In the summer of 2015, I went to India for two weeks with a group of students from my college. While I was there, I lost something like 10 pounds, because, at the time, I thought I didn’t like Indian food. Years later, I realized how stupid I’d been, and have spent my entire life since trying to make up for all the Indian food I didn’t eat while in India.

So when the SPAC team invited me to Heartland Masala, the next installment in the CulinaryArts@SPAC series that’s coming to ThePines@SPAC on April 23—and to talk to Auyon Mukharji, one-half of the creative team behind the cookbook of the same name—I was all in. What follows is an edited version of my conversation with the culinary historian, Darlingside band member, and son of chef Jyoti Mukharji, with whom he wrote Heartland Masala.

Read the interview on Saratoga Living After Hours.