tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-60584462012-02-10T09:28:32.865+11:00kitchen handnoreply@blogger.comBlogger11411100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-89556140720096135242012-02-09T13:55:00.014+11:002012-02-09T14:11:27.373+11:00

Souvlakis: Carlton When I was a student (because only students eat souvlakis) I was in the habit of crossing five suburbs to Twins, on the corner of Elgin and Lygon streets, for what were the best souvlakis in Melbourne. Soft, fresh pita were jammed with juicy lamb drowned in yogurt and lemon juice and served in a greaseproof-lined brown bag that collected all the lemony, garlicky juices in the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-66328165305228447452012-02-07T13:21:00.002+11:002012-02-07T13:21:28.831+11:00

Yesterday I walked into a room, and there were no elephants in there.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-4422535982570979892012-02-02T18:02:00.010+11:002012-02-02T18:09:13.101+11:00

Friday, 17 December 1971 The day before, during the torrid drive northwards, I had wondered why someone hadn’t built a detour; a giant hypotenuse to slice a triangle off the journey. I did some back-seat mental calculations. Norseman to Kalgoorlie, 191 kilometres. Okay, build a road north-west to strike the Great Western Highway the same distance west of Kal. That’s a saving of 112 kilometres, I

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-16865373802198399112012-01-30T13:35:00.005+11:002012-01-30T13:38:12.866+11:00

He broke out of the water and pushed towards the piling. His brother was already there. They rode up and down on the swell, must have been three or four feet, and wore wetsuits against the crusted mussels and other shells on the piling. They pulled themselves up the ladder and went off the edge of the pier again. Tom surfaced and called out he’d been to the bottom. We were four hundred metres

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-50517045947225749122012-01-24T17:58:00.004+11:002012-01-24T18:07:17.474+11:00

Favourite vegetable? Depends on the season. Right now, as summer sails serenely into the bloom of early middle age, I’m enjoying: • eggplant brushed with garlic-infused olive oil on the outdoor grill at sunset; • zucchini done the same way; • warm salad of sweet potato, toasted macadamias and snipped coriander; • silverbeet cooked with aromatic fenugreek (dried) with a touch of yogurt and

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-84249888691104581102012-01-20T15:11:00.003+11:002012-01-20T15:13:17.401+11:00

The advertising industry knows how to milk an idea and run with it until it is as dead as Burke and Wills’ last camel, as anyone who has switched on a television, radio computer recently might know. Sam Kekovich isn’t dead by a long shot, but for the eighth year in succession he barks his way in an obnoxious monotone through a sea of bad puns in the Australia Day lamb campaign. It’s done to death

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-77395000366661993172012-01-18T13:38:00.006+11:002012-01-18T13:42:51.877+11:00

Now this is complicated, so let’s go back a step. I drive old cars, because old cars are better than new cars, and because driving a car manufactured twenty years ago is better for the environment than buying a new car - even a Prius - every other year, or every ten years for that matter. Those batteries are murder on the environment, and the electricity just shifts your emissions into someone

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-1840546191852118122012-01-10T18:01:00.007+11:002012-01-10T18:09:23.958+11:00

Thursday, 16 December 1971 There comes a stage in every journey when you just want to get there and to hell with the scenery. The salt shower was the turning point. I had slept the night in the top bunk feeling grimy in the intense heat, and all I wanted was to plunge into the Indian Ocean at the end of the road. OK, that’s salt water too. But different. My cousin and I had been patient. We’d

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-5177628153579359782012-01-09T15:52:00.000+11:002012-01-09T15:52:03.868+11:00

I needed a stamp to post a letter. I fought my way to the post office through the pigeons that plague Victoria Mall, and managed to enter without hitting one or one hitting me. They are everywhere. They sit on the wires and the shopfronts like fat brown and grey sentinels and scrabble about on the ground and swoop onto the tables and chairs outside the cafes and get under your feet. All the shops

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-6665681167262478232012-01-04T17:32:00.001+11:002012-01-04T17:33:29.284+11:00

The label on the wine bottle said the wine inside was 'affable'. It was a Victorian shiraz, 2008. I have forgotten the maker, who might be an affable chap. But I suspect he meant either quaffable or approachable, or a meaning in between those words. Happy new year.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-65355819003021612722011-12-28T07:32:00.000+11:002011-12-28T07:32:26.720+11:00

Alexandra, with early morning hair, and books. William at the same age. Thomas, same age.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-56321143682972774052011-12-27T19:26:00.002+11:002011-12-27T19:29:45.181+11:00

It was the second white Christmas in five years, if you count hail. Christmas was back at the golf course after three years. A dozen tables sat under shady umbrellas outside the clubhouse, on a rise of lawn overlooking the fairways. That’s where lunch was supposed to be served. But the rain came first. I watched it come. A little earlier, a massive black thing in the sky way out west had grown

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-34631701653652658252011-12-25T22:56:00.006+11:002011-12-25T23:03:40.998+11:00

Good King Wenceslaus All my childhood Christmases occured during summer heatwaves in a sunburned land characterised by wildfire, burning northerly winds and dust storms. So all those songs about cold and snow and fir trees and medieval kings fascinated me and took me away into a faraway land. Here is a song written in 1853 in Britain by an Anglican minister about a duke, a thousand years earlier,

