My mother was a clever cook. Nothing ever went to waste and she knew how to feed a family of six with something as simple as a pot of nourishing cauliflower soup and a loaf of 'continental' bread.

Our grocery list changes significantly during autumn. Apples, pears, persimmons, pomegranates and rhubarb go into the market basket, along with broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, celeriac, fennel, leeks, parsnips and potatoes. 

We picked the last of our zucchinis this week. It's been a reasonably good season, and our three zucchini plants have kept us and the neighbours contented for a while. Fortunately, Peter has come to enjoy the vegetable and loves it baked into something delicious, like my spinach and zucchini frittata, chocolate walnut zucchini cake, or stuffed with bacon, kransky and my bolognese toppers.

The time has come for me to confess to a relationship I've enjoyed since I was a little girl. A spicy, delicious and sweet love affair that I have often shamelessly fantasised about.  

Eggplant or aubergine is a vegetable which is actually the fruit of a perennial plant from the member of the Nightshade family. Food history has it that once upon a time in Turkey it was essential for a bride to know 27 ways to cook aubergine in order for her to be worthwhile to her future husband.

Zucchinis are not only versatile and delicious, they also have a magical properties! For instance, I'm convinced that the species has cleverly developed a cloaking device for its fruit, not dissimilar to the stealth technology employed by Captain James Tiberius Kirk and his gallant team on the Starship Enterprise. 

One of the things I love best about cooking from scratch is that the most amazingly-delicious meals can be created from a few simple ingredients. I give you this silken tofu with chilli, coriander and sesame dressing as an example.

Looking back on my life to this point, I can say that I feel truly blessed. While there have been some hurdles along the way (and some of 'em were biggies), I am privileged to have come so far from humble beginnings, to have found my niche as a cook and food writer, and to have had some amazing culinary experiences over the years.

I think I may have given one of my neighbours and the driver of our rubbish collection service a chuckle today. Both happened to come along the back service lane just as I popped outside to the kitchen garden to pluck some fresh zucchini flowers in the cool light of the early morning. If the sight of a half-asleep woman, scissors in hand and wearing a slinky Peter Alexander robe, didn't make them smile, the happy dance I did when I found several fiori di zucca ready to pick certainly must have.

Broccolini is one of the vegetables that always makes an appearance in my market basket. I love its sweet, mild flavour and the goodness and crunch it offers in any dish. Better still, it's one of the greens that my Peter is happy to eat on a regular basis. So imagine my joy when chef Yotam Ottolenghi prepared a salad of broccolini (and other greens) with sweet tahini at the literary lunch at Nomad that we attended in Sydney recently. 'If you make this for us at home, I'll eat it,' Peter told me after the first bite. *Happy dance* time!