Tandoori prawns, arranged in a neat row, each morsel charred invitingly. A basket of garlic cheese naan, cut into crisp triangles. Lamb biryani, fluffy and meaty and spiced to perfection. Butter chicken, Blake’s order, as he apologises for his milder palate. We’re meeting him for the first time and it could have been awkward but we put each other at ease. We don’t know it yet but he’ll become our favourite Kiwi in the world.
This is our first proper meal since arriving in Auckland hours earlier. It has been a hectic day: checking into the hotel on Federal St., running errands, meeting Emma the photographer for coffee. And now it’s time for dinner. Blake had suggested Indian so here we are.
The conversation flows, at first tentatively then as smooth as if we had known him for years. I dip my spoon into the bowl of palak paneer and scoop out a cube of cottage cheese slathered with puréed spinach. This is the stuff Popeye would approve of, I think, and remember lonely evenings in Penang when I was away on work trips and having the same dinner night after night because I couldn’t be bothered to venture far from my hotel.
Crisp pieces of garlic cheese naan, torn by hand, not cut or sliced. And cube after cube of palak paneer – green, white and so nourishing. Keeping me fuelled till I could return home. And now I am miles away again, far from home, you could say, yet I’m more at home than ever for I’m with the one I love the most. That’s home.
Blake smiles at the two of us, tells us his butter chicken tastes wonderful.