β
Kulfi was beginning to feel a little tired of what she had been finding in the forest. She looked under a rock, by a tulip tree, along a stream. She needed a new ingredient, she thought, sniffing the air, something exciting and fresh to inspire her to an undiscovered dish, a new invention. She looked up into the sky.
Already she had cooked a pigeon and a sparrow, a woodpecker, a hoopoe, a magpie, a shrike, an oriole, a Himalayan nightingale, a parrot β¦ She had cooked a squirrel, a porcupine, a mongoose, all the wildfowl that could be found in those parts, the small fish in the stream, the round-shelled snails that crisscrossed the leaves with silver, the grasshoppers that leapt and jumped, landing with loud raindrop-like plops upon the foliage.
Diligently, she searched for a new plant, a new berry, a new mushroom or lichen, fungus or flower, but everything about her looked familiar and dull. No new scents enlivened the air and she wandered farther and farther away.
β
β