What do you do when offered pig's head on a plate? Open a packet of noodles

I should have known there'd be trouble when his friend asked me if I had passed the "pig's ear test". I thought back to our first two dates to see what metaphorical moment he was alluding to. How good/bad I looked? How I held (and spilt) my pre-theatre champagne? Not, I hoped, anything that happened after the taxi home? It turns out that Mr B was known for testing his dates by offering them a pig's ear entree. A girlfriend who'd refused didn't make it past dessert. I had been saved. I was vegetarian. The friend laughed as if to say "I'll give you a month". Did he mean to be dumped or converted?

The month passed and the vegetarianism lasted two years until I was pregnant and craved meat. It started innocently, with a slice of chicken, but the descent was rapid. Two children later and my weekly fix of rare steak shows no sign of retreat. Mr B can hardly conceal his delight.

When it comes to food, he takes no short cuts. I try to insist on my childhood favourites, Oxo cubes, Bird's custard, Paxo stuffing, but no. Everything must be done with proper ingredients. To be fair, he does all the cooking and I reap the rewards. But I do sometimes crave the simplicity of baked beans a la tin rather than maple syrup infused with lard and slow baked, a recipe popular in his home town of Montreal.

When I went into labour at 3am, we sprang from our bed, too excited to sleep. I grabbed cleaning products; he prepared a postnatal feast. The NHS birth centre where I had my children has a communal kitchen. I'd have been happy with the white bread and cornflakes they kindly left out. But his selection of cheeses, salads, pates and pastas, washed down with Veuve Cliquot, certainly hit the spot.

We are lucky enough to spend a lot of time in Burgundy. Mr B usually plans our route there around food. An early ferry means we pass Troyes by dinner time. Troyes is home to the Andouillette, a sausage made from a pig's lower intestine. Naturally, it smells - and tastes - of shit. A late ferry means a Paris stopover and a trip to a supper club or to Au Pied de Cochon, where at 5am nothing beats "La temptation de Saint Antoine", pig parts, from trotters to tails.

Spring in Burgundy and lambs abound, so Mr B plans an Easter feast. Contrary to popular belief, the spring lamb in the shops is raised intensively, indoors, to meet the Easter deadline. The newborns in the field, we learnt, won't be ready until August. Instead, we have rabbit in chocolate sauce with spring carrots - a delicious irony.

"Pig's head is underrated," Mr B tells me. At the market, he waits as people buy slices of porchetta. He is hoping that, if he waits long enough, he will get cheeks at a good price. He arrives back with the whole head. Our son, who adores snails and brains on toast, examines it carefully and, after polishing off the most delicious bits, poses for a picture with it.

Back in England, it's Friday night and Mr B's out with the boys. A haircut and shave, then grilled testicles and beer - local Turkish specialities. I switch on the TV, pour a glass of red and serve my steaming bowl of two-minute noodles. Bon appetit!

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