What I Cooked Last Night

Three executives from advertising agency Blake Browning Burns are calling on their client, a major corporate giant in the food manufacturing industry at its headquarters, a modern glass building about a mile high in the CBD. They are Kate, account manager; Hamish, art director and Vijay, copywriter. They get out of their cab in front of the building, walk fifty steps up to the building's forbidding facade, and enter through sliding glass doors big enough to let in a jumbo jet. They trek across a solid marble floor towards a reception desk the size of a battle ship, Kate's high heels clicking in a disturbingly echoey manner. KATE: We're here to see Charles. (TO HAMISH AND VIJAY) I'll sign in for you two. Take a tag. VOICE BEHIND THE DESK (YOU CAN ONLY SEE THE VERY TOP OF A HEAD. IT IS BLONDE): Sign in before you proceed, thank you. KATE SIGNS THEM IN. HAMISH: Thanks, Kate. Vijay, have you ever wondered why the reception desks in these buildings are always talle...

1. Peel half a dozen potatoes and cut them into thick rounds, like half-size ice hockey pucks. 2. Boil the potatoes until they soften slightly but won't yet break up. 3. Drain and place them in a heavy baking dish, and pour 500ml of thickened cream over the top. Now add three cups of grated cheese. I used a pack of that pre-grated tri-cheese which is mozzarella, parmesan and something else. (Why can I never think of the third name in trios/trilogies/triplets etc? Fellowship of the Ring , The Two Towers , and ... what ?) 4. Season and bake in a hot oven twenty minutes to half an hour or until the cheesy, creamy aroma overwhelms you.

Sir Ray Davies, writer of "Waterloo Sunset" said The Kinks will record again . A Scottish newspaper in 2001 said "Waterloo Sunset" was 'regarded by many as the apogee of the swinging sixties' - but the many are not defined . A music writer described it as "the most beautiful song in the English language" - but there's a chance he liked a Peruvian or a Latvian song better . Pete Townsend said it was 'divine ... a masterpiece'. Effusive praise from a contemporary. Stephen Thomas Erlewine called it 'possibly the most beautiful song of the rock and roll era' - but what of other eras? For example, "After the Ball" was written in 1891 and is one of the most hauntingly beautiful and tragic songs of all time*. Then along came Rhett Miller. He declared "Waterloo Sunset" to be 'the greatest song ever written by a human being'. The case rests. *"After the Ball" written by Charles Harr...

How to stuff a capsicum. Slice a couple of onions and fry them in ghee or oil in a heavy pan (it must have a tight-fitting lid) until translucent. Grind a quarter teaspoon each of cardamom, clove, cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper. Or just shake them out of your spice containers. It's all the same, really. Some people can taste the difference, but would you really want them to go on about it at your dinner party after a hard day? When onion is fragrant, transparent and begging you to sample it, add spices and stir for a minute or two. Now tip in a cup each of basmati rice and rinsed red lentils, and carefully add three and a half cups of boiling water. Finally, add two teaspoons of salt. Stir. Place the lid on the pan. Turn down heat very low. Lift the pan twenty minutes later. Done. The spice flavour will explode on a wave of fragrant steam, and the rice will have ballooned. In the intervening twenty minutes, cut the tops off three red capsicums, and remove seeds and pith....

I was out walking with my father one day when I was about five years old, and I saw a shop that had a sign outside which said coin laundry. I asked my father if they washed money in there, and he said yes. We lived near two racecourses, Moonee Valley and Flemington. There were always large trucks ferrying horses in and out. Some the trucks bore the words Caution Horses . I asked my father what caution horses were. He told me they were a special breed of horse that was never flustered and helped calm the more high-spirited racehorses before races. Then there were churches. They all had their own sign. Anglican Church, Methodist Church, Presbyterian Church, Catholic Church, Baptist Church. One day I saw a sign near a church on a particularly busy road. It said Silence Church. I asked my father. He told me the people who went to the church were never allowed to speak. Ever. I had a horror of that building, a drab grey timber construction in Epsom Road Ascot Vale housing sad mute peo...

On 12 June 1968, the movie Rosemary's Baby premiered in the USA. On the same day, Mary Rose's baby premiered in Australia. He was the youngest of seven. (I was fourth of the septet, of which six remain*.) In those days mothers and babies stayed in the hospital for almost a week, after which some had the luxury of a further week at Mountfield, a rambling Victorian monastery in Canterbury owned by the Grey Sisters, who provided assistance for new mothers in quiet, peaceful surrounds and plied them with food while their babies were bathed and dressed and generally fussed over. New mothers? My mother probably didn't tell them she already had six children. (Although the nuns did look twice at us when Dad turned up with the other six of us to visit.) The new baby turned 50 yesterday. It seems like no time. *The one who passed .

