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The boy, the girl and the impossible mountain they climbed

By JOSH NISSENBOIM
Features Editor


There is a boy. There is a girl. This boy and this girl go out. They look at each other across tables and they look around the tables and see all this glowing life around them.
 The boy and girl are walking down the street to the Everest right now. He crosses the street a beat faster than she does. She is thinking about how the fuzz of the street might be a problem with her eyes. It is.
 There are drips of water that are clumping in the sky. The street is waiting. The boy and girl go inside the Nepalese restaurant and ask to sit at one of the still dirty tables. The waitress asks them to wait in the lobby while the table gets cleaned. They step back into the open lobby where one man waits for the arrival of his friends. He looks up at them but his stare is lost in their patience.
 Reading through the menu is difficult. The entrees are arranged in odd groups and it is hard to keep the arrangements in their heads.
 So they have kind of decided when the waitress motions and their table is clean. They order.
 Samosas are the first to arrive and they look like hushpuppies but taste a lot better. Stuffed with potatoes, peas and wrapped with a crispy pastry dough they are best with the spicy red sauce that is served along with them.
 The samosas are pushed into their stomachs and they get very determined to build themselves their ideal tables. His ideal table has many functions, and several nubs of cork inlaid for pinning. Her ideal table is simple and looks like a table. They plan these tables, and sketch them.
 Kauli, which is a curry with cauliflower, potatoes and peas is set down in front of the girl. Everything is tinged with yellow and looks just like she imagined it to. Accompanying it is Chiya, a Himalayan black tea that tastes like an old dusty sachet that used to hang outside the girl's room when she was younger. It is pleasing but she wishes it were a lassi.
 He orders the Kukhurako maasu, which is a chicken curry cooked with vegetables. He doesn't order the yak or that goat because he can't get them in curry form. He wants to try them, but he wants a curry more.
 On the way out he eats something that isn't edible. It looked like an odd shaped nut, but it tasted like a two pound bottle of perfume condensed into a rock. He had a very difficult time trying to communicate with the woman at the register while chewing this. He didn't want to be rude and spit out the perfume rock in case it is a traditional after dinner palette wipe, but at the same time he didn't want to die, so he pretended to cough and then chew his finger and he discarded the perfume into his hand. He then put the chewed remains in his coat pocket. The flavor stained his mouth for a good hour. He still doesn't know what it was.
 It was reasonably priced, and the food was very good. 9/10




Josh Nissenboim has a good heart. He likes to use the space for his biographies, interviewing others. Today, it is Peter Bartz-Gallagher, the photography editor.
 J: Why do you look sad Peter?
 P: 'cause I'm out of water.
 J: What do the scientists say, "You should drink eight cups a day"?
 P: Eight liters.
 J: What did you say?
 P: Eight liters. This is a fun interview.
 J: How many rats?
 P: Two or three I'd say.
 J: Why?
 P: Cause I saw one in the Wallace Basement women's bathroom.
 J: Are you on prescription medication?
 P: No. I am not.
 J: Do you like pharmacists?
 P: Yes.
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