What was going on when I was born?

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries said yesterday that it had called ''an extraordinary conference'' in Geneva on Oct. 29 in an effort to heal the bitter pricing dispute that has divided it for most of this year. What appears to be emerging as a compromise, according to several OPEC sources, is a unified basic price of $34 a barrel, ending the dual pricing system that has prevailed since last December. This would entail Saudi Arabia raising its basic price by $2 a barrel and other members lowering their prices by the same amount. ''We are hopeful the unification of price at $34 a barrel will be reached,'' said Subroto, Indonesia's oil minister and OPEC's president, in Jakarta. ''My feeling is that there is not too much problem to that.''

Linda West Eckhardt is the author of ''The Only Texas Cookbook,'' published this month by the Texas Monthly Press. By LINDA WEST ECKHARDT BLUE smoke curls against a magenta evening sky. The smell of scalding coffee and sourdough biscuits drifts on the breeze. Iron pots creak gently over pulsing red coals. There's a chance to finally eat something besides dust. The cowboy stands, a tin plate cold in his hand, waiting for Cookie to signal that he may begin. At last the cook turns to face him. Cookie is a skinny little fellow, brown as Recipes are on page C6. a coffee bean, wizened and stooped; he has a ladle in one hand and a coffee pot in the other. He pulls a face designed to run off the faint-hearted and hollers, ''Come and get it.'' Supper on the Texas trail has begun.

ONE of the pleasures of working with professional chefs is that there will not be much wasted energy in their planning and executing almost any menu that comes to mind. When an old friend, Roger Verge, chef and owner of the three-star Moulin de Mougins (as well as the one-star Amandier) in the hills above Cannes, was last in New York, he agreed, on short notice, to cook a meal. The dishes he prepared, most of which were unknown to me, came from his recent book, ''Cuisines of the South of France'' (William Morrow & Company, $14.95). They included an appetizer of hot oysters with orange sections; roast rack of lamb baked with a meringuelike topping flavored with parsley, mustard and green peppercorns; a zucchini and tomato casserole, and a bitter-chocolate mousse. The 50-year-old Mr. Verge said that he had never had a serious interest in cooking until he was 17 years old and became an apprentice in a small restaurant kitchen in the South of France. When he was 16, he said, he had no particular professional interests other than a desire to become a pilot, and he believes that it was his desire to travel that has inspired him as much as anything in his career.

One of the more successful mutual funds is not operating from Wall Street, but rather from the headquarters of Gulf and Western, a $5.3 billion conglomerate whose diverse subsidiaries bring forth auto parts, women's apparel, movie hits like ''Raiders of the Lost Ark,'' and raw sugar. Gulf and Western, of course, does not operate a mutual fund in the traditional sense, where investors buy shares in a managed securities portfolio. But it does maintain a hefty $355.8 million portfolio of stocks in 16 other companies, and that makes the distinction between it and a mutual fund a fine one indeed. For, when an investor buys a share in G.&W., he not only purchases a claim on the earnings and assets of G.&W. itself, but also, indirectly, has purchased a slice of those 16 companies as well. G.&W. has turned a mundane corporate function - maintaining a reserve of marketable securities - into an art that has increased the company's earnings, offset the cyclicality of its businesses and helped provide a smooth upward earnings curve.

THE Reagan Administration, through budget cuts and policy proposals, is changing the course of Federal food and nutrition programs. The changes, some already made, others expected shortly, affect everything from what consumers buy in the supermarket to what their children eat in school. They include beef grading standards; food safety and labeling; Government guidelines for diet; meat and poultry inspection and food plant sanitation; school breakfast and lunch programs; day-care and summer feeding programs, and supplemental food for low-income pregnant women, infants and young children. Responsibility for these programs is shared by the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration. However, it is in the Agriculture Department that the greatest changes are apparent.

