Our bookclub book was Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire; okay, given I haven't finished reading all of it, it's still mybook.

Bernie chose the book so she chose the Witch's Cauldron for our dinner. I'd never been there for a meal before this, so it was good to finally find out what the fuss is about. Of the ten that were to be in our dinner party, we had a decent turn out of eight and ended up having an awesome girls' night dinner; and we actually talked about the book too!

The story is quite intriguing and now that we've discussed it a little, I'm eager to get back to it and hopefully finish it before we decide on our next book. It will definitely be a stretch of imagination and also mental dexterity - think LOTR, but more choppy.

It was a really good night with excellent company, great conversation and decent food. I didn't think the fare at the Witch's Cauldron quite lived up to the fuss surrounding it all. I had an entree of shrimp cocktail, which was a lettuce leaf shell filled with chilled prawns tossed through what tasted like thousand island salad sauce, a single olive and a bit of tomato garnish. For my main, I had a serve of the Cauldron's famous garlic prawns, which was served in trademark style of the sizzling pan. The shrimp I had were all decently fresh and nicely firm. However I did expect that little bit of extra something, I was after all at the famous institution that is the Witch's Cauldron. Shrimp tossed in thinned out thousand island sauce (that's what it tasted like!) and shrimp with garlic served in a sizzling pool of oil was not really what I was expecting. The Witches Cauldron is definitely able to charges the prices it does because of it's reputation, location and clientele, the more affluent baby boomers, and not so much to do with the old fashioned (but not quite rustic) food.

Yeah, I had a lot of shrimp for dinner! And with my usual reaction to alcoholic beverage, toward the end of the meal, I'd turned the colour of a cooked shrimp - bright pink!

Now, I must get back to the book!