a curry tale

tonight i had authentic indian food. the real deal. one of my good friends at work is indian, and tonight he invited me and another girl over to eat home-cooked indian food with him and his roommate. his mom is in town, so he shared the love. it was one of my most adventurous meals to date. i guess i trust kumar, and i wanted to be respectful of his culture and his mom. she was an absolute delight and had spent quite a bit of time preparing the meal. i tried everything, and i even went back for more (my first helping was rather timid due to my ever-hesistant and consistently exclusive tastebuds).

i left my apartment earlier a little worried about the meal. my roommate and i were discussing our intense dislike of curry. i said things like "curry tastes like it doesn't belong in food. it tastes like a chemical that should only be used in a factory with gasmasks." stuff like that. little did i know that not only would i eat curry, but i would eat my big fat words along with it.

my favorite was this pita-style bread she cooked in a skillet with onions inside, which was an all-purpose dipper, shoveler, etc for each dish. my favorite dipping substance was the brick-red sauce in a concoction that entailed peas and some very large chunks of tofu-looking cheese. i wasn't so much a fan of the latter, but the sauce was money. halfway through the meal i asked dawn if there was curry. she laughed at my question, and pointed to the saucy, cheesy, pea dish i was probably dipping into at that very moment. so i guess i don't hate curry after all. in fact, i kind of like it.

isn't it funny how our tastes can change unwittingly, even when we resist. sometimes we get so adamently opposed to something for reasons we can hardly remember, and it seems to be a rather subjective game we play. but we stick to our guns. always. and sometimes we get caught. just like i did tonight.

i used to think i didn't like curry, but color me converted.