The Trouble with Curry


We ran to Trader Joe's for potatoes and juice boxes yesterday. And as we get further into the store I realize that it reeks of some pungent cooking. They do samples so I walk by and see yellow. Curry! Uh no! The only time I ate curry was when I was invited to a friend's house who is Indian and she not only prepared all the dishes from scratch but knew how to tame it down for the Western palette. The curry chicken was delicious and I took some home and my house never smelled when I reheated. The smell at the store was of a different caliber. But then the sauce came in a bottle.


We're by the cheese isle and all of a sudden Danny stops dead in his tracks and says: "What is that smell? Where is it?" I tell him that it's curry. He goes: "I like it! Where is it?" So we walk back to the sample table and they're doing a shrimp and rice slathered in curry sauce. I give him a shrimp to taste (he loves shrimp) which he swallows in one gulp, grins with satisfaction, and makes yummy sounds. He wants me to buy the whole dish including "the yellow tasty stuff". I then have to spend 5 minutes talking him OUT of buying the curry sauce! I buy the shrimp (it's fully cooked and frozen) and the rice (in microwavable packets with baby corn, lemon grass, and ginger) and promise that it'll taste the same minus the stink. The sales person who is present during the debate is not saying anything, so she knows that their bottled sauce is super pungent. Go home and carefully defrost the shrimp. No ammonia smell so we're golden.

Make him his TJ dinner. The entire one package of rice and half a bag of shrimp. He eats all the shrimp and just a little rice. Asks from more shrimp. OK. Comes back and only about 1/3 of rice left. Which Terry saves because we still have shrimp left over (it has zero flavor since it was frozen). As I put him to bed I realize that his breath reeks. And I didn't give him any curry! I get out of his bedroom and into the fresh air as soon as I can, hoping it'll all dissipate by the morning. He comes in at around 7 am. Climbs in and as I hug him he breathes on me and I keel over. He still smells! I push him toward the other side of the bed and he passes out for another couple of hours. When he finally wakes up, I tell him that his breath still smells and he's all shocked: "but I flossed last night!" Then he asks for the leftovers for lunch.

He won't eat a hot dog, but he's likes curry! And what is exactly making him smell? The lemon grass? Ginger is supposed to be good and calming for the digestive system. Hoping that the chlorine in the pool tomorrow morning will finally kill it all.