Food critics …

… come in all shapes, sizes and ages.

When I began the blog way back when, I wrote about the GOM – almost always when we were in South Carolina. GOM sounds like a character that would sit well in a Tolkein novel - nothing so literary – it's simply “grumpy old men”!

For those of us of a certain age GOM don't need an explanation. They do however have their uses. My GOM are ardent cruciverbalists – they love crosswords and not just your ordinary garden variety such as appear in newspapers - they are what I refer to as “Chinese crosswords” - they may as well be written in mandarin!

These days the GOM could be in South Carolina or Northamptonshire in the UK – geography doesn't really matter - they are totally absorbed in their craft and for me it's an ideal time to “taste test” any new recipe.

Bring on the tandoori chicken salad.

No ceremony, no explanation just “please clear the decks – lunch is ready”.

One thing is for certain there's no sitting on the fence with an opinion from these two, thumbs up or thumbs down!

Well that went quite well – three things – silence, an empty bowl and “excellent” - I'll take that. Silence implies “I'm busy, this is great”, an empty bowl speaks for itself and the spoken comment is the cherry on top of the cake or in this case the dressing on top of the salad – that's terrible – I do apologise!

Lunch went so well that there's another new dish for supper, thank you boys.

I realise, by the way, that the word “salad” means cold and boring to many. I hope this salad will be an exception since it has heat in the tandoori tikka element but perfectly balanced with the Italianesque dressing.

Give it a go, I don't think you'll regret it.