olfactory journeys

I have been reading Curry Cuisine, a cookbook devoted to its epynomous title. Its produced by DK, so its full of illuminating photographs and lots of step-by-step detail. So seductive are the descriptions, so colorful the illustrations, so real, so close, so intense that Dutch and I took a small trip to Little India (in the geography of our town, it is by Little Mexico) to purchase the more exotic ingredients. My desire and passion to make it all myself was so fever pitch that it felt like I couldn't possibly live without them.

As soon as we got home, I tore into our bag of booty. Dusty, faded bags, covered with Hindu scripts, with short, mystifying descriptions in English slapped on with stickers. Opening up the grocery bag was an event in itself. The room flooded with foreign smells, the rancid, armpit smell of the asofetida (feotid, right?), the sweet tang of cloves, the perfume of cardamom... gotta run