I cook a lot of American, Italian, French food - I sometimes venture to Asia, but I have never cooked Indian food in my life. It sounds like I missed the boat, but I lived in a carriage house for 8 years on “Curry Row” in NYC (6th Street between 1st & 2nd Ave). This is a small street with approximately 20 Indian restaurants. My house was in the center of the block and the kitchen of one of the Indian restaurants faced my house. The kitchen staff were very cool and would send waiters into my house and serve me there. Why cook Indian food when you can get Chicken Tikki Masala brought with a moment’s notice?

I moved out of that carriage house, am no longer overloaded by it all and decided to try my hand. First, make some Basmati rice. Second, make some Chicken Tikki Masala.

Sound easy? Well, it actually is. It’s really a tomato based sauce with some type of dairy product to cut it, and lots of spices. I looked at a few recipes and freestyled my own. Here’s some inspiration:

Recipe 1, Recipe 2, Recipe 3

I had a watermelon on hand and decided to carve a “melon boat”, although I opted for the “melon basket” variation (easier to carry). I saw these a lot in the 70’s when I was a kid, haven’t seen one in a long while. You usually add cantaloupe and melon. It only takes 15-20 minutes and is all kinds of awesome. I served mine as desert with vodka.