Cauliflower is a cruciferous vegetable. Cruciferous vegetables, including broccoli, kale, cabbage, collards, bok choy, mustard greens, turnip greens, rocket, horseradish, brussel sprouts, wasabi and watercress, belong to the mustard family. Unlike its cousins, a cauliflower has a white head, though there are light green and purple varieties. The white head is called a curd and […]
Who Needs Refrigeration
The invention of refrigeration was hailed as a major breakthrough in food preservation, especially for the fact that it became possible to keep food fresh long enough to transport it great distances. In an age before aeroplanes, it meant that sailors no longer got scurvy on long voyages. These days it just means that we […]
Little Red Riding Hood: Vegetative Thoughts
There’s a wolf prowling around. He’s big. He’s sniffing the jonquils, nibbling a few leaves. Hey, I thought they weren’t into vegetation. The berries around me are shivering with ecstasy hoping to get eaten whole, slide down a gullet to happiness as part of something bigger. Me, not quite ready for that yet, though it’s […]
The Birthmark
It was called a garden flat because the bedroom opened onto a small courtyard with enough room for a table and chairs and a few pot plants. The courtyard floor was terracotta pavers and the fence around it was wood. The wood was old, with cracks running lengthwise down the palings and across the beams, […]
Radio for Women
They use very positive ideas in order to give you a very negative message. What do you think? What do you mean by identity? Do you think is your shoe? yes, yes, they are deceiving us. Our identity is our knowledge, our awareness. Think about it Fatherhood will not be known Those women had to […]
Visiting the Past
All my friends had cousins when I was a kid. They had aunts and uncles and got lots of presents at Christmas time. They often lived in strange places my friends went away too while I had to stay at home and play with my sister. I did have some cousins in Canada, which, strangely […]
Old Photos
My friend Amos found some old photos I must have left with him when I left Amsterdam. He found them in a box he’d taken from Amsterdam back to Israel and hadn’t opened in years. I remember I left the photos with him when I came to Australia because I planned to go back. The […]
Pathology Services
The pathology collection point is about halfway along the Rocks Arcade in Ettalong, between cafes and a hairdresser. There might be a dentist there too and a shop that sells clothes. I go there every three months or so, so that the doctor can check by body is working like it’s supposed to, and the […]
Getting Fat
I first realised I was getting fat when a friend of mine, who writes his own fanzine, had decided on a nude centrefold and invited me to be his first one. I think he thought it was a compliment, a way of telling me I was attractive and sure to thrill me because being attractive […]
Cataracts and Plumbing
I was terrified for weeks before the first cataract operation. I would make jokes about not being likely to survive. It was either going to kill me or blind me, neither of which was an appealing prospect. People felt sorry for me and told me stories of survival, suggested methods of coping. “It’s such a […]