If music be the food of love, play on; but if you’ve
forgotten that it’s St Valentine’s Day today, then you’d better hope that your
significant other has forgotten too. If not, I suggest you run for the hills.
I’ve only ever once gone out for dinner on Valentine’s Day
and I remember it only hazily. Circa 2002, my mate Woolface (not his actual
name, but near enough) and I had – I think- been both recently dumped, so we
took ourselves to L’Oasis on Mile End Road in east London. We shared some
cheesy nachos, had a couple of pints, one thing led to another and we ended up
in a pub in Whitechapel. We chatted with a bloke called Larry who drove cars
for the Krays, I presented Woolface with a red rose and a Kalashnikov that I
bought from a Bulgarian fellow who I met in the gents. Cracking night. Best
Valentine’s ever.
You know what? If you really want to show someone that you
love them, don’t take them out for dinner. Sitting in a restaurant with a bunch
of other people who can’t be arsed to cook is hardly romantic. The loving
starts at home. If you don’t often cook, tonight is the night to have a go. If
you do, then this is your moment to pull out all the gastronomic big guns.
Whatever your ability in the kitchen, if you really apply yourself, then
cooking a meal for the person you love is the greatest gift of all.
Failing that, get fish and chips and a really expensive
bottle of Champagne (always Pol Roger for me darling) and enjoy it together in
the bath.
This is why this column is not titled ‘ Henry Mackley on
Romance’.
I love my wife more than anything, but I’d adore her even
more had she not emailed me a link to the Daily Mail Online. “This might be
useful for your column” she wrote. I find it hard to describe in permissible
legal terms how much I hate myself whenever I have the misfortune to click on
the DMO. A large part of me dies each time. But click we must (line of duty and
all), and this time it was a piece about 2014’s food ‘fads’.
Thankfully I’ve almost run out of room, but apparently this
year we’re going to be going doolally for deep fried fish spines and
cold-pressed virgin coconut oil. We’ll see. I grew weary of this list very
quickly and was thankful when I noticed a link to “Kelly Brook can’t wait to
make a splash as she strips off to cool down in the Caribbean Sea”. So, click
we must.
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