On irrational phobias and beef ragu

I have several completely irrational phobias - the kind that give me paranoid cold sweats, yet are based on nothing more than my own fecund imagination.

I am convinced, for example, that if I step on a tram rail while crossing the road, I will be instantly electrocuted. Rather more solipsistically, I cannot shake the fear whenever I smile and exchange pleasanties with a console operator at a Coles Express in the city, that my friendliness during our brief conversation (and implicitly, of course, my heart-stopping beauty) will fire in him an erotomaniacal obsession with me which will inspire him to stalk me till I go mad, lose my job and have to move back to Sydney.

Another fear which haunts me is that, if I eat a bowl of pasta for dinner, I will immediately swell up to the size of a house and have to start wearing mu-mus. Last night, I heroically decided to face my fear and made beef ragu and spaghettini. However - and somewhere in this is an unhelpful psychological lesson, have no doubt - at the gym today I weighed myself and discovered I've gained 2 kg. Leaving aside the fact that I had not weighed myself in 3 weeks and had eaten icecream and beer for dinner the previous evening, I can draw only one conclusion. Pasta, no matter how delicious and comforting its guise, cannot be trusted.

At any rate, the beef ragu was delicious and almost worth the incident at the scales. It takes a long, long time to cook but I promise it's worth it.

Beef Ragu
(recipe adapted from http://www.globalgourmet.com/food/egg/egg0297/beefragu.html)

2 tbsp olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
1 stalk celery, diced
1 carrot, finely diced
500g beef mince
1 1/2 cup dry white wine
1 1/2 cup milk
400g tin passata
1 cup water

Heat the oil over a medium heat and add the onion, carrot and celery. When the onion starts sticking to the bottom and turning brown, stir in the beef. As it releases its juices, use a wooden spoon to loosen the stuck bits of onion on the pan.

Once the meat juices have evaporated (10 to 15 minutes), don't stir, let the meat form a crust on the bottom. Just before the crust burns, add the wine. Stir again with your wooden spoon, scraping up and dissolving the crust. Adjust the heat so the wine just simmers.

When the wine has evaporated and a new crust forms on the bottom of the pan, add the milk, stir up the crust with the wooden spoon and then let the milk simmer and evaporate. Finally, when the pan is dry again, add the tomatoes and water. Stir well, lower the heat to a very gentle simmer and cover. Let it simmer, covered, for about 45 min. Check it from time to time so it doesn't burn - add water if necessary.