We are coming to the end of our 13th year in Minnesota and it’s only this year that we’ve begun to explore the many parks in the Twin Cities metro in a concerted way. This is, of course, related to the pandemic. We’ve been at home with our boys since March—we’ve been teaching from home and they’ve been attending school from home. It’s been going a fair bit better, on the whole, probably than we had feared—our profession and privilege does make it much easier. But we’ve needed to get exercise, and more importantly, to make sure the boys get exercise so we don’t end up murdering them. Through most of the early summer that meant long family walks in town every day. The start of the school year has shortened those daily walks but we’ve been compensating by going for walks in various parks on the weekend. Two weekends ago found us in the expansive Hyland Lake Reserve park in Bloomington (we picked up an excellent lunch from Godavari right after). We liked that park so much—and there was so much of it left to explore—-that we went back again today for a ramble through another part of it for. After a three mile walk to perk up our appetites, we picked up another Indian lunch from an Eden Prairie restaurant and took it home to eat on our deck with friends. Our port of call this time was India Spice House. I’ll have a report on that takeout meal on Tuesday. Here now is a look at their adjoining grocery store, where I stopped in briefly to buy some ginger and curry leaves.

India Spice House is located in a part of Eden Prairie that appears to be one large strip mall. They are in one of the relatively smaller offshoots, a few doors down from Raghavan Iyer’s Pizza Karma—which we’ve been meaning to try and hopefully will get a chance to do once the pandemic is over. Godavari is not too far away in one of the larger sections. You might wonder about there being three Indian restaurants in such close proximity but Eden Prairie has a large South Asian population, as the suburbs generally do. I’m not sure if this population is served by another Indian grocery as well—though neither Bharat Bazar in Bloomington nor TBS Mart in Richfield is terribly far away. If I lived in Eden Prairie, however, I’d be generally happy with India Spice House. It’s not the largest and most comprehensive Indian grocery—I have no reason to drive farther to it when I can go to TBS Mart—but it has most everything needed for everyday Indian cooking.

Herewith the evidence. The pictures speak for themselves but I’ll add one note for anyone who hasn’t shopped there and might go in looking for curry leaves: they do have them but they’re not in the fresh veg section as at most Indian stores. Instead they’re at the checkout counter—just tell the clerk you want a packet and he’ll put one together for you.

Okay, I’ll be back in a couple of days with a report on the food from their restaurant!