A bit of indulgence

Yesterday I attended our monthly General Meeting for the AWC, which included an interesting art lecture by an American woman who has lived here for many, many years. The lecture had a theme of romance, passion and deceit and has inspired me to attend another lecture in a couple of weeks on crime in art.

After the meeting, I attended a "Perfume Lunch" which was really just a couple of hours to attend a 'high society' event, have a couple of glasses of wine, an amazing lunch and a gift of some very expensive perfume (purportedly the most expensive in the world - Amouage) all in a very posh hotel, Hotel Des Indes in Den Haag.

The menu was meant to be coordinated with the fragrances and included:

Gold man

On oakmoss and fir needles smoked baviere rump with duck liver and a dressing of pine nuts and rosemary. (Sounds a bit funky, yes, but it was deeeeelish!!)

Jubilation XXV (Man)

Grilled monkfish in coriander nage, ravioli of buffalo ricotta perfumed with lavender. (Now, I'm not a lover of fish, and I had a bite of the monkfish, and the ravioli, but my acquaintance Edgar ate the rest.) A side note here, Edgar, as it turns out, was a famous soap opera star here in the Netherlands, so really I was mingling with the stars :O)

Jubilation 25 (Woman)

White chocolate with poppies, financier of almond and foam of Tahiti vanilla. We weren't really sure which was which, but it was all delightful. The not-more-than-a-teaspoon-full of ice cream - the Tahiti vanilla - was the best ice cream I have *ever* tasted (and chocolate is how I roll).

We were, naturally, given a gift bag (they distributed a man's and a woman's version) - which contained some bath salts, and a bottle each of the Gold Woman and the Jubilation. And yes, it is very pricey - €200 a bottle! I don't plan to become too fond of it as I think paying that kind of cash for perfume is ridiculous, really. But hey, these bottles were free :)

The woman in the silver dress won the 'best dressed guest award' - but I also have to comment that she was massively overdressed for a luncheon :)