The White House has prepared a letter saying that if Saudi Arabia should adopt ''policies which are disruptive to prospects for stability'' in the Middle East President Reagan would cancel delivery of Awacs planes. The letter, not yet formally delivered to members of the Senate, is intended to win support for Mr. Reagan's proposal to sell Saudi Arabia $8.5 billion in air defense equipment, including five Airborne Warning and Control System planes as well as tanker aircraft, missiles and fuel tanks to increase the combat capability of 62 F-15 fighters. A draft of the President's letter spoke of four ''arrangements'' that would be incorporated into written agreements with the Saudi Arabian Government. One provides for an agreement to maintain physical security for the Awacs planes, their manuals and other equipment and for ''periodic inspection'' of such facilities by American experts.

Five persons were injured yesterday afternoon, one of them critically, when a fire flashed through corridors on the 47th floor of a skyscraper in lower Manhattan, the Fire Department said. Hundreds of people were removed from the 51-story Marine Midland Building at 140 Broadway, between Liberty and Cedar Streets, as a result of the fire, which began about 1 P.M. Hospital officials identified the critically injured man as William Wise, 78 years old, of a Washington suburb. He was reported to be in stable condition at the New York Hospital burn center. Four men were treated at New York Infirmary-Beekman Downtown Hospital for smoke inhalation.

For the rest of this century, experts predict, almost all the growth in demand for oil will come from poorer countries, while the amount of oil consumed by industrial nations continues to decline. Oil use in developing natigns will grow from 11 million barrels a day at present to 24 million barrels by the year 2000, according to an analysis by a big oil company. Oil demand elsewhere is expected to decline by about two million barrels a day, to 64 million barrels. ''All the pressures on the world oil market will come from the less-developed countries,'' said John H. Lichtblau, executive director of the Petroleum Industry Research Foundation. This view was echoed by company officials, industry analysts and government experts in more than 20 interviews.

House Republican leaders balked today at raising taxes to hold down a growing deficit for this fiscal year, jeopardizing an informal agreement between White Hguse officials and Senate Republican leaders. At an hour-long private meeting between House and Senate Republican leaders, differences were also expressed on other aspects of the budget package, including the size of the spending cuts, whether to cut benefit programs and how much to cut military spending. At the same time, David A. Stockman, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said that projections that the deficit for this fiscal year could reach $80 billion represented ''a worst case scenario.'' The Administration had proposed a package of $13 billion in new budget cuts and $3 billion in new revenue to keep the deficit, which it now projects at $43 billion, from climbing higher.

Armed robbers waiting in ambush killed a Brink's guard in a blaze of gunfire at the Nanuet Mall in Rockland County yesterday and minutes later killed two police officers from Nyack, N.Y., in a shootout at a roadblock several miles away. The robbers, who wore dark ski masks and fired shotguns, automatic pistols and automatic rifles, made off with $1,589,000 in six bags, according to the authorities. The money was later recovered when four suspects - two men and two women - were captured as they fled in two cars. One of the cars crashed into a stone wall after a chase through Nyack. At least two persons in the other car escaped when they opened fire on several police officers and detectives who had stopped them at a roadblock at an entrance to the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway.

International The plan to sell Awacs planes to Saudi Arabia is being pressed in a White House letter prepared for the Senate. The letter pledges that if the Saudis should adopt policies ''disruptive to prospects for stability'' in the Middle East President Reagan would cancel delivery of the advanced radar craft. (Page A1, Column 6.) Participation in the Sinai peace force by several Western European countries is planned, according to State Department officials. They said they had been told that Britain and Italy were expected to join France in contributing troops to the force that is to monitor Egyptian-Israeli peace. (A11:3.)

OPEC has called an ''extraordinary meeting'' for Oct. 29 in Geneva to try to settle its bitter pricing dispute. All 13 members are expected to attend. (Page D1.) Most growth in oil demand will come from poorer nations in the rest of the century, experts say. One estimate puts third world usage at 24 million barrels a day in the year 2000, more than double today's. Industrialized nations' usage is due to continue to fall. (A1.)