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-76448870107178477222011-12-22T15:42:00.004+11:002011-12-22T17:56:40.199+11:00

Wednesday morning, 15 December 1971 It was five in the morning when we slipped out of Eucla under the heavy cover of an oppressive darkness, car headlights blazing. The sultry heat hung over the desert like a wet tent. The landscape fell behind us faster than yesterday because we were back on a real road again and the tyres were humming instead of crunching.  At six o’clock, Uncle switched off

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-76314710319942908932011-12-22T13:54:00.004+11:002011-12-22T13:59:57.870+11:00

That's it. Goodbye email. I'm unsubscribing to everything. Tiger Airways, Start to Finish, InfoChoice, Vigor Health and Fitness, Crikey (how on earth did I get onto their list?), LinkedIn Updates, Melbourne Writers and dozens of others. (LinkedIn, by the way, sends me emails saying something to the effect that 'someone who may be connected to you has updated their profile'. Nuts.) That was

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-92084637014750861182011-12-21T13:28:00.010+11:002011-12-21T13:42:47.276+11:00

Tuesday morning, 14 December 1971 A threatening humidity lurked under a blanket of darkness as we hit the highway out of Ceduna around half past five in the morning, dawn a threatening red streak on the east horizon. You have to start early to make headway before the heat hits. The nearest large towns are Port Augusta, 300 miles to the east and Norseman, about three times that distance to the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-63766194971740193812011-12-20T17:46:00.001+11:002011-12-20T17:47:33.881+11:00

Now the old plates are turning up in mosaic-ed numbers for houses as Christmas gifts for relatives, an 'office' sign for the kindergarten, and some other projects. "But why not bone china?" I had asked, continuing a somewhat convoluted conversation of a week or so ago. It does not fracture or chip easily, is the answer. And when it does, its shards are uneven and very, very sharp. Bone china is

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-73193281248697564272011-12-19T14:06:00.002+11:002011-12-19T14:06:33.797+11:00

A few posts ago, I tried to justify a $90 tag on a book. Forget it. Dymock's has knocked $20 off the price. A week before Christmas.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-76626366755435479652011-12-14T12:24:00.048+11:002011-12-14T12:51:36.766+11:00

Research* shows that eggplants have the longest storage at home to shelf life ratio. They don't last, but we never get around to using them. There is a scientifically valid reason for this, confirmed by the same research: eggplants are much more attractive than kohlrabi, celeriac or swedes; because they are shiny and have a voluptuous bulbous shape and colour, and no strange hair. Your eyes lock

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-45862464246767685172011-12-09T12:33:00.005+11:002011-12-09T13:13:06.995+11:00

If, like me, you always cook too much rice, don't throw it out. Make a cold rice salad to eat as a side dish in this steamy, hot, stormy weather. Take three cups of leftover basmati rice, one can lentils (drained), half a red onion (diced), juice of one lemon. Combine. Chill. Simple but good. * In the garden, the cos lettuce (plural) have their hands up. "Pick me!" they could be saying. I'll

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-36952825691960368822011-12-07T16:35:00.004+11:002011-12-07T16:44:23.508+11:00

That’s the end of an era. Two boys at school. Thomas is no longer a pre-schooler; had his school orientation day yesterday, December 6. He doesn’t start officially until February, but he went along for the morning, wearing William’s spare uniform. He had been looking forward to it for weeks. He will be fine at school with the luxury of a brother one class ahead. William was the pioneer, his

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-28086616833795520902011-12-05T14:49:00.002+11:002011-12-05T14:51:13.739+11:00

An old favourite for these warmer nights: Pasta with tomatoes and fresh ricotta You barely need a recipe. The fresh summery ingredients fall into each other’s arms like new lovers. Boil up a pot of pasta. Tagliatelle or fettucine will help take up the wettish sauce. Warm some olive oil in a pan large enough to take the cooked pasta; add a finely chopped onion and a chopped garlic clove.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-50811091916030618232011-12-02T14:06:00.005+11:002011-12-02T14:11:53.881+11:00

One good thing about having children decades apart is that you can compare practices then and now and bore everyone with your insistence that things were much better then. Things weren't better then. They were just different. Children didn't walk around bristling with electronic devices in the early 1980s; they walked around bristling with hand-held games and Casio watches and Transformers. The

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-14620628671006323462011-12-02T13:08:00.002+11:002011-12-02T13:10:17.206+11:00

Hat from Sire's Menswear, Coburg; water pistol care of Max's birthday party. Crisp white shirt his own.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-91070508268235268562011-11-30T14:37:00.000+11:002011-11-30T14:37:22.333+11:00

And here's the one that was too big to carry around town last week. Are books expensive? Unanswerable. Is a $90 book too expensive? Unanswerable, but the answer is no, anyway. You can put $90 into your tank and tear it up in an afternoon driving down the coast, but the $90 book takes you around the world and not just once and you keep it for life. I can't see a book of this scale (hardback,

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-3148788977428615192011-11-28T12:30:00.001+11:002011-11-28T12:34:12.835+11:00

