No sooner had India's Special Olympics team been introduced and applauded at a potluck in its honor at Northwood Elementary School Saturday night, when Arvind Phukar implored everyone to help. "They need food," he said, arms wide, hands out. "They need to eat."

Phukar, past president of the Cultural Association of India-Anchorage, asked everyone to get cooking. A sign-up sheet appeared; all sorts of people, linked by their ethnic and family ties to India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Pakistan, started signing up.

"Those who come straight from India can never take American food," Seetha Murugesan said. She volunteered for Special Olympics three months ago -- "My main concern was food!" -- and found herself named delegation assistant leader.

The Indian athletes had been served noodles on the flight to Alaska, she said, "and all they wanted was rice, rice, rice, and curry, curry, curry. They were hungry!"

The Hilton hotel has been terrific. When told the Indian team needed familiar foods, the kitchen staff tried to comply, Murugesan said. But the curry wasn't right. Not hot enough. Commercial curry doesn't have enough chili powder, she explained. So the hotel agreed to make all the white rice anyone could eat, and Murugesan and her friends would supply the curry.

"They gave us a fridge to keep it in, and space in the kitchen to warm and cook," she said.

"Without curry, we are lost."