Sold-for-shoes-overweight-intellectual-dancer: Four Seasons Wines Curtain Raiser- dinner with Abhay Kewadkar

Seven cities and ninety restaurants over three weeks. Does sound like madness,right? That's exactly what Four Seasons planned to do with their new plan. Quite an ambitious project,goes without saying.But we didn't really have a very clear idea about the grandiose of the project until we reached The Park on the D day. Saffron was the chosen venue for the dinner with Abhay Kewadkar,famously known as the father of Indian Wine who also happens to be the director of Four Seasons Wines.

Food and Wine, as we all know, go hand in hand but in stead of the usual "you can't have wine without food", Abhay chooses to believe that one can't(shouldn't?)have food without wine, as he told us before dinner. And he has decided to dedicate his life towards the awareness of the fact that Indian Wine is really at par with its European counterparts. India, as a country might have started out late but it's up there. Four Seasons is a living example of this. Launched four years back, it's already the second most popular wine in India and a growing favourite with the wine drinkers abroad too.

If wine is there, can the "what food to pair with what wine" debate be far behind? The diners muttered their bits and pieces of wine knowledge-Sauvignon blanc is sweet and spicy at the same time, Shiraz goes well with spicy cuisine, red wine should be paired with red meat and white wine with white meat and of course, the myth that wine doesn't go well with Indian food. Abhay patiently answered all the queries while we filled ourselves with mouth-watering appetisers like the vegetable kakori kebab, chicken tikka kebab and an out-of-the-world kebab prepared with wait-till-you-hear-it green peas! Free flowing wine and the amazing hospitality of The Park staff made sure we were quite filled(and drunk) before the dinner even arrived. But a super yummy spread comprising naan, corn pulao, tandoori roti, dal makhni, chicken and mutton gravies, dum aloo stuffed with paneer,paneer with vegetables in a coriander gravy, crisp vegetable salad, raita,flourless chocolate cake and a lot more is difficult to ignore. As my grandmom used to say,the tummy is always flexible. I found the piece of wisdom to be true that night.The third helping of the flourless cake- warm and gooey with chocolate oozing out of it DID ruin my shirt but it was so worth it!

Partnered with Poshvine, the events will be on from 28th August to 3rd September, tentatively . Some of the outlets chosen are Spaghetti Kitchen,Benjarong,Kalash-HHI,Tangerine,KK's Fusion,Oberoi,The Wall,D'Sovrani and Charnock City.I sure as hell am going to attend these. Stay tuned for all the details.

And,a thought I'd like to leave you all with-did you know that an ordinary European consumes 50 litres of wine per year on an average? You didn't,right? Akshay has reasons to believe that India isn't far behind. Let's prove to the world that we are better than a glass of whiskey or rum with our good ol' chanachur.

And now, coming to my outfit, we all know florals have been a rage for a while. I'm not very girlie when it comes to my dressing sense. So,I took my time to adapt to the floral trend. But once I got into the groove,there was no stopping me.