Here's William at the same age of fifteen months. Hose off the dirt and you'd mistake one for the other. The hair is identical; Tom's was always straight.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-27528824614619338182011-11-18T16:48:00.062+11:002011-11-18T17:31:20.808+11:00

That was yesterday. She sat in my chair and smiled. Today she wore yellow, and there was a trip to town; two bookshops, one retail store (other) and the State Library. But before all that, coffee. Brunetti is 75 metres - to the inch - from Flinders Street station if you don't count the platform, escalators and steps. I had coffee (Vienna); Tracy cappucino. The children (Thomas and Alexandra)

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-56633136525206072722011-11-15T19:24:00.001+11:002011-11-15T19:26:49.720+11:00

The post directly under this one may have restored my brother's faith in simple parties. (Just last Thursday, I sat at the place he occupies; he was diagonally opposite; Alexandra was in a high-chair at the place occupied by our sister. We had lunch.) That was July 1969. What else happened that month? Nothing much. 43 years later, our mother is still feeding us. Just not so often.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-41117770444423536672011-11-14T11:13:00.002+11:002011-11-14T11:18:57.931+11:00

Yes, he's grown. (He's not a Footscray fan, they gave out the caps at kindergarten as a kind of early recruitment drive. He remains true to the Same Olds, but the cap is handy.)

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-7370971618957037842011-11-08T12:06:00.005+11:002011-11-08T12:10:51.072+11:00

The only hand-held devices you can use at this restaurant are your knife and fork. "Only six months ago we never saw an iPad, but I've had a two-year-old in here with an iPad - it's a joke," co-owner Nabil Kurban said. "We are just letting people know that being at the dinner table for the family is the most valuable time of the day so that people can say, 'How are you, how's your day, is

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-21316743099285153652011-10-31T17:41:00.002+11:002011-10-31T18:02:53.160+11:00

In a pan, soften two very finely chopped onions in oil. Add some ghee for a richer flavour. Place a dozen cashews, one large can of coconut cream, a teaspoon of chili, a knob of peeled and chopped ginger the size of your thumb, a large clove of garlic (or two small), half a teaspoon each of cinnamon and garam masala, two cardamom pods and a couple of rays of star anise (optional) into a food

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-80426416615400566012011-10-28T16:51:00.000+11:002011-10-28T16:51:07.377+11:00

Every now and then the weekend papers have something worth reading, such as how to write a song and how to write a movie score. And both in the one magazine. Quote: Morricone says when he was young he tried to improve some mediocre films. "I tried to put some really strong music and accelerated them too much, and the result was way too strong for the film. It was [as] if you dressed a parrot like

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-78850820985335778492011-10-26T18:29:00.000+11:002011-10-26T18:29:45.354+11:00

The visitors left on Sunday. We had been out all day and, by late afternoon when we returned, the swarm had gone; although some late risers were still buzzing around the temporary hive. To where they have flown I don’t know. I hope it’s not in the roof. Around a thin branch deep in the old weigela shrub, the bees left a temporary hive structure that was several opaque white semi-cylindrical

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-13807664212501494592011-10-25T13:38:00.006+11:002011-10-25T13:44:07.486+11:00

I kept bumping into Occupy Melbourne last Friday. I was in town for the day, working in an office in Collins Street, fifty metres from the mess of tents in the City Square. I went out mid-morning for an apple from the Swanston Street fruit stall. By that time the eviction was commencing and I passed between rows of protesters holding placards made from brown cardboard that was wet because of the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-70901473966302190102011-10-24T14:39:00.003+11:002011-10-24T14:42:25.792+11:00

I’ve done it again. Volunteered. This time it’s a 125th anniversary publication for a college. My mother and two of my sisters walked through its gates in the 1940s and the 1960s/1970s respectively. But that’s incidental. The school shares its archivist with the school that was the subject of the book I finished last year, and she asked me if I’d do one for the second school. I said yes because

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-8822494936059328242011-10-21T14:43:00.001+11:002011-10-21T14:44:42.689+11:00

Four is grown up, but not. Mr Four is a small and generally self-possessed gentleman who suffers occasional unfortunate fits of uncontrollable laughter. But Mr Four has dignity. It is the last great age of childhood before they go to school and get corrupted and bring home the schoolyard’s whining jargon, and want what the others want. In the morning he comes to the corner and holds his fat

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-20023887434466887402011-10-20T12:37:00.002+11:002011-10-20T12:42:15.117+11:00

I looked out the front window. It was a warm, cloudless afternoon, but the room had almost imperceptibly darkened, as if a cloud had passed the sun. There was something in the air, like smoke, or a dust storm. I went outside and into the front garden. The flowers were out, and the shrubs were in bloom, and the garden was looking nice, and the thing in the air was bees. Thousands of them.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-43010642214672447522011-10-10T17:58:00.002+11:002011-10-10T18:01:46.364+11:00

I had some fish left over after a lunch of rolls with avocado, salad shoots and smoked salmon, which was a rare luxury put on for friends who had visited along with their new addition to the family for some socialisation with our children. The new addition was a two-month old maltese terrier poodle cross, light brown in colour, a tiny round roly-poly thing, name of Boxer. They should have called

