Places and events

Welcome to my blog/journal/whatever

This is the real guts of this website. The old website and its archived posts is still available at its old url. Newcomers might like to dip into it every now and then.

Welcome to you all. Amazingly I still don't seem to be running out of ideas on what to write - well occasionally - but I have my writer's block strategies to turn to - see the text on the right. Check this page for the latest posts and if something interests you just click on it. It's easy to leave a comment and I love to read them. And now you can subscribe to the blog and get emailed notifications of new posts. And sorry I just don't understand Facebook.

"We are not here for long. So let's at least make ourselves something good to eat."

Nigel Slater

"I was born hungry, not a cook."

Julia Child

"One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well"

Virginia Woolf

Writer's block

Every now and then I can't think of a suitable topic and so I have devised a few strategies to get around this.

Lucky dip

The first strategy I devised is to go to one of my three cook book bookshelves, close my eyes and pick a book. Close my eyes again and pick a page. It's really quite an enlightening method of getting over writer's block.

'A word from'

My second strategy is to devote a post to the thoughts of one of my favourite cooks. Hopefully it will introduce them to you

Or

I shall choose a picture I have come across and extemporise on that.

A second kind of lucky dip

I have been thinking about first recipes in cook books - so I shall choose a book not quite randomly and then look at the first recipe for inspiration.

Comments I love reading your comments. Just add a name - any name - it needn't be yours, add an email, ditto, type in your comment and hit the Comment button. Done. Wix sends me an email to tell me what you said, so I can respond if needed. Mostly I just read and enjoy. If you would like to subscribe to this blog and get notifications of new posts then click here. It's free - just a way of knowing what I wrote about today.

enjoy

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Then and now - 10 years of rambling

I don't know about being loved for ten years - in the blogging sense that is - but I suppose this is a red letter day and I should be jumping for joy or something. Maybe a glass of champagne - but no it's mid-week, so a non-wine day. Well it's a subject for a post isn't it? On this day 10 years ago I opened my fridge door to see what to cook for dinner and sat down to write my very first post - Inside my fridge and every year since I have probably said much the same things a

Jul 15

Ranch dressing - a moment in the sun

"It’s the friend of all manner of dude foods." delicious. Ranch dressing is one of those absolutely American things - well I think of it that way anyway - if I think about it all that is. But Deb Perelman in her Smitten Kitchen newsletter, directed to me to an article in The Atlantic by Ellen Cushing which told me that: "Ranch dressing has become, deservedly or not, a face of the nation during the World Cup." And I have checked - it is indeed a thing - at least in the media

Jul 9

20-06-2026

"a magic number refers to a numerical constant with no explicit explanation of its meaning." Md Abdul Halim Rafi It was David who pointed out the potential magical significance of today's date - it's my birthday for one thing, so significant if only to me, and it's not really that significant anyway at my age - just another day that I am thankful to be here for. Nevertheless that's some number isn't, so I tried to track down its meaning amongst all the crazies out there who

Jun 22

Lucky dip - Kubbeh hamusta

"A recipe that adapts to its environment, but never forgets where it came from." Elli Benaiah/Beyond Babylon There are so many tricky and just picky issues about this particular recipe. It comes from Sami Tamimi and Yotam Ottolenghi's book Jerusalem - a word that evokes a whole range of emotions these days - mostly not good. Although Sami Tamimi - a Palestinian and Yotam Ottolenghi - a Jew of mixed heritage, are no longer official business partners in the Ottolenghi empire,

Jun 19

For the coffee table or the kitchen? Or both?

"it cannot be called merely a cookbook but perhaps more appropriately referred to as a work of art." Gail Cooke/Goodreads It's time to 'review' this book that I acquired some time ago now in a kind of opshop in country Victoria. I 'read' it and put it on my desk to write about some day, and here I am. It is indeed gorgeous as a book. Gail Cooke, who wrote in Goodreads went on to say: "It is among the most beautiful books I've seen with a flower and food bedecked cover so

Jun 17

Nice - a word and a place

"By 1926, nice was said to be "too great a favorite with the ladies, who have charmed out of it all its individuality and converted it into a mere diffuser of vague and mild agreeableness." [Fowler]/Etymonline I have no idea now where my inspiration for this post came from, but I think it began with the word rather than the place - very different things - and yet, maybe that quote is indeed apt. for both of them. We shall see. Above is my very last sight of la belle France,

May 27

Travel

"Travel is the story you tell yourself about yourself." David Prior Once a year the Australian Financial Review puts out a seriously glossy Fin! Travel magazine - inserted into their AFR Weekend edition. This weekend is that weekend. Normally I flick through it in about five minutes - even less sometimes - and discard because it's full of ads for expensive watches, cruises and hotels with articles about holiday experiences which are - well - just decadent and out of my reac

