Valentine’s Day - The Wandering Palate

It’s getting close to 6pm, and you should be thinking about leaving the office and getting ready for Valentine’s dinner.

Chaps, if you haven’t secured that restaurant booking by now, you are in deep shit; more shit than a Weeribee duck, or as a mate of mine says, “It’s like being in a shit shower and some bastards got the tap on full! Read More >

Wanderings | Related to: Hotel de Crillon, Riesling, Valentine's Day | 1 comment

The Wandering Palate Cambodian Correspondent, Darren Gall, rises above drowning in his sorrows on Valentine’s Day to share his wisdom on wine and love and falling out of love, being well versed in aspects. Read More >

Buying Wine | Related to: Valentine's Day, wine for lovers |

From a lost play by Eubulos, (c.405 BC - c.335 BC)
‘For sensible men I prepare only three kraters (large vase used to mix wine): one for health (which they drink first), the second for love and pleasure, and the third for sleep. After the third one is drained, wise men go home.

The fourth krater is not mine any more - it belongs to bad behaviour; the fifth is for shouting; the sixth is for rudeness and insults; the seventh is for fights; the eighth is for breaking the furniture; the ninth is for depression; the tenth is for madness and unconsciousness.’

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read.

But the bitter truth we critics must face is that, in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defence of the new.”

As uttered by the vitriolic restaurant critic Anton Ego, in the film “Ratatouille”, after his epiphany.