It was a chance discussion with a friend earlier in the week that lead me to open up the cupboard in the kitchen where I keep all my recipe books, and take down the tome that is titled, "Gourmet Delights". It's an old tin with a flip top lid hinged to the side that opens like the cover of a book. I bought it in a flea market decades ago, and originally it contained chocolates. These days it contains scraps of paper and newspaper cuttings of recipes that I promise I will one day write down and store properly for posterity.

I am grateful for the beer can, for it has taught me much.

I have learned a bit about physics: if you leave approximately one twelfth of beer in your can, you can tilt the can slightly and it will balance at an angle. In school, they taught other laws of physics such as 'what goes up must come down', but beer taught me what goes down, can come up.

Here's a trivia question for you: on January 27, 2010, Australia came third behind Hungary and Germany for:

a) rowing competition
b) baking competition
c) a beer drinking competition?

It’s a scene played out countless times everyday - two comparative strangers meet and find they share a common interest in food or cooking. Before too long, the conversation turns to food sources, recipes, the merits of different cuisines and one’s ability to cook and with that comes a subversive tone, as each tries to outdo the other.

Gentlemen, let me give you some advice. This Mothers Day forget the flowers, the wine, the jewelry and even that stereotypical box of chocolates an...

According Fruit Grower's Victoria Chairman, Andrew Plunkett, it’s pear time. While we may be inundated with stone fruit and the bounty of late summer, early varieties of pears are at their best now and in the next few weeks.

After years of enthusiasm for "molecular gastronomy", with its battery of gels and emulsions, many leading chefs are turning back to focus on ingredients and where they come from.

A number of Michelin-starred chefs at this week's Madrid Fusion, an annual gastronomy fair in the Spanish capital, said they were now looking to take more care in sourcing their ingredients -- by getting to know the producers, for example.

Overweight septuagenarians are less likely to die within 10 years than people of "normal" weight in the same age group, an Australian study says.

Once upon a time, coffee was believed by some Christians to be the devil's drink. When Pope Vincent III heard about this, he decided to taste it before banishing it. He enjoyed coffee so much that he decided to baptise it, saying, "Coffee is so delicious, it would be a pity to let the infidels have exclusive use of it."

It's not really a food story, but today we'll take a step away from the culinary to take our hats off to packaging.

A certain 'pop' culture icon has just turned 50, with Bubble Wrap celebrating its golden anniversary on January 26.