Sexism on Devon

One of the first tasks we'd set ourselves when we moved to Chicago, was to find ourselves an Indian-tiffin source. (Food delivered or to-go on a regular basis.) We'd been spoilt by a wonderful Gujarati lady in the bay-area, who had supplied home-cooked meals to my family for the past 4 years. We figured we'd have no trouble finding something similar in Chicago, with the large Indian population here.

The two Gujjubhais who run the market in Regents were most unsympathetic to our cause, even though they went to great lengths to explain how easy it is to cook food. "Daal goes on the bottom, rice on top, get a few frozen vegetables, make some rotis, and you'll be done in under an hour." I told them it would be even easier if they could pick up some tiffins for us from Devon on their way to work at Regents. Much to my surprise, this suggestion was met with polite but firm refusal.

Plan B was put into action. We figured we should head straight to the source -- Devon. Once there, I wasted no time asking anyone and everyone we met if we could get a tiffin out of them. (I was doing all the talking, because Deepti's Spanish is better than her Gujarati.) At one point, I was talking to a kind-of distinguished-looking middleaged man. I explained our situation to him, which went essentially like this: we-don't-cook-so-we-need-home-cooked-Gujju-food-to-take-home-on-a-weekly-basis. I have barely finished, and he asks, pointing to Deepti, "And what will she do?"

Anyway, eventually, we did find this kindly woman who agreed to give us basic rotli-daal-bhat-shaak for a pretty reasonable price. Yay! We are now truly at home!