Nasal Pollution

Tonight Ive had my sense of smell assaulted by people (women) wearing way too much perfume. Now I love the smell of most perfumes, and its something that I find very erotic. Certain perfumes really light my fire, and two of the offending aromas tonight fall into that bracket. But its a real turn-off when the person is wearing so much perfume that the alcohol is burning the membranes of your nose, and in one case tonight my eyes actually started watering due to the alcohol fumes. She must have bathed in the damn stuff!!! Less is more people, please!!!

Why is this a problem you might think, apart from the prospect of horny waiters running around the restaurant. Well for me my sense of smell is an important tool in my role. I need to be able to assess the state of a wine by its smell and if my nasal passages are overwhelmed by the smell is Issay Miyake, or Chanel then the subtle aromas of a 1985 Corton Bressandes are just lost. So please, for my sake, go easy on the perfume.

On the subject of smells, Ive been doing some training with young Daniel this week using the Nez du Vin kit. I pull out ten random aroma bottles and we both nose them and try to deduce the scents. The little swine has been better at it than me, with a higher success rate. But its quite an interesting exercise. Its amazing how certain scents trigger memories, but you cant quite place where you recognise the aroma from. We had one particular scent which I knew I recognised, but couldnt quite place it. For some reason I associated it as a sweet flavour, which is strange because you cannot actually smell sweet. I was also aware that I didnt particularly like the object that it reminded me of. Not really sure how I knew that but I did. Then it dawned on me - my little girl had been given a roll of parma violets recently and that was the aroma that I recognised. Sure enough when we checked the crib sheet, the aroma in question was violets. Funny the tricks that you mind plays on you.