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-13309165972513411912011-10-05T08:40:00.001+11:002011-10-05T08:42:45.514+11:00

I don’t watch grand finals. Never have. I don’t like the angles or the commentary or the crowd shots or the stupid continuous slow motion replays. I listen to the radio so I can track the action in my own mind. I’ve watched one grand final in twenty years and it’s the only one I can’t remember. I took the boys to the indoor pool. They’d set it up with team balloons and the broadcast over the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-46931967410576122662011-10-03T14:04:00.005+11:002011-10-03T14:13:05.715+11:00

Cool climate? It was cold. I turned the heater switch to warm and opened the little grates in the dash. The country at the back of Ballarat was high and green and there was no sky between the ground and the clouds. They seemed to sit on the hills. The rain had stopped. It turned out to be the wettest September day in fifty years but I didn’t know that then. I was driving on a single-lane B road

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-51547504265427293932011-09-22T13:36:00.003+10:002011-09-22T13:51:00.721+10:00

The boys have been trained well and, as we head towards summer, are already asking to dine en plein air. Not that I would use such a pretentious foreign phrase in conversation, much less attribute it to my children; but I must say I do prefer the French version to the cliched al fresco, even though the former refers more correctly to painting. I relented and we ate outside despite several very

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-20580510820535521212011-09-19T14:18:00.003+10:002011-09-19T14:23:10.128+10:00

Barry Dickins used to write satirical restaurant reviews about real restaurants. He took his material from life and then embellished it, but in character. The embellishing brought the lawsuits. He liked to destroy the egos, the pretensions, the fake grandiosity - like theatre without drama - of an industry whose bible was a guide for travelling salesmen published by a tyre company. One of

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-31374049916128043252011-09-15T09:41:00.001+10:002011-09-15T09:46:41.763+10:00

Omelettes? Who makes omelettes any more? I can't even spell them. I took three tries to get it right and I'm still not sure. Omelette? I haven't seen an omelette in years. My mother made one once with cheese in it. Mmmm. I'm warming to the idea. Forget the spelling. Take a cast iron pan. Oil it. Chop a leek finely into thin rings. Chop a red capsicum finely into equally thin albeit larger rings

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-50482407200950360582011-09-09T13:31:00.000+10:002011-09-09T13:31:38.211+10:00

I keep getting invitations from people on LinkedIn whose 'profile' says they have, for example, 438 contacts. And they're on Facebook as well? I glanced into the window of a Brunswick Street North restaurant the other night on one of my evening runs. The snapshot image was of diners oblivious to each other and staring into smartphones, right thumbs flicking obsessively, while a lonely ignored

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-16820808819027597232011-09-06T12:09:00.001+10:002011-09-06T12:13:05.260+10:00

One of the benefits of working from home is that I can pick up the children from school and kindergarten. Last Friday William came out of school with a heavier bag than usual. He pulled out a wrapped package. The wrapped package was a prize in the annual Father's Day raffle. He gave it to me. I opened it. Inside was a bottle of Mt Avoca sauvignon blanc and two carefully boxed crystal wine

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-38225226911018113512011-08-31T16:53:00.001+10:002011-08-31T16:55:20.302+10:00

Literally. I'm painting the house. Most of the weatherboards are in good condition but some of the old paint is cracked and dry - to quote Tom Jones - particularly the east-facing side, which is subject to fierce morning summer sun; while the west is shaded by the building next door and the north unaffected, shaded by the eave during the height of summer. The good news is you don't have to go to

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-56397027516159038482011-08-17T14:15:00.001+10:002011-08-17T14:19:25.590+10:00

Foghorns could be heard from the bay most of last Sunday, a mournful sound that bounced off the dead flat sea and echoed up the hill. The Port of Melbourne must be a busy place. Everything we buy comes from China and it comes by ship and they don't stop on Sundays. Despite the haze, there was a warmth in the air. In the early afternoon, we went down the hill to the beach. You couldn’t see

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-33025735952024369662011-08-12T12:11:00.005+10:002011-08-12T12:14:46.127+10:00

The lettuce in several varieties are trying hard but succumbing to bugs. But the mustard greens are holding their heads high. Even the snails and grubs won't touch them, thanks to their strong flavour, I suppose (I'm not sure how you get to prove that). Got mustard greens in plenty? Try: - Using them in place of spinach in filo pastries with fetta - Boiling them with fenugreek (fresh or toasted

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-23117492875153765102011-08-10T14:10:00.003+10:002011-08-11T13:22:39.708+10:00

Saturday morning. I switched on the radio. You know the program. I mention it often enough. The voice was familiar. It was Ross Wilson. The song was At The Rock House. That finished and another Daddy Cool song came on. On 3RRR? Why not, of course. But there had to be a reason. It’s 2011. Surely not forty years since Eagle Rock? Surely yes. Daddy Cool was always part parody. You could tell by the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-47202226817546965022011-07-29T17:07:00.004+10:002011-07-29T17:10:51.630+10:00

The other night I made a simple pasta dish of spaghetti with garlic, olive oil, anchovies and finely chopped fresh chili. It needed something on the side. I did not have leaves of any kind so I made a salad out of some items that just happened to be there. The salad got out of control. It turned into the main event. Warm salad of roasted pumpkin, fennel, avocado and kidney beans. I had some

