Monday through Saturday, Sherpa Kitchen on College Street offers a daily lunch special — aptly named "special," since the amount you pay is extraordinary for the quality and quantity of food brought to your table. From 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., it's $8.99 for a homemade drink, first course and entrée. That's less than almost any entrée on the restaurant's everyday dinner menu. That's also a "Dining on a Dime" jackpot.

I've switched to winter eating. The chill has a habit of getting into my bones and settling there until April, and I do my best to counter the onset with hot curries, stouts the color of charcoal and braised meat that has stewed for hours, semi-forgotten, in its own juices. On a recent Wednesday, I woke up with the itch for a sit-down lunch hearty enough to battle the sudden 25-degree drop in temperature. Sherpa Kitchen was on my to-do list before I brushed my teeth.

By 1:30 p.m., I was sitting at Sherpa Kitchen's table-side window  with a friend and a mango lassi rich with housemade yogurt.  My first course was Aloo Chop, a pair of deep-fried potato croquettes with daisy-yellow insides hinting at spices like turmeric and cumin. The tennis ball-sized croquettes had a coarse-crunchy outer crust similar to Italian arancini, but with creamy interiors where I occasionally encountered the welcome texture of a soft onion, a chopped potato. A dish of fresh tomato sauce, bright with cilantro, was on hand for dipping.

My friend's first order was Sherpa Kitchen's version of pakora, a tangle of fried onions and slivered carrots plated with a verdant mint sauce almost as addictive as the salt-crunch of fried batter. My friend and I split both plates, spooning the remaining mint sauce into our mouths with the tines of a fork.
The appetizers were hefty, and though I was technically satiated after the large "first bites" and a thick mango lassi, the oncoming perfume of ginger, garlic and stewed tomatoes readied me for my entrée.

Though I love Sherpa Kitchen's saag paneer — housemade fresh cheese that's spiced, pressed and stewed with spinach, herbs and cream — this time I went for the chana masala, braised chickpeas with cauliflower, onions and fresh ginger in a russet-colored sauce. My friend's order was chicken tikka masala, the velvety broth treading the line between nose-clearing spices and the sweet notes of onions and cream. Both entrées came with a mound of perfectly cooked white rice and a wafer-thin papadum.

I can't remember the last time I took home leftovers. Actually, I generally take pride in eating every last french fry, every last lettuce leaf, every last bite. Among my friends and family, the phrase "Clancy plate" refers to a dish finished so thoroughly it looks clean enough to shelve. But this time I took home two pint containers of food.

That night, I fried the leftover rice in a swipe of sesame oil, added the leftover stewed chickpeas and cooked an egg in the middle. For $8.99, Sherpa Kitchen was both lunch and dinner.

Dining on a Dime is a weekly series featuring well-made, filling bites (something substantial enough to qualify as a small meal or better) for $12 or less. Know of a tasty dish we should feature? Drop us a line: [email protected].

Over coffee at the Swift House Inn in Middlebury recently, noted food activist and writer  Frances Moore Lappé made a comment about Vermont:

“What turns me on to Vermont is not just the beauty but something about the culture,” she said. “There’s an expectation of mutual connectedness here … there is a sense that we’re creating a shared ‘Vermont experience.’”

Lappé is not exactly an outside observer — she lived in Brattleboro for half a decade during the mid-’90s, and her stepmother is a fifth-generation Vermonter. But 16 years after relocating to Boston, where she and her daughter cofounded the Small Planet Institute in Cambridge, Lappé said Vermont’s inherent sense of communal accountability became especially visible. It’s why farm stands and maple shacks can operate under “the honor system,” for instance.

And it’s why, this month, Sterling College will helm an event called Pies for People, which turns excess food — both donated and destined for compost heaps — into seasonal pies for locals in need during the holiday season.