Today, for lunch, without any prior discussion – I cooked cabbage curry at home, my mum made cabbage curry at her house, and there was cabbage curry at my grandparents’ place too. This isn’t the first time this is happening – it occurred sometime last week with carrot curry, and I think some other day as well.
I wonder how these occur
In my mind, I imagined the cabbage Gods pulling us all towards that vegetable. I’m fairly certain we all cooked it the exact same way: mine with the least amount of salt, and my grandmother’s with the most. Mine with the most amount of spice, and my grandmother’s with the least. I could replay the resistance with which I combated the urge to cook and finish the cabbage, I wanted to eat aloo fry again – but I countered all those forces and reached for the leafy thing, chopped it up and cooked it as rapidly as I could.
Cooking coincidences like these feel like they mean far more when they happen within the family. In a lot of ways, it felt like a small reminder of where I get my passion for food from. Not literally, but in terms of the food I’ve first eaten – the food I’ve loved all my life. I could go eat all the pasta and pizza in the world, but I know I’d want to come home to Indian food occasionally. Palya is a reminder of that emotion.
Tejas Rao 