Inside Tanga's kitchen, where dishes are conjured from the spicy ether ...

We feasted like idle lolling no good boyos at Marco's, gulping down icy Kingfisher ultra's, sharing secrets, swatting fat mosquitoes, tearing open with our fingers prawns as big as horses - 

We'd sit, in the evening, around a table in the courtyard - the full moon would cast our shadows upon the sand - Marco would tell us curious stories about his life in India - slender boys would arrive on their motorbikes to play Badminton - 

Once, Tanga bought to the table a splendid fish, its scales like pristine silver coins - it lay upon a bright green banana leaf - Trimalchio would have envied us that moonlit dinner - I reeled back to the four poster bed - 

One morning, Tanga invited us into his kitchen - shards of coconut palm wood smouldered under gleaming metal pots - fragrant smoke wreathed our faces - bunches of drying herbs hung from the ceiling - huge knives shone - delicious vapour escaped from under the lid of one of the metal pots - I was soon dizzy with a sweet, magical, hunger - 

I stared at a box of matches - a sailing ship with dark sails was depicted upon a red background, backlit by a full moon -the  motto read  - Ship superior - trusted since 1942 - 

Tanga was carrying his baby son, holding him close to his thin chest - the innocent's eyes were outlined with kohl -

Here, in his kitchen, Tanga was a magus, conjuring up dishes from the spicy ether -