Some friends invited us out to a special event at Lamonts in East Perth. It was diviiiine! The food and wine was absolutely incredible! It was a six course dinner, where each dish had it’s own matching wine. At the beginning of each course, Kate Lamont, talked a bit about the food and wine and explained what they were trying to achieve with each pairing.

I thought it was going to be a painfully boring evening – with long speeches and fussy pretentious talk about food and wine.

But I was SO wrong. It was one of the coolest evenings I’ve had in a long time! The atmosphere was completely casual and relaxed – despite the steep prices, fancy location and posh decor. And Kate was so cool. She just walked around to each table, striking up a conversation with random people and going, “So what do ya think?!?!”

Now, I’m not a big drinker. So I have a rather unsophisticated view about food and wine combinations. You know, the whole red wine with red meat and white wine with white meat thing. Furthermore, after I drink half a glass of either, I’m not usually able to tell the difference between red and white.

Anyway, I learnt SO much about food and wine matching.
I was utterly captivated! We were sniffing and sipping, describing the wines as ‘warm tinned asparagus’, ‘lemony caesar salads’, and ‘my grandmother’s wooden sewing box’. All 14 of us were pissing ourselves with laughter the whole night (probably more-so by the end of the night).

Trying to appreciate the wines on their own wasn’t much of an event for me. But my senses were blown away as I discovered how the tastes of quite simple foods can be enhanced by the combination of the wine flavours.

I know this will sound really stupid… but having an evening where someone challenges you to actually stop and think – in detail – about the tastes, textures and smells moving around your mouth, was quite an astonishing breakthrough for me.
I don’t think I’ll ever eat the same again!

Oh and here’s a pic of me looking unquestionably and appropriately drunk (even though I was the designated driver that night), and my friend Ian doing his Wallace
and Grommit impersonation.

Oh oh oh, and we also got to take home a little booklet of all the recipes she served up that night! Woo hoo what a score!