Posts Tagged ‘sushi’

Suspect Womit

stellahpam
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Stellah is a gadfly, a transplant from an F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, now living in New York, with a style that spans decades and an accent that at some point, long ago, was identifiable as Australian. I have dined on elegant meals with her on the East and West coasts. Sushi topped with seared foie gras in San Francisco, poached egg drizzled with truffle oil at 4 AM in SOHO after a night of drinking absinthe at a gas-lit bar. She is the one person I simply let order for me.
stellahthaliNow, in a filthy restaurant in Mysore, India, we were sitting across from each other staring down our highly suspect thalis. They had been slopped out of crusty brass buckets onto our banana leaves by a waiter in a filthy uniform. A mound of rice in the center, surrounded by splotches of what looked to be different varieties of small animal “womit,” as they say in India, like a sadistic science display where you’re meant to match the animal with their barf.

Stellah pinches a bit of rice and places it on her tongue. The rest of us tentatively do the same. Within a few minutes Stellah, Cara, Cleveland and I have channeled our inner toddlers and are eating like natives. The meal is both delicious and disgusting.