Chef Dabi

Chef Ramesh Bhawarlal Dabi ducked into the kitchen. I watched him from the dining room through the rectangular, head-height window, his gaze down.

“Hold on just one second,” he had told me, though not exactly in those words. The Mumbai native doesn’t fully speak Spanish or English. He learned them by working in kitchens in Mexico and England. Even though he can’t read or write either one, he gets his point across.

He rummaged around his spice stores and emerged with two pieces of cinnamon: Indian and Mexican. Indian spices are stronger, spicier, than Mexican spices, he had told me. And here was the proof.