Curry

Growing up, my Mom loved to make Indian food. As a young child I never thought much of it because we were never like the family that had lasagna on Monday, hot dogs Tuesday, or any sort of set meal schedule (except perhaps the fair amount of times Dad ordered pizza on Fridays...)

Truthfully, I hated that we weren't that family.

I wanted dinner at six every night, with a familiar menu and something that looked like it came from the cover of a Martha Stewart cookbook. I wanted my mom to serve me something more comfortable than the food of the Indians. I also made the opposite mistake Columbus did. When Mom made her Indian food I thought she meant American Indian.

And then one day something changed.

I can't give you the exact day, but I know that my parents had just returned from an exotic vacation. They came home with pictures of fish I had never seen before and these tiny little trucks. From that day forward I turned my mind toward other cultures, reading books about history more often than books about wizards. I'm not sure what it was about those tiny trucks, or maybe it was my Mom's travel fever, but my eyes were opened, if only partway, to what this big world had to offer.

And now I know where Mom's curry came from.