True brew.

 There’s one thing without which no home is complete. A roof, I hear you shout. Certainly, in a purely physical sense the roof is very important, but I’m talking about something that turns a house into a home. Television! Close, but no free cable subscription. Kids! Desirable but not essential. It’s coffee.

 This tasty little bean is increasingly making our world go round. If you live in one of the inner suburbs which are currently being bought up and renovated by young couples, you will be very familiar with coffee. In fact, the only businesses in the main street of these up-and-coming areas are coffee shops and picture framers – two career options they didn’t tell us about when we were at school.

 Coffee is much more than a drink these days. No barbie is finished until you’ve had one. Some of us can’t wake up without one. People actually meet only ‘to have coffee’. (The pretence is that it’s to have a conversation too, but in most cases it’s just to get close to a skilled coffee professional and his or her gleaming, hissing, espresso machine.)

 If it’s so good, you ask, then why is it called ‘The Devil’s Brew’? Please, that was centuries ago. People who called it that thought potpourri was a cure for the bubonic plague! I’m not denying it’s a stimulant, but if you don’t have blood pressure-problems and only read the favourable medical research, it’s actually good for you. There’s certainly no denying it has powerful laxative properties.

 I’m sure part of the reason for coffee’s increased popularity is the intimate relationship between coffee and chocolate. The after-dinner mint tastes good with no other beverage – surprisingly, not even peppermint tea. Cafés always serve, at bare minimum, chocolate brownies and usually there’s a mud cake on offer too. The ultimate combination is, of course, the chocolate-coated coffee bean. A bagful of these and your tastebuds have the party of a lifetime. Sure, you won’t sleep for a week, but it’s worth it.

 And your house sells more easily with coffee. Admit it; a home looks better during an inspection if the smell of fresh coffee is wafting through the rooms. Like magic, it makes you see things through rose-coloured glasses. It’s like alcohol only you’re safe to drive. So if you’re selling a house, get yourself a really good Lavazza bubbling in the percolator – the way the market has been, it could earn you a few extra thousand. The buyer could well be one of those picture framers.

 Up to about 15 years ago, most of us contented ourselves with the instant, freeze-dried variety of coffee. In fact, a lot of us were tea drinkers. But today there’s a lot less jiggling and a lot more plunging going on. I reckon that plungers are so popular because they look stylish; the glass pot with the chrome or gold holder. Let’s face it; it’s the same way you make a pot of tea but with a really great strainer.

 Serious caffeine addicts own a mini-espresso machine. They also dress entirely in black, live in café suburbs and ragroll their walls. They’re extremists – don’t befriend one unless you like manic phone calls at three in the morning to help with a crossword clue.

 My friends tend to be dyed-in-the-wool drip-filter types. They say there’s just something about it. It takes skill. If you don’t get the filter paper absolutely right in the filter, it can fold over and cause a disaster. The water doesn’t drip into the coffee; it fills up the filter, washes coffee from the paper and blocks the hole in the bottom. You end up with a filter full of coffee-grounds soup. Only the most desperate would attempt to drink it by filtering it through a sieve.

 Last and certainly not least, there’s the percolator – very Italian, very trendy and part of a whole set of equipment. Did you know that there’s a special little saucepan for reheating the coffee once it’s cold? That’s because leaving a percolator on the heat once it’s perked isn’t a very good idea unless you want a hole in the kitchen ceiling and your percolator showing up on airport radar screens. A friend of mine (new to the whole percolator scene) recently filled her percolator with coffee and left it on the hot plate. After a while, a very strong smell of burnt coffee was all through the house. Yes, she’d forgotten to add water. The place still smelled a week later, and not in a good way.

 That’s coffee for you. Nobody said it was going to be easy. But you know what they say – can’t sleep with it, can’t stay awake without it.

Bread: the rise and fall.

 Recently I was out for dinner with my family and some family friends celebrating my mother’s birthday and the bread basket duly arrived. It was full of lovely thick slices of sourdough – some studded with olives, others with caramelised garlic. Next to it was a generous slab of butter and a bowl of olive oil.

 But here’s the thing – no one touched it. Even the men. Like me, my companions were all famished, but that harmless wicker basket may as well have been a nuclear reactor, such was the contempt and suspicion that greeted it. When did bread get such a bad rap?

 Probably when the Western world decided that carbohydrates – far from being the life source of civilisation – are, in fact, the devil dusted with flour. Remember when breaking bread was synonymous with love? Now it’s the evil obstacle between us and our skinny jeans; the modern equivalent of Eve’s forbidden apple. But where the apple simply triggered sin, bread is guilty of far worse – apparently it makes us fat.

 I’m fed up with all this high-protein, carb-free nonsense, which is doubtless running rampant this month, after the festive excess. (Poor bakers, they must hate January.) Sympathies if you’re gluten intolerant, but I love bread, which is why I’m campaigning for its return to our pantries and dinner tables.

 Bread (and the occasional bit of jewellery) has marked some of the most memorable moments of my life. There was the time one winter in Italy back in 1992 when my family were stuck on the train going down to Bari to visit family over the Christmas holidays. Because of the shitty cold weather, and the amount of snow that had fallen while travelling, the train was stopped in the middle of nowhere for 18 hours until the weather improved. So, the first thing I was able to get my hands on when we finally got to Bari, was a huge slice of freshly baked bread that my uncle had bought on the way to the train station to pick us up. The smell of fresh bread and taking a big bite out of it just made the whole miserable trip down there all worth it.

