Winter is a rude and dangerous event. It creeps up out of nowhere and practically forces you to eat fatty foods (to protect you from the harsh harsh cold) that stay and somehow multiply inside you and make you feel miserable and will no doubt lead to your very own destruction...and if that isn't enough there are buckets of rain and blizzards to ruin any nice hair-do that you've created in order to compensate for the extra kilos gained...and our only saviour thus becomes the fact that daylight savings ends during this time, allowing us monsters to walk home in the safety of darkness.

Until I ate at Il Vicoletto (Crown St, Darlinghurst), this was my opinion of winter.

It was a cold Friday night and I was doing my best to fight off all cravings of pizza and pasta that winter was tempting me with. But as it usually happens, Demis INSISTED that we go to an Italian restaurant for dinner and consequently (though I truly made all very best efforts to do otherwise) I ordered pasta and he ordered pizza.

When you enter Il Vicoletto you immediately feel warm. The décor is very "dinner at mum's" with homely decorations and simple furnishings, and the staff are quiet, patient and graciously accommodating. But what warms you the most are the smells...sizzling garlic, frying onion, simmering sauces, warm bread, coffee brewing and wine breathing...the smells float through the entire restaurant and linger on your clothing afterwards.

I ordered the mussels in white wine and tomato sauce for my entrée and although they were delicious, the sauce that covered them was absolutely amazing. I must have eaten 4 slices of bread just in soaking it all up. My main was their famous home made gnocchi that had an equally appetising sauce that slid smoothly down the throat with the soft and light potato pasta.

As we ate we absorbed our cosy environment and the warmth it released. The smells and tastes reminded me of so many feelings, like stepping into a hot shower, putting your hands around a mug of coffee, getting out of your work clothes and into your oversized flannelette pyjamas, getting into a bed with an electric blanket, sitting in front of a fire, having a boy warm your hands, eating a pizza while watching old movies, alphabet soup, sleeping through a thunderstorm, changing into dry clothes after you've been caught in the rain and soaked through...the feeling of winter.

I will never say that winter is my favourite season but after Friday night, I've definitely learnt to appreciate it. I always loved summer because I love the heat...but I never realised that for that very reason I should love winter. Winter makes you find the warmth in everything, and only winter can make a hot pasta taste so good.