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Diwali Celebration
Nov. 14th, 2020, was the celebration of Diwali. Diwali is an annual festival celebrated in India, another term for Diwali is the Festival of Lights. The festival celebrates light over darkness and new beginnings. Most people celebrate Diwali by decorating their homes, giving family members or friends gifts, and most of all eating food. Rich in spices and flavor ranging from savory-sweet, hot, and spicy. Nothing is better than celebrating a new beginning with your family and a stomach filled with food!
On top of celebrating Diwali, we had a virtual event with Namaste India. Namaste India is a local restaurant in Chesterton, IN serving authentic Indian cuisine. During the event, we talked with the Namaste India team. They talked about Diwali and the importance that it has in the Indian community. Also, discussing the different food that was in the gourmet box from rice, tandoori chicken, samosa, naan bread, and a chickpeas dish. Customers had the option of either getting a vegetarian or non-vegetarian option and at the end, customers could ask questions to the team. Questions were related to what spices are used in meals, what food to try for the first-time foodie, the level of spices, and etc. For the customers who picked up their box before the virtual event, they got to enjoy the experience first hand while the Namaste team was talking about the food.
I’ve always wanted to try Indian food, but I would never know where to start. I could look up restaurants, but I wouldn’t know what to order. With being a part of this virtual event I got to know about a culture I didn’t know that much about before. As great as it was to learn about Diwali, I was super excited to try the food!! Like I said I’ve always wanted to try Indian food, but I never knew what to get and where to go. When I opened my gourmet box, I could smell all the spices from the food. I got the non-vegetarian option so that included the tandoori chicken. I tried everything by itself so I could get a true taste of what I was eating, then I started to mix some of the food together. I ate the naan bread and chickpeas which was a great combo together and I mixed the tandoori chicken with the rice. The samosa was really good too, it looked like fried dough that was stuffed with potatoes and peas. The spices that were mixed in the samosa had a familiar taste that I’ve had before. The spices reminded me of something that my mom had used before. Overall my experience with getting to know more about Indian culture and trying the food was amazing. Even the fact that the virtual event was held on Diwali, and I got to learn about that too was perfect timing. It’s an experience that I’ll remember and it makes me look forward to knowing more about other cultures.