 There were also the times in summer where I would walk to the bakery each day early in the morning for a hand-kneaded loaf. It would be slathered in honey for breakfast or laden with tomatoes and salt in the late afternoon, that simple country bread fuelled a love affair that, fingers crossed, will last a lifetime. Even as you read this, I’ll be sinking my teeth into a sausage sandwich, a ritual essential to Sunday morning nippers.

 It’s almost sacrilegious, the way we’ve demoted bread from the staff of life to the stuff of scorn; how our ability to resist it somehow makes us cleaner and lighter. Now, I’m not advocating munching your way through a half loaf of Wonder White sandwiched together with Nutella. But let’s celebrate bread and honour the coming together of grain and water that’s nourished us since Neolithic times.

 Yes, it’s the post-Christmas purge and we’re all steaming chicken breasts and arranging lettuce leaves. But once that’s over, as inevitably it will be, try this – it’s fabulous. Grab a basic bread recipe. Chuck some red grapes, rosemary sprigs, walnuts, salt and a teaspoon or two of sugar into a bowl. Make your dough, push half the grape mixture into the middle, and squash the remaining half on top. Bake until....well, it looks like a loaf of bread. If that’s too difficult, just embrace the old Spanish proverb: “If there’s no bread, cakes are very good.”

The udder delight of morning milk.

 A lot of time and money is spent on finding out what makes us happy. University researchers are hunched over questionnaires, crunching numbers to create a formula for that most elusive emotion. (Which would make the aforementioned researchers most unhappy.) So I woke up this morning and decided to list the simple things that make me smile:

Finding milk in the fridge for breakfast:

There appears to be an unusual form of evaporation in our house, targeting milk instead of water. It’s the same with toilet paper. Perhaps our university friends could look into that.

The first bittersweet sip of coffee:

Accompanied by a witty remark from a friendly barista, there’s no better start to the morning.

The honesty of a child:

“Why is your bum so wobbly?” asks a four year old girl at the centre where I work.

Travelling to a new place, whether it’s just around the corner or on the other side of the world:

A few weeks ago I found a spot at Manly Beach where the little penguins waddle up the beach at sunset.

Cooking the perfect roast chook:

It’s deeply satisfying when you cut into flesh that’s moist, but not too pink.

Doing something – anything for charity:

Giving makes you feel good. Better than getting.

Hearing a song that reminds you of that first blush of youth:

Today on the radio it was Ian Dury & The Blockhead’s Reasons To Be Cheerful. Some of his reasons are similar – porridge, wine, and equal rights. What are the simple things that make you happy?

After the beep.

 A lot of people talk about the pressures of modern life. They are forever leaving messages on answering machines, asking you to get back to them on their mobiles so they can tell you just how busy they are. When you do, you get their voice-mail because they’re too busy to take your call and have switched off the phone.

 Life was no easier for our parents; in fact it was probably harder. Yet, I’m sure they were less afflicted by pressure simply because they only had one phone. Even if you have only one phone, I believe you have to use it wisely. If not, it will stop being a servant and turn you into a slave. That is, if you’re not one already. Are you screening your call right now? Is that a mobile in your pocket or are you just looking for your keys?

 Answering machines are essential if you’re running a business. But people get fed up with the same old message – particularly if it’s funny. You can only laugh at the same joke twice (maybe three times if it’s Robin Williams). Start with a good funny message and you’ve made a rod for your own back. People will feel free to comment: ‘I liked the last one better’. Or ‘So when are you going to think up a funny message?’ Show any creativity and your friends will throw it back in your face. Your life becomes a treadmill of inventing new witty messages. You have to change them at least twice a month. Ahh, the pressures of modern life.

 I keep my voice-mail and answering machine messages simple. This means nobody has any expectations of it being funny. Meanwhile, people will leave messages that assume my answering machine is a doctor’s surgery. Old, confused people mumble about appointments. Government departments dial the wrong number but still want to contact someone with a completely different name who I know has never lived here. Should I invest in a phone-call to correct their wrong number? Did the little old lady realise her mistake or did she change buses four times to get to an appointment she never made – all with a bad hip?

 Sometimes I see the red light flashing, press ‘Play’ and hear someone yelling in a foreign language. Should I have a multilingual message to avoid confusion? Another pressure of modern life.

 Then there’s ‘Call waiting’. Has there ever been a ruder invention? It’s the whoopee cushion of telecommunications. Imagine it: ‘Hun, you’ve got to help me, my husband’s left me, and he’s taken the kids, the dog, the cat, and the car. What am I going to do?’ ‘Just a minute sweety, I’ve got a call on the other line’. What are you supposed to do while you wait for this person to talk to you – write a country-and-western song? Do helplines have ‘Call waiting’? ‘OK don’t kill yourself quite yet. I just have to take the call on the other line, then I’ll be back to talk you off the window ledge’. ‘Call waiting’ actually rewards somebody for coming second – and makes you feel second-best for coming first.

 Of course, the king, queen, and divorced princess of all phones is the mobile. I can not believe how many people use them for total trivia. The number of mobile users on the beach last year was staggering. I can only imagine the conversations. ‘Yeah, I’ve just got here. I’ve put the towel down. I’m slapping some sunblock on. Now I’m gunna catch some rays. I’ll give you a ring to let you know how the water is.’ Why do you need to tell anyone you’re at the beach? Don’t you go to the beach to get away from the phone, the hassles, and the pressures of modern life? I know I do. The only reason for using a phone on the beach is to annoy someone by telling them that you’re lying in the sun while they’re clearing a blocked drain.

 In reality there’s no need to feel under pressure. Just unplug everything except one telephone. Answer it if you’re in. if you’re not and it’s important, they’ll phone back. It still works for my parents, and they have their health, their friends, a house, a car and eat three good meals a day. What more do you need? Apart from cable television…