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In the midst of COVID-19, all I had was Indian food.

Alright, that’s a bit melodramatic. But it certainly helped.

When the virus hit, I was working full time at a grocery store in my hometown to pay my way through community college.

To be frank, at that time, I was more worried about getting spit on or threatened by customers than whatever COVID had waiting for me. Don’t fret about my safety, though. When a customer tried to spit on me for not giving her hundreds of dollars in cash for a gift card scam, it hit the protective glass meant to halt those pesky COVID particles. Thanks Governor Whitmer!

Anyway, at the end of the semester, I made my way to Michigan State. My goal had always been to grind as quickly as possible through community college and transfer to an in-state university.

Thanks to the real thinkers over at the university, I still had to live on campus for a year despite the fact that I had spent my first few years at community college and nearly all on-campus activities were still extremely limited thanks to COVID. I’m sure the leadership at Michigan State truly had my best interest in mind; the thousands I had to spend on room and board had absolutely nothing to do with it.

When I moved into my dorm at MSU (the real MSU, sorry Mankato residents), I was isolated. There was a one person per dorm policy and social gatherings were not encouraged. Every single class was online, so I sat in the dorm I spent thousands on and logged on to virtual class each day.

I grew restless. There are only so many books one can read and games of NBA 2K22 one can play before the mind starts to go. So I started ordering food.

I grew up smack-dab in the middle of Michigan. Our specialties in Mt. Pleasant, Mich., were burgers, casseroles with ungodly amounts of butter and the other sorts of regional specialties that make the Midwest so special. I decided to take advantage of the increased diversity of East Lansing and start trying offerings that weren’t available back home.

I tried pho. I tried pad Thai. I tried chicken shawarma. And one day, the name Swagath caught my eye: it was an Indian restaurant just off campus. So I called in an order of tikka masala and butter naan, hopped in my car, slipped on my mask and went in to pick it up.

The aromas in the restaurant were immediately intoxicating, even through the cloth covering over my nose. When I got in my car, plastic grocery bag full of food in hand, I couldn’t wait. I took out a couple of napkins, spread them on my console and dug in.

The tastes were unlike anything I had ever tried; the richness, the complicated combination of spices, the depth of the flavor. I immediately fell in love.

Indian food quickly became a ritual for me. At least once a week, sometimes two, I would drive over to pick up a new dish. Eventually, I discovered another restaurant in town, Paradise Indian Cuisine, that quickly became my favorite.

I tried butter chicken, chana masala, aloo gobi, samosas, Nilgiri chicken (my personal favorite) and a host of other dishes, each better than the last.

While the dullness of living in a COVID-isolated dorm, watching a terrible Red Wings season, playing hundreds of games of Call of Duty and ripping through dozens of books picked away at my psyche, I would always look forward to the new experience of a new Indian dish, or the comfort of one of my previous favorites.

Through the years, that ritual has stuck with me. When the COVID restrictions dissipated and one of my best friends from my hometown transferred to Michigan State, we got an apartment together a few miles off campus. Once a week, we would head over to Paradise or try a new restaurant around town.

Sure, other foods made their mark on me in my time in East Lansing. Aladdin’s Restaurant had the best damn chicken shawarma in town. Dagwoods Tavern and Grill offered burgers, fries and a 12-ounce domestic bottle of beer all for $7.50, by far the best deal in town. Thai Princess had massaman curry to die for.

But one way or another, I always found myself drifting back to the allure of cloves, cardamon, garam masala, turmeric and all the other spices that make Indian food so spectacular.

When I decided to move to Bemidji to accept a job at the Pioneer, one of the first things I did was head to Google Maps and find the nearest Indian restaurant. I was devastated to learn there wasn’t one in town, but I’ve adapted.

I’ve learned how to cook a few Indian dishes. For someone who struggles to make a good over-easy egg, it’s been a bit of a learning curve, to say the least. Still not sure if I’m cutting onions right.

Indian food has become one of my favorite pleasures in life, right up there with seeing a great band in concert or winning an especially close game of Madden. All thanks to the fact that I was losing it in a lonely dorm during COVID.

Your Indian food might not be Indian food. It might be a new genre of music, a good book, or a style of art you happen across at a gallery. But you won’t know til you find it. Don’t be like me and wait until the dullness of life forces you out of your comfort zone: go give something new a spin.