I had been reading an anecdote about how toast meant love to a little girl. After reading it, I began craving egg curry. This is why.
Every year me and a bunch of friends went camping in forests. When we started as kids, we used to have centrally cooked food meant for hundred odd campers of all ages but now that we had grown up, for the past couple of years we used to go for "night outs" in the jungle away from the base camp. Then, our little group of eight or ten would set a separate campsite, make shelters and cook lunch.
Just imagine fifteen year olds cooking a four course lunch, even if it is something as simple as rice, soup, salad and the main: egg curry. Even then, this would have been pretty easy for us if it was not in the middle of the forest and if we did not have to cook on dried leaves, sticks and if we got lucky, logs.
Anyways we always chattered away and began at eleven in the morning . By twelve, only the egg curry would be left. Magically, a wind would blow soot into the boiling soup and the fire would die out, we would rekindle it again and fry our potatoes. Athen we would remember that they needed to be boiled along with the egg and hence by the time they were fried and ready to put into the oil, it would be three. Then we all would weep as we chpped the onions on a large stone with a mini machette and when the spice mixture would be ready, our olive cargoes would be red, brown, or yellow, depending on who handled which spice. Over laughter, we would pour in the water, spilling half of it on the fire and killing it again.
Even then we all would agree that when the curry was finally served at sundown, it was the best ever...!!
We would decide to let the beautiful sooty insipid and salty taste linger in our tongues and go without dinner!
Too many cooks spoil the broth but sometimes even the spoilt broth is better than a five star hotel one because of the love the cooks have put in it. :-)
