Melbourne, 2021
to present
It happened in the way that most real things do — without a plan.
A housewarming party in Fitzroy. Sebastian had just moved from Hamburg for a research position at Melbourne Uni. Anika was there because her colleague promised good wine and terrible music. Both predictions were correct.
They talked about Tarkovsky films, then about their mothers, then about whether the host's sourdough starter had actually died or was just dormant. Sebastian walked Anika to her tram stop and they stood there for forty minutes after the last tram had gone.
Five years of morning runs along the Yarra, Sunday dumplings in Box Hill, two cats named after mathematicians, and one year of Sebastian learning to tolerate Melbourne's four-seasons-in-a-day weather brought them here.
They chose Epicurean because it reminded them both of something — the vineyard hills that look like Anika's grandparents' land in Himachal, the winemaking that recalls Sebastian's uncle's hobby in the Rheingau. A place that feels like a convergence.