into a sea of horses, and 300 out a green and purple flash came out of the scrum. We didn't know until the close-up on Michelle Payne's face. Goosebumps. I had earlier read her interview in which she said she had a good feeling about the race. Not the brash kind of good feeling where you're just talking up your chances; but something else. Might have been her mother, or her sister. She lost the former at six months; the latter a few years ago. Youngest of ten, and lost her mother at six months. We didn't know the result until the vision ...

5.30 ON A FRIDAY AFTERNOON. DAVID, THE ADVERTISING AGENCY OWNER, STROLLS INTO THE BOARDROOM, LOOKS AROUND AND SIGHS. HE IS TIRED BUT CONTENT. ANOTHER DIFFICULT WEEK HAS ENDED WITH NO CLIENT DEFECTIONS, NO STAFF TANTRUMS, NO RESIGNATIONS, AND NO FIST-FIGHTS. WHILE DAVID IS THINKING ABOUT WHETHER TO PLAY GOLF AT THE WEEKEND OR SIMPLY HANG OUT AT HIS DOUBLE-STOREY GEORGIAN IN TOORAK, JUNE THE TEA LADY WADDLES INTO THE BOARDROOM. JUNE: I'm closing up in twenty minutes, David. DAVID (THINKS): I own an agency turning over a hundred million a year and the fucking tea lady is kicking me out of my own building. DAVID (SAYS): That’s fine, June. I'll be out in fifteen. WHILE DAVID RULES HIS AGENCY WITH AN IRON FIST HE HAS BEEN SUCCESSFUL IN ADVERTISING MAINLY BECAUSE HE HAS FOLLOWED THE GOLDEN RULE: NO MATTER HOW AGGRESSIVE YOU ARE TO CLIENTS, NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU ABUSE YOUR ACCOUNT TEAM OR SHOUT AT CREATIVE, YOU NEVER, EVER, EVER DISRESPECT THE TEA LADY. NOBODY DISRESPECTS...

THE CREATIVE PRESENTATION FOR A NEW BRAND OF BEER IS TAKING PLACE IN THE BOARDROOM. THE CREATIVE DIRECTOR, JUSTIN, IS AT ONE END OF A TABLE AND THE CLIENT, MR EUGENE IONESCO (YES: HIS NAME REALLY WAS EUGENE IONESCO), IS AT THE OTHER END OF THE TABLE WHICH IS ABOUT A MILE LONG. WHAT IS IT ABOUT LARGE BOARDROOM TABLES? SOME KIND OF STUPID CORPORATE POWER GAME? JUSTIN IS NERVOUS. FIRSTLY, HE HAS TO SHOUT BECAUSE THE CLIENT IS SO FAR AWAY. SECONDLY, THE POWERPOINT PRESENTATION IS ONE FRAME OUT, MEANING THERE'S AN EXTRA PAGE IN THE PRINT DOCUMENT BUT DELETED FROM THE COMPUTER. THIRDLY, THE CONCEPTS ARE NOT MAKING HIM JUMP THROUGH HOOPS TODAY. JUSTIN IS WEARING A CHAMBRAY SHIRT OVER FADED JEANS. HE THINKS HE IS BEING IRONIC ABOUT THE EIGHTIES, BUT HE JUST LOOKS LIKE ROD STEWART. EUGENE IS WEARING A WHITE SHIRT OF FINEST COTTON OVER BLACK DESIGNER PANTS AND SOFT BLACK SUEDE SHOES. A SLINKY ORANGE SCARF IS TOSSED CARELESSLY AROUND HIS NECK AND DRIFTS WITH HIS MOVEMENTS LIKE GOSSAMER. ...