Put to the test

You might be mistaken in thinking that my children (after all I have been writing on unconditional parenting) are the best behaved and loveliest in the world (well... loveliest I suppose they are in the running) so you might get some satisfaction in knowing that all my lovely theories were loudly put to the test this evening.
Supper time comes along and Mr Toddler is blowing bubbles in the kitchen while I cook, I put everything on the tray and go to the dining room announcing that said supper is ready. No Mr Toddler, this is not unusual, he is only 2! So I go and get him and as soon as he comes into the room he spots the pirate box on the table (pirate arts and crafts), I curse myself for not having removed it.
Immediately he shouts I WANT PIRATES! I say yes we'll play with pirates after you have eaten (I actually said this to a 2 year old expecting he would get it?) and of course he runs off crying I WANT PIIIIIIIIRATES!!!
As he eats like a sparrow (a small one at that) I insist that he has some food and that we'll do pirates later, he screams at the top of his voice sounding rather like a loud donkey NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Shall I be honest? My first reaction was to give him my old teacher look and march him off to his bedroom, then all I have read and thought about (and written about in this here blog) kicked in, am I also a 2 year old? Is this tit for tat? It did also dawn on me that he probably wasn't hungry otherwise he would've been eating (it was chicken bits with peas, he loves both) so what did I do? Get down to his level and give him a hug (this really shocked him) and said sit down and I'll see what pirates we can play with. So he sat down, picked up a chicken bit and I tried to find the least messy pirate thing he could play with. We both calmed down, some chicken was eaten (not much, I was right he wasn't hungry) and the pirates were forgotten after about 30 seconds... But it was really hard, so hard to go against your anger and things you have done 1000 times before.