The Great Indian Curry Hack

I have a new piece up at Tenderly, a gorgeous new vegan/vegetarian magazine from Medium. The Great Indian Curry Hack is my story of being a grad student in the US long long ago and figuring out a way to cook Indian food using ingredients available in my small New England town. This piece also carries my first ever published recipe—and my first ever attempt at food photography! Here’s an excerpt.

It was orange, with an oil slick on the surface. In its murky depths were four submerged triangles. It was a paneer butter masala, and it was $7.99. Reader, my heart broke.

It’s been over fifteen years since I darkened the doors of The Jewel of India, but I’ve never forgotten that feeling of betrayal, when, as a broke student, I finally splurged on a meal at the sole Indian restaurant in the tiny New England town where I’d decided to get an American education. I had hitherto eaten Indian food in Asia and in England, and this dish was outside all parameters of my experience. It was curiously sweet, yet mystifyingly bland, and I could’ve soaked a roll of Bounty in all that oil…”

You can read the rest of the piece here. It’s behind a paywall, but you can access it here for this month: https://tenderly.medium.com/the-great-indian-curry-hack-8ff87031fc1c And if you’re a Medium member, do leave a comment/clap over there!