I'm just curried out.....

Teen boy cooked a fabulous Indian meal a week ago on Friday. A spicy sweet Dal with rice and vegetable pakoras. The house was filled with the sweet aromas of a far away land.

Teen boy cooked another Indian spread again on the following night. The house exploded with flavor and smells, the only thing missing was a Bollywood flick on the telly and the lyrical lilt of an Indian accent.

And though I shouldn't complain, because I'm so damn lucky to have a teen who can roll out homemade vegan dumplings and bake a loaf of  bread that will soon rival the best French bakery, the house smelled like an Indian take out for days. We're not talking two or three days, but that damn smell held us hostage for  over a week.It wasn't a light ethnic fragrance, like the magical summer smells of  basil, rosemary or lemongrass: :it was a full bodied blast that stuck around longer than Fran's hysterical cackle, and Fran herself. 

And I'm now wondering how long is the half life of Curry?

I adore the heady bouquet of Indian spices, the exotic notes of tumeric, fenugreek, cardamon and garam masala but when you whip up two Indian meals on  two consecutive days, you fundamentally alter the molecular structure of those delightful herbs, transforming them into an indestructible curry fog that infuses everything in its path.

It was like an Indian horror flick.

Tumeric, fenugreek and garam masala slowly crept into  my area rug fibers, permeated my walls (which is a feat since I've got so much paint on the sheet rock that Sissy wears that one day they will just buckle) and even muscled their way into my kitchen linens.  And though  I flooded the counters with bleach, mopped the floors with Murphy's Oil Soap, emptied a full bottle of Glade Fresh Air Spray (Fresh Linen)  on every object within a five foot radius, including ones that breathe, the smells  lingered for days.

Opening the doors or throwing up the windows didn't help. It just tripped the thermostat. 

Nothing worked.  The smell moved  upstairs, winding itself into my closet, infusing my cashmere cardies with the perfume of curry.  My pillow smelled like curry. My cats carried the smell of curry on their fur. Every key stroke on my computer seemingly unleashed a cloud of curry.

There was no escape.

It was bad. Very bad. 

Teen boy has been on an Indian food bender ever since buying a bag of fenugreek off an herb dude in New York City. Most kids buy clothes or video games- my kid buys spices and teas. When most teens are shoving down triple pound burgers, he's enjoying tofu in a spicy orange sauce.

He's becoming a really great cook and I don't want to trample on his creativity but I laid down the law one morning as I was sipping my tea and inhaling the sweet smell of six  day old curry. There's nothing more soothing than waking up to curry.

"Let's not cook Indian food two days in a row," I suggested.

"I was thinking of seeing how long I could eat just Indian food," teen boys said..

"Hmmm....well....then I'll buy you a portable camping stove and you can cook outside,"  I said. 

I can't think of another cooking smell that even comes close to rivaling a curry bender, except for fried fish or french fries. When my nephew got a Fry Daddy for Christmas one year (sissy did not buy him this gift), he went  on a year long frying frenzy, plunging every imaginable food into that bubbling vat of fat. He'd drop a load of spuds into that Fry Daddy before the roosters started crowing. I don't think he ever changed the oil or even unplugged it. It was a workhorse and Sissy silently prayed for its demise, pleading that the  Frying Gods  would send down a bolt of electricity and short out the motor.

But his frying fiesta ended as quickly as it began and the Fry Daddy is now at the bottom of a giant heap of garbage somewhere in the Midwest, its motor crushed, its frying days over.

When I reminded Teen boy of his nephew's dance with the fryer, he smiled.

And then asked for a Fry Daddy for Christmas.