i brought out a small appetizer of these delicious rolls that my aunt
taught me of meat and potato chopped very fine and curried and wrapped
in crepes and rolled in egg and bread crumb and fried till golden
and then
some tandoori chicken baked in the oven which isn’t quite the same as
a tandoori oven, but you still get that gorgeous red like the brick
that it would have been baked in so long ago
plus a little
beef and potato curry, cooked for a long time so that the meat is very
tender and the juices have mixed with the curry powder and the milk
and the tomatoes to make a rich broth that flays your tongue and sends
the endorphins shooting to your brain, so you somehow think that pain
is pleasure
and rice of course
with gulab jaman for dessert; cheese balls soaked in a honey-syrup so
strong that more than two bites and you need almost as much water as
you drank with the beef to wash away the sweetness…
oh dear.
i hope you’re not a vegetarian.
*****
M.A. Mohanraj
October 26, 1992