It occurred to me this fine Sunday that a lot of my posts to the world are of a typically negative demeanor, especially my last one of berating the denizens of the internet. I’m not a pessimist, quite the opposite actually. I hope for the best in nearly every regard and situation. I admit that I am a cynic though. I don’t like to take experiences and situations at face value. There’s something more to what’s going on all the time. I contend that such a view is actually quite optimistic, if in a roundabout way.

I believe that things happen for a very real reason, though we don’t often know why. I don’t mean this in a drug-induced cosmic-binding idea of fate or karma, just that the choices we all make result in connections to others in far deeper ways than we realize and I’m optimistic that we can find a way to use that. Let me try to clear some of this up by saying that if I act pessimistic it’s not intentional. If I were to say that the glass in front of me is half empty, it’s only because I’m optimistic that I can finish that remaining half of my drink.

In light of happier posts I wanted to share a series of pictures with you. They were taken some time ago, almost a year. I just never got around to doing anything with them. For your viewing pleasure I am letting you see the making of a fine curry dish. I loves my curry. It all starts with a mess on the counter like this:

Not pictured is the giant stock pot used to contain it all. That looks like this:

I’m browning some garlic in canola oil. Everything needs a little garlic in it so why not start with it? After the garlic has had its share of the heat I add the cut up onion and some peanuts.

Let that heat up and start to play together.

This picture is after the curry paste and stock have been added. While I let that heat up to a boil it’s time to turn to the meat portion of the meal which for this particular instance of curry was shrimp and soybean protien. If you’ve never been to Evergreen in Salt Lake City this is what I’m talking about:

This little ball of a mess is pretty much what is left of soybeans after they have been pressed for oil. Basically it’s a lump of protien, and quite delicious. I used to drive into Evergreen all the time just to order the number 7 for these. Then I found out they sold them in huge bags. I need to head up there sometime soon and pick up another bag. Also, rumor has it the number 7 has changed a bit.. an investigation will need to be done.

When the meat has had time to cook and soak up some of the curry it’s time to add the veggies. This time around it consisted of potatoes, carrots, and corn. Yes, corn. Super sweet white corn to be precise.

That picture is somewhat deceiving. I didn’t add a mountain of corn, it’s sitting on top of the more abundant carrots and potatoes. Stir that up and let it cook together for a half hour or so and it starts to look like this:

One more thing to add though to make it nice and creamy (and frightfully less healthy); coconut milk.

Now it’s pretty much ready to eat. Of course, the longer you let it all stew together the more the flavors saturate and get absorbed into each individual component. I typically let it cook from this point on low for about an hour and a half to two hours. If I had a crock pot I’d cook such curries all day.

Once you decide it’s had enough time, cook up some rice and plop the two together in a bowl.

You can see a little hole in the curry down to the brown rice. I tend to go through phases where I prefer brown rice over white. Regardless of which kind of rice you choose, you should get the same result:

Mmm, mmm, good.

Curry is a pretty simple dish. You’d have to try to mess it up, and even then it’d be sort of hard. If you’ll notice, I didn’t indicate any measurements of the ingredients. That’s because I don’t use any. Like I said, it’s a pretty simple dish. I got the recipe from Patrick Wong and after a couple times of making it his way I picked up the ball and ran with it.

I recommend to everyone (who likes curry, and with many different kinds everyone should like at least one) that they should try making their own. It’s easy, fun, and so much cheaper than going out to eat. Now if you’ll excuse me, I actually have another curry on my stove right now.