“Do You Hate Your Own Ass?”

Still no Delhi Belly, but I’ve had my first take-out Indian food, and it was pretty spicy. We spent all day Friday bouncing between various offices, having tons of meetings and signing things, and wound up ordering lunch while at the office of the lawyers. Sanju spent some time figuring out what would be both clean and acceptable to a foreigner, and decided on this dish of steamed rice patties, a bunch of green chili goo, and what was basically a doughnut that, instead of being sweet, was just flavored Indian style. There was also soup. This was an idli plate.

After Sanju explained to me that you take a bit of rice patty, spread some chili goo on it, and dip it all in the soup, literally everyone in the break room stopped and fell silent to watch me take the first bite. Which was spicy, but well within tolerance, so I disappointed anyone hoping for steam to come out of my ears (my ears if we’re lucky...). My experience downing blazin’ wings at Buffalo Wild Wings seems to have paid off, as I eventually eat the whole thing, including all of the chili goo. I fared a lot better than the guy in Outsourced who ate “the pepper stuff.” By the end, Sanju said my face was getting pretty red. But cmon. When your skin starts out so white, of course you’ll notice any redness. All of the brown people around me have a natural camouflage. No fair.