Butter chicken curry

On this day four years ago I met a very nervous Lovely Boy outside White City Station. He was going to cook me dinner for the very first time. We hadn’t kissed yet, we hadn’t flirted, we’d just spent time in our respective heads wondering and undoubtedly over-thinking.

Those who know LB know he’s not a braggart – unassuming, quiet, enthusiastic, gentle and genuine, yes – but a show off? Uh, no. So when he offered to cook me his butter chicken curry and told me it would be the best butter chicken curry I’d ever eaten I was intrigued.

In retrospect I think we were both incredibly nervous – and not about the cooking – and for me that nervousness manifested itself in non-stop nervous babble. For Lovely Boy it meant shaky hands, a broken glass and a cut hand. I think if we hadn’t had those three bottles of wine LB would never have had the courage to kiss me at the end of the night. The approaching now-or-never 94 to Piccadilly should take some of the credit but the butter chicken curry played its part. I mean, hello, a man who kisses as well as he cooks?

The cinnamon and lemongrass martini at the Sanderson
made even cooler by an excessive use of Instagram filters...

Last week we had a second attempt at celebrating our first wedding anniversary. It’s only really been in the last week that I’ve had my appetite back, after that little Mexico fiasco (so close to fiesta and yet, so, so far…) and I was keen that we make up for it by having a nice meal somewhere.

We ended up at a place called Salt Yard on Goodge St in Fitzrovia. The weather was pissing miserable but the food was freaking unbelievable. We’ve put some serious graft into “researching” the best places for tapas in London over the last four years and we were unanimous that this was it. Eschewing gross old man pubs for cocktails at the Long Bar at the Sanderson beforehand, dinner was a smorgasbord of Iberico jamon, stuffed zucchini flowers, salt cod croquettes, ox cheek stew, padron peppers, three different kinds of cheeses, chicken and black beans and churros with hot chocolate dipping sauce. (The Sanderson’s lychee and cinnamon & lemongrass martinis are so good they deserve their own blog post frankly.)

Anyway, I ate more in that one meal than I’d eaten the entire past week but it was so good that I didn’t even mind the totally bilious feeling I was left with. All part of getting my match fitness back. And with that in mind, I’d better get myself to the kitchen – the butter chicken curry is ready.