Foods I Own, Cooked and on a Plate

I have a signature dish, which I make a lot but less than I used to. I don’t think many people are familiar with it (sort of casting into doubt the term “signature” but I’m claiming it) but some are. I don’t know if anyone likes it but me, but I like it enough for everyone. It is called “Foods I Own, Cooked and on a Plate.” This is that dish’s origin story.

When I was in my early twenties, living alone, I read about a dish called “egg curry” in a short story. Deciding that sounded good, and doing no further research into the matter, I decided to make it. What I decided based on the no context in the story or anywhere else that the dish probably was was a thick tomato-and-vegetable curry with eggs poached in it. So I made that, and it was very good. I fine-tuned the recipe over time and it got better. Yes, I used the grocery-store curry powder—at the time, I didn’t know there were other kinds. Sometimes I scrambled the eggs. I never really settled on which vegetables I wanted in it so I put whatever I had in the house. Sometimes I didn’t have tinned tomatoes so I tried salsa—also good, and then I could put some cheese on it, if I had any cheese. Or beans, if those were around. Pasta sauce is not good, fyi, I don’t know why. Sometimes I did without the tomato quotient and just did the veg, spices, and eggs—I guess some version of a scramble.

I had probably been eating this dish for 7 or 8 years before it saw the light of day, if light is the eyes and tastebuds of another human being, which is Mark, who thinks it’s weird and won’t eat it unless very pressed. And it was even longer before I found what egg curry actually is. Not any of that! It’s hard-boiled eggs in a thin tomato curry, no veggies. It sounds ok, probably great, but a) it is not to my personal taste that hard-boiled eggs should have anything on them at all; to me, they should be eaten au naturel and b) I’m now married to the food I have invented, which out of cultural respect I have stopped calling egg curry, since clearly, it isn’t and never was. And yes, if you check the timeline clearly here, you’ll note I had access to Google the WHOLE TIME and just never looked. I’m like that sometimes.

Also, imagine my surprise when I found out about shakshouka! That’s the closest but still not quite the same—not enough stuff in it, or something. So now I just call my thing “foods I own, cooked and on a plate” because I’ll put most of what I have handy in it and as long as I have eggs and a few other things I always get it right. And no one eats it but me, and I am happy.

Also, I think I just won’t put a picture of the food itself, which I am eating as I type, because this is a weird-looking dish, and I don’t want to alarm anyone.