May 17

Memory rambles over lunch

"Nostalgia - the vice of the aged." Angela Carter Same old, same old. Another ramble about memory and nostalgia. I know, so apologies, but I couldn't really let our wonderful Friday lunch with our regular lunch friends go unacknowledged. I mean look at it - in spite of my awful photography. Not my cooking this time. In the last few years we have fallen into a pattern with two old friends, of entertaining each other - turn and turn about - with an invitation to lunch. Bo

May 3

A farewell with finger sandwiches and dainty teacups

Two days ago I went to a funeral of this lovely lady here. Her name is Shell and she was a member of my 'old ladies book group'. I hope they do not mind the name but we are indeed all old. Shell was one of the oldest - she was I think 94 when she died. This is her on her ninetieth birthday I believe. This is the book group I joined, maybe a year after we arrived in Australia, maybe 1970 - before children for us all. Of course the members have changed over the years. She

Apr 29

Does disappointment trump joy?

"I see no point in putting pen to paper to preserve anything negative, sad or painful." Nigel Slater Well so says Nigel. To be fair he did go on to say that there was more than enough misery around, and probably in his life too. I doubt there is anyone happy all the time. He was simply saying he did not want to write about the bad things. The things that go wrong. However, I want to consider this in writing after my Sunday birthday party which was overall a joyous experi

Mar 24

Honduras - the original banana republic

"In Honduras food is tricky, there seems to be prevailing thought that all tourists want western food and that burgers and nuggets will fit the bill." Bacon is Magic Which is perhaps an honest assessment of Honduran food, but my world tour is to try and discover what the so-called traditional foods of the world are. What the peoples of different countries supposedly eat at home, although these days, possibly they don't. Possibly everyone eats pizza and hamburgers, lasagne

Jan 18

A tale of two lochs

Yesterday we came back from an overnight stay with friends in Inverloch which doesn't sound much like a long break, and I suppose it's not, but it's actually surprising how much such a tiny break - an excursion really - can feel almost like a holiday. And also if you care to, how many odd little bits of information you can pick up. The photograph is of Loch, not Inverloch - the second of the two lochs in question here. Loch is a tiny village where we stopped for lunch on

Jan 16

Happy days

"Happy days roll onward leading up to golden years." Alfred Lord Tennyson Every now and then I change my computer desktop wallpaper - I think that's what they call it - from a photograph picked from my photo libraries - almost at random. This is what I chose the day before yesterday - such a happy picture - of a holiday in France 20 years ago, when I was a mere 62 years old. A baby, with many of those golden years still to come. The group consists of two sets of university

Jan 6

Feast of the seven fishes and the Italian/Americans

"The best part of the Feast of the Seven Fishes is that anyone with an appetite for seafood can make the tradition their own. You don’t have to be Italian or Italian American. You don’t even have to celebrate Christmas! You just have to cook way too much food for the people you care about." Emily Saladino/Bon Appétit I'm a little bit late with this one because the Feast of the Seven Fishes is a Christmas Eve feast. Well it is Christmas and time is at a premium for indulgent

Dec 27, 2025

Christmas done and dusted. Now you can play

"We can now all admit that the thing we really love about the festivities is the time after the day itself" Yotam Ottolenghi And the leftovers. For my son this is turkey sandwiches and - well - me too. And yesterday, that was what Christmas Day was almost all about. Well apart from being with family, the presents - not such a big deal now that there are no small children involved - the big thing was the leftovers and the opportunity to make sandwiches such as this one - m

Dec 26, 2025

Living the dream requires money - lots

"For mum, who taught me how to dream, and Pete, who makes my dreams come true." This is the Chateau de Bosguet in Normandy - otherwise known as The French Table - a gourmet getaway in a tiny village in Normandy where you can take cooking classes, or just simply relax. It is run by a Melburnian couple who, in 2003 began to dream of a life in France and a new business venture - a residential cooking and French village life focussed stay. And so in 2005 they bought this somewh

Dec 7, 2025

Green bean casserole

"The word “gloopy” comes to mind" Alison Roman This is in no way 'gloopy' looking but I'm starting with Ottolenghi's Blistered green bean casserole with parmesan and rosemary because this was my starting point - a recipe in Ottolenghi's newsletter, which was sort of about Thanksgiving, one American festival that I don't think will make it to our shores because it's specific to a historical American event. I also saw that this looked like a really good thing to try some day

Nov 16, 2025