Ruminations

There are good things to say about Dome cafes. The food is tasty, the prices aren't heart-stopping, the coffee is fine, and the waiting staff are plentiful and seem to know what they're doing. But this last weekend my dad and I ran into the sort of problem that suggested that underneath the wooden counters and artful cheesecake there is a fast food joint waiting to burst out.

We were there for my stepmum's celebratory half-century cooked breakfast and, having completed fifty successful years on the planet she was quite justified in asking that the tomato should be served raw, rather than grilled. And that was a problem, as there was no option for raw tomato on the computerised register.

Instead, after considerable tapping on the touch-sensitive screen, we were offered a "Slice of Tomato", this being a side dish, usually inserted into a burger. At a cost of $1. Even though the cooked breakfast came with a perfectly serviceable tomato of its own. For the pleasure of receiving an uncooked tomato, we had to pay extra.

And so, when the plate arrived, I was entirely unsurprised to note that it had two tomatoes. Both cooked...

To a guy, can there be anything more inaccessibly alien than mascara TV commercials?

My dentist, like every dentist the world over, has a copy of Ronald E. Goldstein's Change Your Smile book. I was sitting in the waiting room today waiting for my six-monthly check-up (once again a pillar of dental health, thanks very much) and as usual I found myself staring at the woman on the cover.

At first glance she looks like your typical 1980's US sitcom housewife with big hair and lots of make-up. But when she smiles you can see all of her teeth. Smile at yourself in the mirror - can you see all of your teeth? Looking at the cover a big longer the teeth became everything, and in the end she looked more like one of the monsters from one of my five year old's sci-fi cartoon DVDs.

As I was called to the dentist's chair my lasting impression was that she was about to eat a guinea pig. Whole.

Pizza Marketing Quarterly is the must read journal for pizzerias all over the country. Filled with adverts for industrial grade pizza ovens, and accounts of international pizza-making competitions.

The best pizzas are apparently cooked long and slow. In the world of fast food that means 255 celsius. For eight minutes...

Pizza in a cone: is the world really ready? If it is then it'll be satisfying our "inherent need to enjoy a pizza in an urban context" and fulfilling the pizza makers' "uncontrollable desire to revolutionize the habits and customs of a gourmet population".

Let's watch out for those uncontrollable desires.