next week, due to various connections, a china envoy to the UN is having dinner here. This was my idea, and so I am cooking. his wife is my wife's friend, and they were coming here anyway, so i thought, well, why not invite him and her home here rather than have some 'Welcome' chinese meal somewhere in Melbourne Chinatown...here...some rib fillet, cooked on the bbq fast, some potatoes, for Ireland, and a small salad, and some okay red wine from victoria...after that, the next day, we can go together and see the Van Gogh exhibition, and the penguins, as we wish...but the true art of any kind of human welcome is that is a real welcome to anyone and it starts always in our own home. A true welcome means that you cook for them because you want them to be with you. This is what food is for. This is what food means. Food means 'welcome'.