Azziza and the Curry

It's taken since last week for me to calm down enough to write this post. It was last Thursday that it happened. First, some background. As you all know, the wife has been laid up in bed having "put her back out". So last week she was hardly moving. Certainly not cooking. At some point on Wednesday, doped up on enough Optalgin, she ventured down into the kitchen and made us a nice, if a tad mild, curry. This is only because her son asked for it. I would get ice in winter. Anyway we enjoyed the curry on Wednesday night. The boy and I went back for seconds. It was chock full of chickpeas, carrot and onion goodness. Excellent over a little rice.

Thursday was a rough day at the salt mines. All day I barely kept it together. Only the thought of that curry, now juicier and tastier, better blended after a day in the fridge, kept me going. I dragged my weary body into the house after dark and climbed the stairs to visit the bedridden wife. After actively listening to her description of her pain, fluffing her pillows and wiping her brow, I noticed the smell of bean soup drifting up the stairs. Now I'm not a bean soup lover (even if my mother thinks it's my favorite). She told me that through the fog of pain she had made us soup for dinner. "No worries" said I, "I'll just have the leftover curry" my mouth water at the thought of it's delicious spiciness. Then the bomb dropped. "Azziza threw it out" she said calmly.

Now this is not the first time Azziza, the maid from Qalansuwa, has thrown out the curry. "It smelled off", was her excuse. No! It smells just like curry. O.K. so you tell me, how many throwing outs of curry constitutes a firing offense? Even one may be too much, in my opinion!