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-18042715333937307642011-07-27T17:42:00.009+10:002011-07-27T17:54:31.813+10:00

The Sunday roast was a childhood fixture. Let me qualify that. It was a fixture until I was about ten years of age, then it slowly disappeared, like the Latin Mass at about the same time. Perhaps there were too many children to feed. Maybe my mother went through a vegetarian phase, or just couldn’t be bothered doing it any more. I don’t remember. The era passed. While the tradition lasted, the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-2844007766992733822011-07-25T14:56:00.006+10:002011-07-25T16:52:53.626+10:00

Albert Park, 16 July 2011. Above, Tom commences his athletic career in the under 9 one-kilometre race-walking event. Below, he nears the finish as evergreen veteran Bob Gardiner (1964 & 1968 Olympics; 1970 Commonwealth Games) continues through ten kilometres. Tom ate well that night. Results and more pictures at Victorian Race Walking Club (motto: "You Walked Before You Ran").

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-23032218305550824892011-07-19T17:41:00.008+10:002011-07-19T18:20:48.679+10:00

It was still dark, but the birds were twittering and tweeting. I sat up and realised those verbs didn’t work any more. More perfectly good words gone forever. I felt my way to the kitchen, found the kettle and put it on. Then I switched the light on. I could have done that first, but I hadn’t been able to find the light switch, and the faint light from the east-facing window had led me to the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-14243658360012761232011-07-15T18:09:00.006+10:002011-07-15T18:23:37.876+10:00

There’s nowhere for the water to go. It just sits there on both sides of the narrow road and it feels like you are driving across some kind of inland sea. Graduated depth markers at intervals on each side of the road remind you how far under water you would have been after the January flood, and the September one before that. This was the road that branches west-south-west off the Western

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-38796605625425075482011-07-05T17:03:00.000+10:002011-07-05T17:03:05.722+10:00

... we're bound for South Australia. (By road, not sea.) Back in a few days.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-60932285955522549202011-07-05T16:55:00.003+10:002011-07-05T17:05:18.390+10:00

It was a cold morning. Coffee in the mall, perfectly expressed and poured, and topped with a thick but fine froth shot through with caffeine-laced perfection. And still only $2. Ridiculous, but in a good way. Then home for an early lunch with an Off the Record soundtrack. Still the best radio program in Melbourne, if you like that kind of thing. * The cauliflower in the fridge must be a week

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-71991783957017429652011-06-30T17:44:00.006+10:002011-06-30T17:54:34.292+10:00

You can only have so many cars, unless you’re Lindsay Fox or a bureaucracy. In my case, I once could fit two cars in the double garage, one on the front lawn and two more in the driveway. But that was years ago. Then we moved, and there was no garage. Plus we had two more children, and children cost more than cars unless you run Alfa Romeos. So I was back to two cars. The Tangerine Dream for

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-68482903179896289372011-06-22T17:46:00.005+10:002011-06-22T17:55:33.155+10:00

Lunchtime yesterday. I was at the top end of Collins Street trying to walk south and the rain was horizontal, propelled by a gale that was howling straight up the middle like a 1970s Western Oval southerly. It had been raining before the wind came, and the street had been a sea of umbrellas. Suddenly, the wind got up and all the $10 umbrellas blew inside out and snapped their ribs, and someone’

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-63715154422773111642011-06-20T17:37:00.012+10:002011-06-20T18:04:41.910+10:00

On Sunday afternoon, a garden tea party attended by friends and relations was held for William to mark his sixth birthday. The guest of honour wore an argyle-patterned wool vest knitted by his maternal grandmother with a white linen shirt and his favourite red tie, and fawn corduroy trousers. The weather report for Sunday had changed every day last week, variously predicting sun, rain, cool,

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-588152220055279602011-06-17T11:17:00.014+10:002011-06-17T11:45:12.094+10:00

The West Australian reports: Senator Ludwig is meeting MLA (Meat and Livestock Australia) representatives today, but the organisation faces more grilling at a Senate inquiry.Bumbling Minister Ludwig, who would be as popular on a cattle station right now as Small Business Minister Sherry in a bookshop, won't wear the blame: He said the buck stopped with the MLA.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-79780765750194298492011-06-16T17:46:00.012+10:002011-06-16T18:17:05.610+10:00

I used to be able to wake myself at any time during the small hours, such as three in the morning. I taught myself to do it when I was a kid and had a paper round. (Paper round? Kids delivering newspapers on bicycles. They used to slide them neatly into the round hole over the letterbox or, if there was no round hole, between two pickets in the fence near the gate. These days they wrap the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-11918524310794838852011-06-16T09:42:00.001+10:002011-06-16T09:42:39.214+10:00

Despite being a few shades of grey apart, links in my posts were virtually indistinguishable from surrounding text, rendering some posts even more obscure than usual. Now links are coloured and you can actually see them. I just dragged some crimson out of that sunrise.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-27782593108005676092011-06-15T15:48:00.001+10:002011-06-15T15:48:36.023+10:00

