Lara, you wanted to see this story in a children’s book. It’s heart breaking that you left his world so soon. This post is in your honor. You can read it looking down from heavens. I miss you so much!
No! I am not talking about curry powder from a grocery store. This is a true story of a curry-leaf plant whose ancestors came all the way from India, no one knows when. To me, it was first-generation American Curry and I was an exclusive, proud owner of this exotic plant in the entire city!
It was an unusually warm Thanksgiving Day in 1989. The weather was dry and windy. Fall was late and the colors were at their peak. I had invited a very close friend for a Goodbye-cum-Thanksgiving meal before her moving to Texas the very next day. She handed me a parting present, a “Lipton Cup of Soup” container in which she had planted a curry-leaf seedling. It was about 4” tall, stood straight and looked happy with its almond-shaped leaves that were SHINY GREEN and had prominent veins. It was love at first sight.
Someone told me that curry plants love black, unsweetened tea. So, every time I made tea, I saved the bag and extracted remainder tea for my curry-baby. I did it every day. Many days went by. One day, to my surprise, I noticed that the curry was getting taller. Before long, its little container became too small for it. I went to the Garden Shop and bought a real pretty pot to re-transplant it.
Boy! It really liked my house and was almost 2 feet tall before the year ended. Now the new pot became small for it so I made another trip to the Garden Shop. I don’t know when, but I had started talking to it, telling it how beautiful it was and how proud and happy it made me. I noticed a BEAUTIFUL CURRY AROMA came from it whenever I gave it tea. It was about 4 feet tall now.
Whenever I needed curry leaves for cooking, I carefully separated some from its bottom branches. In the next two years, I had to change three pots because it grew and grew. I was expecting some flowers or something, but it only had leaves. I thought it must be a boy-plant, so I named it BUDDY , besides that’s who we had become anyways!
My next story will be about my gardening ignorance that almost cost Buddy his life.
If you would you like to have my recipe of fragrant potatoes with curry leaves and mustard seeds, send me your email and I will be happy to share it with you the link below. It’s very easy to make and quite tasty. You can even use the herb of your choice.