In My Mailbox (7): the food and wine issue

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This was a huge week for me, but a quiet one in terms of books. For those of you just tuning in, this week I signed with Ginger Clark of Curtis Brown. I'm elated. Ecstatic. Every night is like the night before Christmas and I'm just too excited to sleep. I've been knocking myself out with celebratory glasses of red wine, but I'm going to have to switch to chamomile tea before I become an alcoholic! That, or valium.

But as always, the "diet" starts tomorrow, as tonight I celebrate with my friends at Lucky Coq with glasses of Pipsqueak cider over ice and lime, and the fantastic pizza there. The sun is out in a cloudless sky! Perfect drinking weather. And I have a new dress.

Lucky Coq, Prahran

Speaking of diets, I'm going to have to go on one to compensate for the lavish dinner at the Panama Dining Room last night. There were five of us there to celebrate my brother Rory's birthday: me and my partner, my brother and his, and my dad's girlfriend. These modern families! (Rory's a writer too, of sorts. He writes code. And he's just subscribed to my feed, so hi big bro! *waves*) As we were celebrating me being agented too, I went all out. I started with a Bombay and tonic, then ordered a Sangiovese for the table. For entree I had raw slices of Kingfish on these tiny wafers of bread, which was delicious and so fresh. Roz, the dad's girlfriend, had duck terrine and my partner had these amazing prawns. For our mains we had Mulloway, Wagyu beef (to DIE for) and pork belly, plus some sides of lemony beans and mustardy roasted potatoes. The service was horribly scatty, but by the end of the meal we forgave them completely.

Panama Dining Room, Collingwood

I'd visited the new cupcake bakery in Melbourne Central earlier in the evening to buy birthday cakes. Sooooo yummy and adorable! Rory got lemon meringue (his favourite) and I tried red velvet cake for the first time. I'm hooked. I got 5 assorted cupcakes for $20, and they do an in-house special with coffee for $5, which is dangerous as I pass through Melb Central all the time!

The Cupcake Bakery, Melbourne Central

Oh yes, the books. I borrowed The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield from the library, and Kushiel's Dart arrived from eBay. I started reading the former yesterday and the writing is beautiful. I'm having a little break from My Soul to Take. The heroine ain't my sort of gal, unfortunately.


Happy weekend!