This month, I'm making veggie curry with Andrew Zalameda of More Plastic and cityfolk. I meet Andrew at the good old Dufferin Mall, and we take a quick tour through the No Frills to get our vegetables, then cut through a few alleys to get to his basement apartment.

Our curry has:
Â¥ Fresh garlic and ginger, and a jalapeno, all minced up tiny (first into the big pot, just coated with olive oil.)
Â¥ Potatoes and sweet potatoes (cooked separately so the curry won't get too starchy, then added to the big pot when 2/3 done)
Â¥ A can of chickpeas and one chopped zucchini (added to the big pot with the cooked potatoes)
Â¥ Canned tomatoes (toss in the tomatoes, save the tomatoey water they're packed in, let everything cook for a bit)
Â¥ A tin of good thick coconut milk (add this to the big pot, along with the homemade curry paste, turn down the heat so you won't scorch the coconut milk, cover the pot and cook for about an hour, stirring every now and then)
Â¥ Some spinach and some green onions, added at the end and stirred into the hot curry till they're just wilted.

But you can curry anything with this recipe. In fact, some of the best pots of curry start with "Oh shit, all those veggies I bought last week need to be cooked today."

The real recipe here is Andrew's homemade curry paste/sauce. It's a bastard version of a dish he used to make when he cooked at the old Bamboo club. It makes a huge potful and, he swears, is at its very best when reheated two or three days after you've cooked it. I wouldn't know, because, I had eaten all the leftovers I took home by the next evening. It was too good.

Fool with this recipe all you like. Change quantities. Make it your secret genius curry sauce.

In a big-ish mixing bowl, mix about four tablespoons of curry powder with a good shake each of coriander, dry mustard, turmeric, ground cumin, powdered ginger, salt, whatever.

Add equal quantities (about two or three tablespoons should be enough) of black pepper and plain white sugar. Mix this all up.

Now, I'm assuming you used a can of tomatoes in your curry. And I'm also assuming you've added the tomatoes to the big cooking pot and saved the tomato-water from the can. With me? Okay, stir the tomato-water into the spice mix, pouring slowly till you've got a thick paste.

Squeeze in the juice of two or three limes, and add a couple good slugs each of Hoysin sauce, fish sauce, soy sauce, and oyster sauce.

Andrew, being a food geek and former professional cook, already had all of those at home. If you don't, just hit the "International Foods" section of your supermarket. And if you want this curry to be strictly vegetarian, get the vegetarian, oyster-flavoured mushroom sauce, and use extra soy sauce instead of the fish sauce. Stir all this in.

If you're making a curry with meat in it, it's best to make this sauce well in advance and marinate the meat in it for a couple of hours. Otherwise, just make it while your curry's cooking and add about a quarter cup of olive oil to the sauce.

We started a couple of servings of rice in Andrew's rice cooker. Curry is a very sociable dish. There's plenty of hanging-out time while it cooks. Andrew and I swapped recipe ideas and talked about guitars. I'd heard that More Plastic had recently had all of their gear stolen while on tour (don't ever leave your instruments unattended in the van), and got the whole sad story. Rumours of an upcoming benefit concert are unconfirmed.

The curry was the highpoint of the afternoon. The low point was when I over-rocked Andrew's rocking chair (We were chatting, and he was cooking) and I tumbled right over and nearly crashed into the stove. Yes, I am a complete spazz. And More Plastic have a great new EP out called What Are Yr Colours Now? and we should all go buy it so the guys can get some new instruments.

Emily Zimmerman