Last Saturday night, food met a hen.

As a child, I used to find it strange that women had a hen's night, while men had a buck's night. The metaphor didn't seem quite right.

A buck (or stag) is a strong dominant animal with proud antlers. It rages through forests and holds its head high on mountain tops. It's a majestic creature seen as an admirable hunt because of its untouchable beauty - ancient mythology also states that the stag was the only animal that had the power to walk through other worlds.

A hen on the other hand, is a stumpy feathered bird, whose only real purpose in life is to sit on a plate as dinner, or to lay eggs that will either end up as breakfast or hatch into another piece of edible poultry. The hen simply feeds man.

Despite these grim thoughts, I groomed my feathers and met my fellow chicks at Jimmy Liks for cocktails and canapés. There in the dim lights, sleek tables and cool cutlery we sipped on glamorous drinks and gathered our flock together. Over chilli oysters, succulent pork and salty squid we toasted to my future marriage and let the night's mood seep into us.

After we had warmed our appetites and caught up on past events, we made our way to Venice Beach on Kellett Street. Venice Beach...even the name alone sounds sexy.

Everything was right about that place. We were seated in a large private room that had deep blood red velvet curtains draped against the walls that screamed decadence. The lights were low, as were the tables, and there were huge cushions thrown lazily around the room. The service was friendly and obliging but best of all it was minimal - they didn't try and make the night about them or their rules, they simply served.

The food matched the venue. Confident, tasty, artistic yet with a simple elegance that made it very tasty and very edible. I chose the angel hair pasta with fresh herbs, tomatoes and a drizzle of olive oil. All our meals went down well with the jugs of cocktails and endless flow of wines that were brought to us. It had been a while since I let my tastebuds and alcoholic thirst indulge themselves, and being the primary hen - I took my place in the pecking order and indulged with reckless abandon!

But in all honesty, I could have been seated in a laundry, eating the lint from the washing machine and I still would have had a brilliant night.

Hollywood may consider a hen's night to be about enjoying single-hood and taking advantage of your supposed last few nights of freedom, but I certainly didn't view it that way (even when the cowboy stripper arrived and *cough* performed for us...we all knew the show was about us girls - and the only freedom we celebrated, was the freedom to laugh at a man's expense!). To me the hen's night was about huddling together in the nest and celebrating what I had, and what I was about to have.

I had friends that adored me and went to all efforts to prepare and plan a night that I would forever label as perfect, family that supported my every decision and never failed to put my needs before their own...and soon I was to have a husband that would love me the way I wanted to be loved, and would do that until death do us part.

So while the stags clashed antlers, I enjoyed being a hen for a night. In fact, considering what it meant to be a hen, I wouldn't have traded places for the world. Let the men walk through worlds or sit and wonder over whether we or our eggs came first...I would much rather ruffle up my feathers and cluck.