From the office of ROLAND ROCCHICCIOLI

A DOG is our best friend! Their love is unconditional. They want only to be with you and to make you happy. Exactly like Pooh Bear — wherever you happen to be going, they, too — serendipitously — are going there, also. Let’s go together!

Dogs have been a constant in my life. Sadly, they get into your heart and then they break it. When they die it is exactly like losing a member of the family.

I recall two occasions walking in the rain for the 6-kms from the Ballarat Group Practice to my home in Golden Point — weeping involuntarily at having to put one of my dogs to rest.

Unlike Berlin, Paris, and Rome, it is illegal in Victoria for a dog owner to take their canine into a café — impeccable behaviour notwithstanding. One cannot imagine what harm a well trained dog — sitting under the table — is going to create. Dogs behave as badly as their owner allows. The decision should rest with the owner of the café — not an authority which imagines it knows best in its persistent overreach.

Eons ago — armed with a copy of “Tiffany’s Table Manners for Teenagers” — I spoke with a group of aspirant soldiers at the erstwhile Portsea Officer Cadet School. I guided them through the social faux pas of flat/glass/tableware, linen, serveware, and holloware.

Perhaps we ought apply the same rigorous scrutiny to some of the café patrons. I am more perturbed by the standard of table manners than I am about a dog sitting under the table — wagging its tail.

Watch closely and you will spot patrons using their knives and forks like weapons of war. Holding them like pencils — if ever they stop waving them in the air long enough to put them down between each mouthful — they rest the flatware on the plate at a quarter-to-three; they cut bread rolls — ignoring the butter knife they use their own knife to apply butter from the dish — squeezing it into a sandwich!

It is bad enough they soup with a round spoon — which they slurp or suck — they tilt the bowl toward and not away from themselves; they chew with mouths open — elbows and wrists on the table — it’s like a grotesque Fellini film! They call their napkin a serviette. Believing it’s what one does in the best houses — middleclass pretention — they wait for other people’s food to arrive. You do that only if royalty is present. They grasp stemmed glasses by the bowl — and drink steaming coffee. Mama Mia!

The contentious litany continues — no handbags, phones, or keys on the table. Finger bowls! Insulting the cook by seasoning before tasting. Historically — no chicken is served with pasta — pasta è primo, pollo è secondo; and Bolognese sauce —­ an English creation — is a misnomer. In Bologna è ragù— not a sauce. Latte is milk — not coffee! It’s caffè latte — milk coffee.

Epicurean solecisms are unsurprising in a country where spaghetti out of a can, on toast with a fried egg — is still eaten for breakfast! My Tuscan-born, Italian father arrived in 1926. He was gastronomically horrified. Slowly they wrought a culinary revolution ­— they introduced virgin olive oil — substituted Kraft Cheddar for pecorino — and taught Australians how to cook.

Risking ostracism — weighing the overwhelming proof — and on the balance of probability — I am disposed to sharing the café with a dog rather than some people.

Buon appetito! Contact: [email protected]