Curry Club, Wellington

Tuesday 19 February

Barbara was due to lecture on her excavations at Caesarea for the Wellington Classical Association, and the Classics Department of Victoria University of Wellington (Te Whare Wananga o te Upoko o te Ika Maui) gathered at the Curry Club, a downtown restaurant, to give her and Holt (who had given a seminar for the department that morning) a festive dinner.

This had never occurred to us before, but an Indian (or Chinese) restaurant is the perfect place to give a large pre-lecture dinner. You can order huge plates of varied meat and vegetarian appetizers (which was done), hot breads (ditto), and rice, and then give everybody a chance to order a different dish as well - the dishes get passed around, and everyone has a taste, or manages to avoid whatever they don't like. I know we ordered two beefs, two chickens, a fish, and a lamb, and all tasted great. Only problem is, Indian dishes are almost always in deep sauce, and some of the sauces looked so much alike that we soon couldn't tell what was what.

The other advantage is that people can depart early to get set up at the lecture hall, and the rest can finish the leftover dishes at leisure. In fact, the only problem was that Barbara couldn't have much wine before her lecture, and the wines people brought - a 1994! Dry River "Amaranth" and a 2000 Ata Rangi, both Pinot Noirs from Martinborough - were magnificent. Those Wellington classicists have excellent taste.