you spend a month and a half sweating your insides out in the tropical swelter, waiting for the day you get back to winterous sydney, and then suddenly it’s the coldest second of july in twelve years. with nonstop rain to boot.

this made it the perfect evening to walk out of the cinema (“whale rider”) and head straight to a table at bar italia where the prompt waiter delivered a plate of veal under a garlicky napoli sauce full of zucchini, mushrooms and chili, and served with a head of steamed broccoli, carrots and herby roast potatoes. yum.

i missed italian food while i was away, and despite all the laughing cow widely available in vietnam, i really missed cheese. in the last three days i have had a four-cheese borek and a greek salad with salty crumbly fetta. i’m looking forward to saturday when i head out to the growers markets and buy a quantity of smoked mozzerella, and maybe some marinated goat cheese. it’s time to fire up daisy, my jaffle machine which is also a cow.

scientists have discovered that dairy fat may reduce the occurance of asthma in children.

and then.

after spending almost a decade in the US, pouring money into the university industry and significantly boosting the national retail economy, my sister had her latest visa application rejected. because you need to be outside of america when you lodge your application, she now has an apartment full of cool stuff and a place at columbia to study french lit that she isn’t allowed to go back to. the bastards! obviously i will have to stage a boycott by refusing to watch any more of that reality crap they keep sending over to clog up the tv programming. i wasted an hour the other night because i couldn’t pull the plug on “celebrity fear factor” where david hasselhoff, donny osmond, coolio, chyna the scary lady wrestler who i’m positive used to be a dude, and two blonde actresses, got their heads locked in a box of worms and scorpions.