It was 5.30pm as I hurried to the supermarket to grab some last minute groceries for dinner that night.

I would have ignored the friendly young man loitering outside, no doubt trying to sell me something, except for the box. What was in the box and why did he appear to be giving them away? I looked his way; he caught my eye, and that was that!

“Would you like a box for dinner?” He held the box out to me.

“What’s in it?”

“Everything you need for dinner. Tonight we have spaghetti with zucchini, chilli and rocket.”

I peeked inside. There were all the ingredients fresh from Flemington markets: rocket in a brown paper bag, garlic already peeled, chilli, lemon, complete with recipe. All I had to do was boil the pasta, chop the garlic and chilli and add my own olive oil. Simple.

So simple in fact that why would you pay for a box of stuff you can easily pick up at the supermarket? This was the question I asked myself as we twirled spaghetti around our forks and smacked our lips in satisfaction.

I always admired my sister who, through sheer necessity of only being able to get to the supermarket once a fortnight, would plan her meals and grocery list with military precision. No last minute ‘What shall we have for dinner?’ stress in her household.

Planning meals and procuring the food to make them takes up lots of brain space and time that many of us have to, or would rather, spend doing something else. Imagine arriving home to know that the recipe and fresh ingredients for a healthy meal were waiting for you to throw together and eat within half an hour. Healthy eating would be so much easier.

If your usual last minute meal is greasy take-aways or vegetable-devoid cheese on toast then these home-delivered fresh food boxes could be for you.

Check out www.hellofresh.com.au  If you live in Sydney and want to try them out they are offering $30 off the first delivery. Just quote this code: HFSyd512

Why would you pay for water when you can drink it straight from the tap? Why indeed?

Recently I joined a throng of thirsty wine drinkers at the annual ‘NZ in a Glass’ wine tasting evening in Sydney.  Squeezing through the crowd was worth it to find fantastic wines like Te Pa Sauvignon Blanc and Grasshopper Rock Pinot Noir. But at around 500 kilojoules per 150ml glass (that’s roughly the same as eating five squares of milk chocolate) it was a relief to stumble, not literally, upon Antipodes Water. It was the elegant shape of the bottle that caught my eye and discovering that it was sourced not far from where I grew up that made me stop and taste.

“Can you taste the smoothness? It’s the silica that gives it that smooth mouth feel,”  Simon enthusiastically explained to us. I had never thought of water as smooth but, yes, I had to agree that it did taste smooth on my tongue. Very nice. He reeled off the names of some top restaurateurs who refused to serve any water except Antipodes. And then he answered my unspoken question: why pay for something you can get from the tap?

“I can’t drink alcohol and whenever I would ask the waiter if they had something non-alcoholic they would

It’s another beautiful day in Sydney and my good friend and I are in relaxed school holiday mode with no particular plans. “Let’s go to the Friday market at The Rocks. The food’s great and the boys can take their scooters,” she suggests. I grab my camera and we walk/scoot the few minutes down the hill to the ferry. Catching a ferry across Sydney Harbour never fails to make me feel like a tourist. We bask on the sun-drenched deck and watch lunch-time joggers and people fishing on the renovated wharves in the shadow of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Within five minutes we are docking at Circular Quay and walking past the didgeridoo player towards the Rocks.