Parsi Potatoes and Snow Peas

One cool November night as we were being driven into Delhi from the airport, we talked to our taxi driver about food. It was late, almost midnight, so the highway into town was full of truck traffic, which is banned during the day. The air was thick with exhaust; we could see it eddying in the beams from the headlights and in the pools of light below the street lamps. But we were transported elsewhere by the driver’s conversation, as he told us about growing up in the hills, eating fresh ve