Remember that Top Gear coffee table book about retro cars entitled My Father Had One of Those? Here's where they were parked.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-27298630232853366122011-06-14T14:34:00.000+10:002011-06-14T14:34:20.289+10:00

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers, From the seas and the streams; I bear light shade for the leaves when laid In their noonday dreams. - The Cloud by Percy Bysshe Shelley iCloud stores your content and wirelessly pushes it to all your devices. And because it seamlessly integrates with your apps, everything happens automatically - iCloud by Apple

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-19713222021351991622011-06-10T15:50:00.005+10:002011-06-10T15:56:52.397+10:00

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

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-28401555911055331582011-06-08T12:54:00.006+10:002011-06-08T13:27:38.471+10:00

It's not every day a reporter gets to pull up a drama, within two sentences, like Clancy hauling in a runaway horse at the edge of a cliff: The coronal mass ejection is directed at Earth and moving at about 3.1 million mph (5 million kph), SDO mission scientists said in a statement. Reaction to this kind of statement is frequently expressed in one short word. But the reporter, after only the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-50080014470024871962011-06-06T18:14:00.002+10:002011-06-06T18:17:36.750+10:00

Filmed at the diving pool, Coburg Olympic swimming pool, March 2011. Starring Thomas, 4 years and 5 months.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-80161988998280848882011-06-02T17:59:00.002+10:002011-06-02T18:03:38.777+10:00

One of more hair-raising stories from the book I worked on (on and off) for six years until the thing finally appeared last year: I am uncertain of the year I started at St Bernard’s - being 1942 or 1943 - but I have clear recollections of the reason. While in Grade Four at St Monica’s, we did regular air raid practice, and helped dig air raid shelters in the large dusty wasteland that was the

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-64461225631680018672011-05-30T13:56:00.006+10:002011-05-30T14:15:01.083+10:00

The font of all modern wisdom, the semi-readable* Wikipedia, tells me that this song has been recorded 2600 times. That’s not surprising. It was so beautiful that every singer with an ego had to do it. But you never have heard this version, recorded by iconic 1960s British band the Zombies who, powered by psychedelia, mellotron and sheer musical ability, later made a concept album arguably

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-4078201809950722862011-05-26T18:13:00.004+10:002011-05-26T18:17:13.952+10:00

Pasta is a cliché, a bore, a culinary banality on a million restaurant menus. How does it go? Bolognese. Carbonara. Alfredo. Marinara. Pescatora. Napolitana. Puttanesca. Arrabbiata. Arrabbiata? That means angry. Don’t get angry, get even. Tell the kids, or your husband or your wife or your brother or your sister or your mother you are serving them pasta with yogurt tonight and watch their

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-66514195105300412642011-05-23T18:34:00.004+10:002011-05-23T18:43:41.597+10:00

National Geographic reports that due to the sheer scale of China's growth, its carbon output will continue to soar until at least 2030 before less polluting technology starts to cut in: So for the time being, China's carbon emissions will continue to soar. I talked with dozens of energy experts, and not one of them predicted emissions would peak before 2030. Is there anything that could move that

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-712791476881564412011-05-19T18:12:00.004+10:002011-05-19T18:15:04.958+10:00

It was early afternoon on a cold Tuesday in May. I was striding purposefully through town as usual after yet another speedy yet satisfying lunch (the bento box comprising fruit, vegetables, teriyaki beef, tofu, rice flecked with seaweed, pickled ginger, wasabi, miso) at Don Don in Swanston Street where the food is always fast and the music is always Tom Jones when two old dears stopped me in my

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-49007603456566808382011-05-17T18:16:00.002+10:002011-05-17T18:17:38.110+10:00

Tom eats several a day. William will nibble one if he is very hungry. Their current favourite is the Royal Gala, which sounds like a Melbourne Cup winner from the 1970s, but is a sweet, yellow- and red-skinned cultigen made in the 1970s from a sport of the Gala apple, itself a clonally propagated fruit developed in the 1930s across the ditch in New Zealand. And that's the end of that paragraph.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-69664385507878421372011-05-16T15:28:00.002+10:002011-05-16T15:30:50.419+10:00

The more you post, the more you wonder about the possibility of Blogger failing. It doesn’t alarm me especially, but it might have a year ago when I was in the final stages of editing a book entirely on blogger. It was a great way to do it. Fifteen chapters, each in its own post and edited at will. Then each emailed off to the publisher, who turned them into 500 pages of text. Blogger stuttered

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-60250250756910965972011-05-12T12:10:00.000+10:002011-05-14T06:35:11.661+10:00

We have it on medical authority: eat less fish. Nothing to do with your health: doctors are not caring about you. They're thinking of the environment. In fact, they are thinking about the fish. That's a first. Doctor: "You're looking great. But don't eat any fish." Me: "Why? Isn't it good for me?" Doctor: "It's not good for the fish. Or the sea. Or ..." Me: "I'm not paying you to care about

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-34914837481810655642011-05-10T17:16:00.001+10:002011-05-10T17:16:31.636+10:00

I wonder if Sophia ever told Leo Tolstoy to limit something he was writing to 140 characters.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-76559405762878200842011-05-09T10:22:00.003+10:002011-05-09T10:28:38.815+10:00

