Curry Toes: Will Travel for Food

Last night was my turn to cook for 5 others. LAYA, the NGO Kaberi and I are currently visiting has a three story building which houses 6 women working in the Community Video program, another 6 for the Community Radio program, a professional filmmaker wrapping up his third film on LAYA, Karuna- my former roommate and current Drishti Radio Trainer, her brother who helps run LAYA, and a few others who care for the facilities. With a kitchen consisting of two pots, two burners, salt, pepper, and a few seasonal veggies, I was worried about my ability to make something worth eating.

We have been dining on rice, huge mounds of bland, white rice, for 2 meals a day, so my only objective was to give potatoes the lead role in this dinner. We sent someone for a chicken- freshly butchered a short distance away- but when he returned the meaty pieces I am used to, breast, thighs, leg, were gone and everything else was jammed into a tiny plastic bag. I chopped some onions, mashed some garlic, and drenched the chicken in cold Kingfisher beer hoping to make something edible.

one hour and a few power outages later- the garlicky potatoes were cooking down and the beer turned into a fine gravy. with the light of a solar lantern everything was served and devoured within minutes. bed time.

6:30 wake up call! BREAKFAST. Instead of having Idli delivered we went to a stand about 6 km away from the office. The Dosa/Idli lady shuts down by 8:30 so we have to be there early.

We drove down this road...