It was just last summer that we’d first met Sonal and shortly after that, I volunteered to update the way she rented videos from three thick handwritten notebooks. I thought I would knock it out quickly after I found a shared database listing of Hindi movies and then just cross-check what she had in inventory and be done with it in a few days. Turned out I couldn’t find that list, and after having volunteered my services, I sat down in her store and started entering every title by hand. It took a couple of weeks sitting with her in Indo Euro, and we had the opportunity to chat quite a bit.

When I was finished, she asked me what she owed me; I told her that I’d volunteered and she owed me nothing. She persisted, and I told her if I allowed her to pay me, it would be at my billable rate; she said okay. I told her the number, and she grimaced and I reminded her that this is why I volunteered my help. I took this opportunity to let her know that, seeing she wanted to do something in return, I’d love it if she would invite Caroline and me into her home and have her mom cook for us. Not the kind of stuff we’ve had in Indian restaurants but the kind of food she’s been eating in the shop since I started coming by. She agreed.

So, towards the end of summer, Caroline and I arrived at her house and were greeted by Hemu (left), Sonal (center back), Kushbu (center front), and Ba (that means grandmother, and she’s on the right). We had an amazing dinner that included bitter melon, drumstick (not the chicken type, as this was a vegetarian meal; the scientific name is “moringa”), doodhi (bottle gourd), and a couple of other things. Our meal with the Patels changed our relationship with Indian food as we’d never eaten Gujarati-style cooking; we were hooked. By this time, our friendship was getting well-cemented.

Before moving to Arizona from New Jersey and buying Indo Euro Foods, Sonal had been to Los Angeles one other time while visiting; back then, Kushbu was only two years old. Since moving permanently to the desert, she’d not been back, and Caroline and I suggested that she and the family drive out with us. They agreed. So we loaded up in her van and drove out to visit some family in Blythe, California, first (top photo) and then on to Hollywood (photo above).

Our next stop was for market research; we went over to Little India in Artesia. Funny that it would be Caroline and I introducing a Hindu to an Indian shopping district.

We strolled from shop to shop and learned a lot on the way while being entertained by peaking into shops that we’d never stop at on our own.

After a ton of browsing and shopping for stuff that would end up in Sonal’s store in Phoenix, we ate at Rasbhog on Pioneer Boulevard and had our first taste of Gujarati Thali and Indo-Chinese cooking. I love our lives. By the way, look closely at the mirror in the photo above; I took a selfie of Caroline and me.