R.I.P. Lionel Rose. Story here.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-51949654961503539812011-05-05T18:04:00.004+10:002011-05-05T18:23:11.372+10:00

Smoked cod is still available in the fish section of the deli at the supermarket. You just don’t notice it any more. It’s the only fish that has been stocked continuously since the 1950s. I never see anyone buy it. People take numbers and line up for banana prawns and Tasmanian Atlantic salmon and ling and oysters and scallops and that rendered substance they call crab stick, but never the cod.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-67940173240431379592011-05-03T18:19:00.005+10:002011-05-03T18:36:10.884+10:00

Ten o’clock on a cool Sunday morning. The sun was still behind the clouds and there was dew on the grass, along with seventy French cars. What was I doing at the French Car Festival? I felt like a traitor as I parked the 940 under an oak tree beside the road that runs through the grounds of the park, got out, poked my eye on an oak twig, helped the children out, shut the doors, left the car and

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-52849877562863955982011-04-28T18:04:00.007+10:002011-04-28T18:18:08.234+10:00

The waiter flew out of the door and put a plate on our pavement table and that characteristic aroma of something freshly deep-fried rose from the plate. The crumb coating on four ovoid shapes was ragged pale gold, like tempura, and flecked with herbs. There was a dipping sauce. Is eating something deep-fried and dipped in a tangy sauce the pinnacle of eating? William and Thomas thought so.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-89552964539060497452011-04-26T19:05:00.001+10:002011-04-26T19:06:48.498+10:00

  An Anzac Day story worth reading. What does a child make of Anzac Day these days? ... The Anzac legend is unfettered by distortion, unspoiled by excess, and may it ever be so. The legend has grown, and we the children, no matter how old we are, continue to embrace the heritage. ... Tomorrow's children laughing in our parks and playgrounds will always be the children of the Anzacs, and we

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-59503698420491257552011-04-21T16:57:00.006+10:002011-04-21T17:08:34.941+10:00

We drove home late, when the full moon was riding in the sky. It came with us, according to the children. We rolled across the dark hills of Gippsland through shadowy eucalypt forest lit silver by the kaleidoscoping moon. Then the freeway, a Jeffrey Smart painting made three dimensional by John Holland Constructions, the only difference being that these days the paintings are more minimalist

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-11794505624958944702011-04-20T18:09:00.005+10:002011-04-20T18:15:23.950+10:00

He was about twelve years old. He stood at the edge of a concrete precipice on a scooter blade, still as a statue. Then he shot forward and dropped like a stone, out of sight. Four seconds later, on the other side of the precipice, he shot into the air and flew six feet above the ground, released the scooter, rolled forward 360 degrees in the vertical plain, met the scooter again in mid-air on

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-36404953553747988882011-04-18T18:12:00.008+10:002011-04-18T18:23:19.806+10:00

It was well after eight on a Saturday night. My mother-in-law was here for dinner so I wanted something fast but impressive, easy but interesting, simple but appetising. So I went to the kebab shop. No, I didn’t. I might have wanted to, but instead I sliced a large chicken breast fillet into one-centimetre cubes, placed these in a pan with a close-fitting lid over half a tablespoon of olive oil

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-68419823877095208342011-04-14T18:19:00.010+10:002011-04-14T18:29:57.600+10:00

When The Spectator magazine launched its Australian edition some years ago, I couldn’t find it in the newsagent's. I asked the newsagent. ‘Yes,’ he beamed. ‘The Spectator! We have it! It’s in the sporting section down the back!’ There it was next to Runner’s World and Fly Fishing and Gun Dog. I didn’t say anything, but some weeks later it had been moved to the current events and politics

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-1006608270167511182011-04-13T13:15:00.001+10:002011-04-13T13:16:58.859+10:00

The daily circulation of the Australian Financial Review is 75,000. How many of those were sold by one of my favourite columnists, Peter Ruehl, who died on Monday? I always turned to his column first and then threw the thing across the room. While we're taking potshots at newspapers, the dreadful Herald Sun today reports Ruehl's death without acknowledging that it carried his columns for some

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-84247984384736405772011-04-12T18:19:00.001+10:002011-04-12T18:21:07.488+10:00

The song opens with an unaccompanied voice – when I woke up this morning – sung in a single note. Then a rhythm guitar ticks off the heartbeat of a person who might have woken in fright, and the voice comes again: you were on my mind The tempo picks up a gear. A drum chases the voice through the next verse, tom-tomming a tattoo of fear. Then the voice is alone again with the ticking rhythm: so

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-30292854214618662152011-04-10T14:25:00.002+10:002011-04-10T14:32:28.993+10:00

This is why we grow tomatoes. A quiet mid-autumn Saturday morning and the sun is giving a last hot encore before it leaves centre stage and we drift south and out of reach and then it’s just a memory until next season. I’ve already ripped out a dozen tomato vines but a few remain, browning foliage studded with red balls. I pulled the last two out yesterday. They gave more than I expected. One

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-607479514645515292011-04-08T19:41:00.003+10:002011-04-08T19:50:49.500+10:00

