My idea of fun

[desperance]

So as noted hitherto, I'm putting together a classic Bangladeshi dish, a Moghul chicken korma. Which doesn't have many ingredients, but numerous spices in various preparations. I have been roasting and grinding and marinating for a while now - but like eating appetizers rather than the main course, these little fiddly details are where the real fun lies. I love grinding a roasted cinnamon stick; you start out with a hot bit of bark, and end with revelations. And this one I hadn't come across before: steeping saffron in warmed rosewater. Two self-intent perfumes - in another mood, I'd call them narcissistic - meeting and embracing. It's delightful.

And now I have to go out into the garden and pick chillies. A takeaway korma in the UK is a joke, so mild it effectively has no spice at all, curry for people who really don't like curry; this ... will not be like that. (But I'm putting the chillies in whole and at the last minute, so people who don't want a sudden rush of heat can just pass them on to me.)