This is what comes of moving and bare cupboards.
With under a week to go, the kitchen is devolving into a patchwork of missing foods. The ketchup’s all done, as are nearly all manner of vegetables — except broccoli. On the other hand, there is a whole block of butter and a huge ziploc bag of frozen dumplings. And we went through the last teabag last night. So today I finally made a pot of tea with the looseleaf tea I bought in Gampola a year ago this week.

I could tell you that the tea stings with the taste of home and history and truth and belonging and all those other things. But it tastes like none of those things. I added too much ginger, the magic is skewed.