We were meant to be having a conference this coming long weekend, an organisational 'catch-up' at an 'eco-resort' near the mountains. I've been there before. They bus you up to the mountains; and when you arrive, you dump your bags in the economy-style rooms which have no views out of the window because of the trees (the place is 'eco' because it is in the middle of a forest), and then they herd you into a huge conference room and lock and bolt the door. You can't escape until 6.30 at night, when they herd you out of the conference room and into the dining hall where they serve sustainable dinners made from fair-trade vegan ingredients. 'Catch-up'? What a stupid name. We 'catch up' every weekday. And sometimes on weekends. It's all we ever fucking do. I see the stupid art director I work with more than my wife or my kids. Which is not right. Because my art director is not as smart as my kids, and not as pretty as my wife. And w...

The only slow bit is the overnight marination but you can leave it out at a pinch. * Slice four chicken breasts and place in a large bowl along with three tablespoons of peanut oil, a tablespoon each of cumin powder and chili powder, six finely chopped garlic cloves, a tablespoon of soy and a dash of white pepper. Toss to thoroughly coat chicken pieces. Marinate overnight. Wok-fry chicken in a tablespoon of oil. Meanwhile, boil rice and lightly boil a head of broccoli, chopped into florets, and when semi-soft, finish off in a sesame-seed oiled pan with a dash each of fish sauce and soy, and a clove of chopped garlic. Serve on rice with broccoli on the side.

It was a mild autumn. Everyone frowns, nods sagely and calls it global warming or climate change, but it used to be known as Indian summer, which was a lot more romantic, but you don't get to talk about starving polar bears and it is also probably racist. Conversation is a minefield these days. No wonder people give up. Either way, it's cold now. Heavy, rich, dense food is back. Let's hit the curry jar. I picked up three capsicums from that fruit shop in Sydney Road that keeps changing its name, the one next to Chemist Warehouse. I took them home and wondered what to do with them. It was a cold day so I thought I'd bake them with something. * This was easy. In a large pot, I fried a chopped onion in oil, then browned 500 grams of beef mince in the same pot. Then I threw in a tablespoon of hot curry powder and stirred it through, added a cup of water, a teaspoon of salt and plenty of pepper. I let it simmer an hour or two and then removed it from the stove to...

Ha! And you thought only the boys played football. Wrong! Here is Alexandra displaying perfect ball drop (although the dropping arm has swung around a bit too far) and good follow-through. Look out, boys.

The following opening sentence fell out of a writer's keyboard like an overweight sprinter out of the blocks, staggered through its middle em-dashed clause, and then crashed into a non-sequitured ditch, where it lay bleeding until its writer put it out of its misery, by writing the next sentence. Tom Wolfe, who died Monday, was — as even those of us who did not share his politics and often deplored his taste and even doubted the fashion wisdom of all the white suits have to admit — one of the central makers of modern American prose. Let's translate, taking out a couple of 'evens': White suits, unsavoury politics and bad taste aside, he was pretty good at writing. As if the former even matter.

The 'big four' face being broken up . Rachel Reeves, chairwoman of the BEIS Committee, said: "The auditors should also be in the dock for this catastrophic crash. "The sorry saga of Carillion is further evidence that the Big Four accountancy firms are prioritising their own profits ahead of good governance at the companies they are supposed to be putting under the microscope. "KMPG, PwC, Deloitte and EY pocket millions of pounds for their lucrative audit work - even when they fail to warn about corporate disasters like Carillion. "It is a parasitical relationship which sees the auditors prosper, regardless of what happens to the companies, employees and investors who rely on their scrutiny." Time the moral arbiters of the age backed off on their PC crusade and turned their 'focus' to core functions.

1. Age 11: Grade Six incinerator monitor at primary school, 1968 - burning all the rainbow lunch wrap and paper bags from school lunches. Probably my most responsible job ever. 2. Age 14: delivering weekly newspaper to streets south of Essendon airport at 4 a.m. on Thursdays. 3. Age 16: gardener for old Mrs Fleming. She gave me stale cake for morning tea, the poor old dear. I remember being sad for her for some reason. Probably that she had no-one else to share the cake with. Years later, I found out why - she was a ghost . 4. Age 17: salesman at B. V. Menswear in Puckle Street, Moonee Ponds. I sold suits, bowls outfits and hats to the older men, and pastel bodyshirts , flared trousers and check lumberjackets to the younger customers. What were your teenage jobs? Meet any ghosts?

It was the kind of agency that was pompous enough and sanctimonious enough to have inspirational quotes – written by other people, of course – all over its walls. I worked there for a while. You walked in on Monday morning and SMACK, a huge sign behind the reception desk hit you in the eye. It read: The only way of finding the limits of the possible is by going beyond them into the impossible . The MD thought it would intrigue clients so much, they wouldn't notice how long they'd been sitting in reception. I didn't know what it meant either. It was written by Arthur C. Clarke. Science fiction headlining an advertising agency? Perfect. Then you took the long march to the creative department. Along the corridor, they had quotes angled out from the wall on swivel frames so you couldn't miss them. Some underling swivelled them the other way in the afternoon so you would see them on the way out. One of them read: The future depends on what we do in the present. That p...