Hello. My name is S.

I am making my debut appearance on this web site to tell you something very
important.

Are you ready?

This will be so important it's practically a Public Service Announcement.

Are you sure you're ready?

Okay. Here it is.

The samosas pictured above are extremely delicious.

You can get them from this place called House of Zabeeha, which is a small grocery shop located in Mississauga. They sell East Indian-type stuff. You know, your chutneys, your papadums, your Punjabi mixes. In the back there's a halal butcher, with slabs of meat hanging like punching bags from hooks against the wall. The joint is disordered and grungy. The floor is littered with parts of old newspapers, all nicely decorated with footprint slush, along with shriveled pieces of lettuce or parsley or radish. A woman in a veil is usually at the cash, and she doesn't quite look you in the eye, but that's still better than the alternative: the weekend boy with the tously hair, who usually has a surly answer quite ready when you ask where to find the pita or something.

But it's not really about the cashier. It's about what's next to the cashier, and that is a simple cardboard box, the kind that once held vegetables of some sort, but now has found something better to do: samosas. Samosas that are the perfect size for the palm of your hand. Just greasy enough to make your fingers damp, just grease-less enough to make eating a couple or three or four seem like an okay thing to do.The filling is mostly potatoes and veggies and a divine mix of hot Pakistani spices. The crust is
crispy and delicate. They have them there daily, in that same grease-smudged box, made fresh. Are you still sitting there? Against all odds, it would appear so.

My love affair with samosas is deep-rooted. If you went to McGill circa the late nineties like I did, you know that samosas are the stuff school fund-raisers are made of. The members of the Model UN want to bankroll another trip to New York? Samosa sale. A pack of engineering students want to hold another Pub Nite? Samosa sale. The Free Burma Coalition need cash for another poster campaign? Samosa sale. You get the idea. Everyone knew someone whose mother could make some samosas they could sell. They're easy and tasty and large and cheap. At $1.50 a pop, three loonies meant lunch. I basically survived university on a steady diet of samosas and depanneur-bought Apple Strudel (but that's a story for another time). Nowadays, the mere mention of samosas makes me feel nineteen again.

One final note: the House of Zabeeha sells their samosas 3 for a dollar. A Canadian dollar. I'm not joking. It is madness. They're so irresistible, we catered our wedding with them. 150 of them, on a big platter, amid all rest of the catered and homemade foods. Since people on this continent like to dunk their finger food in some sort of semi-liquid, we even had a couple of sour cream-based dips available to complement the samosas. Ever since then, the Domestic Goddess and I been so deluged with demand for the samosas, we now give a heads-up to people before we venture out to Mississauga for anything. Who wants us to bring back some samosas?

* written by the domestic goddess's much-mentioned husband, S.