... an enormous building made from concrete curves and no roof unfolded itself into view on the top of a hill. It looked like a postmodern milking shed the size of the Sydney Opera House. We came close and the curves snaked past and a sign that said Port Phillip Estate, and then the whole thing poured itself into the rear vision mirror and disappeared. Maybe I imagined it. I had not imagined it

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-41293223313940285342011-04-04T17:35:00.014+10:002011-04-04T17:56:47.750+10:00

It was a big restaurant on the northwest corner of the busiest intersection in Melbourne. I pulled out of four solid lanes of northbound traffic and into the truck layby, and off that into the car park the restaurant shares with a Hungry Jacks. We got out. The air was full of flame-grilled whopper just to get you started, and it worked just as well for customers of the restaurant. The

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-36739755029851869252011-03-31T13:57:00.000+11:002011-03-31T13:57:46.565+11:00

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, purple carrots grew wild in peace. Then ancient peoples, possibly the Hittites or the Armenians or the Persians, or possibly someone else, cultivated them for their seeds and foliage, completely ignoring the root, or else feeding them to swine. Centuries flashed by. One day the Dutch, who loved travelling because their homeland was always flooding and

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-65272395281018999732011-03-29T16:05:00.007+11:002011-03-29T19:31:30.892+11:00

As a fair weather supporter, I read the sports pages when my team is winning. And so I turned to Mike Sheahan’s column in today’s Herald Sun. In warning Essendon supporters about getting ahead of themselves, Mr Sheahan pointed out an extraordinary coincidence. He noted the last two new Essendon coaches have recorded large wins in their first games, each of exactly 55 points. Nine goals, one

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-84607047063062859642011-03-28T17:31:00.007+11:002011-03-28T18:27:17.175+11:00

It was a 'working' weekend. It was just me and the boys. I painted the lounge room floor of the beach house in the quiet morning while the boys, outside, threw toys on the roof. It was the wind, they said. Nothing to do with us. I got the ladder and a broom out three times. The floorboards are varnished clear and I redo them every few years. The painting part is easy; it’s the moving furniture.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-90525885334612278972011-03-26T14:38:00.001+11:002011-03-26T14:42:07.654+11:00

Friday night. Late. The wreckage of another week lay in my wake, bobbing about randomly before disappearing into some dark crevice of memory. The morning had brought some good news, via email naturally, releasing me from a hideous one month contract of writing impossible bureaucratese for a client whose acquaintance with the English language ended, or began, I’m not sure which, with ‘digital

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-8529060580409327412011-03-21T14:09:00.001+11:002011-03-21T14:12:54.142+11:00

The late summer air was still simmering. It was after seven. I put the charcoal in a pile in the grate and put a match to it in three places and left it to consume itself and turn white hot. That would take forty minutes and in those forty minutes I would make a salad of roasted pumpkin cubes, avocado, rocket, toasted macadamias, chick peas and shards of feta cheese dressed with olive oil and

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-65335401707944805022011-03-18T13:58:00.001+11:002011-03-18T14:01:10.931+11:00

The sun is warm but it comes later in the morning and goes earlier at night. Time moves on. The seasons pass. Children grow. The baby cut a tooth yesterday. William is a schoolboy. Thomas misses him. They were inseparable. Have I ever taken a photo of one without the other half in shot? Thomas learned to swim this summer, had the confidence to climb the diving board at Coburg, dove off in a kind

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-80200312571151418222011-03-12T14:52:00.003+11:002011-03-12T14:52:56.256+11:00

We don't go around smashing plates, but occasionally one gets lost in action, especially the set that came from Italy via David Jones under the label of Richard Ginori Ironstone. Ironstone? You only had to look at them and they'd chip. The Alfa Romeo of plates: you needed two in case one packed it in halfway through dinner. The Denby ones (English) weren't much better. I have one left. So I get

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-19781794461756364652011-03-03T19:26:00.002+11:002011-03-03T19:31:54.029+11:00

I drove down to Nicholson Street on a warm late summer evening, pulled a u-turn just past Our Lady Help of Christians church and stopped the car just south of the Barkly Street corner. We got out and left the car unlocked. No-one steals Volvos. It was parked right outside anyway. We went in. The door is still awkwardly propped ajar each evening around 5 o'clock, the decor hasn't been touched

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-66568044620935703692011-02-24T12:09:00.001+11:002011-02-24T12:09:05.681+11:00

Ex-The Australian reporter and now independent bookseller Corrie Perkin gets free publicity on Page 3 of last Saturday's Weekend Australian:"A true booklover loves having a conversation about books ... That may be the conversation they have with the bookseller or with other booklovers in the bookshop. ... You can't have those conversations with Amazon, you can't have those conversations most of

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6058446.post-82413985952126202282011-02-21T13:39:00.002+11:002011-02-21T13:42:37.396+11:00

Childhood summers were Inverloch and Choc Wedges and Essendon baths and backyard apple fights with my cousins in the sweltering dark. Picking bucket loads of ripe fruit from the apricot trees. The wooden salad bowl of iceberg lettuce always on the kitchen table. The Carnival is Over and Strangers in the Night. The rumbling of trams from Keilor Road at 6 a.m. on hot mornings. And Puffin books.

kitchen handnoreply@blogger.com1