From KCRW, I'm Evan Klyman and this is Good Food.

Kushbu Shah had never seen a Duvali feature in any food magazine prior to joining food and wine.

So five years ago, she decided to change that.

As we head into the Hindu Festival of Lights, which celebrates the triumph of light over darkness,

knowledge over ignorance, and good over evil, we talked to Kushbu about her plans this year.

Hello.

Hello.

How are you?

I'm good.

I'm so happy to talk about this with you.

How did you celebrate Davwali growing up in Michigan?

Oh, man. My mom would always cook up a feast. So the vali is actually a multi-day celebration. There's technically the official day of the Bali, which is the Indian New Year too. But there's different things that are related to different days.

And so according to that, sometimes there's different traditions.

But for us, it meant eating a lot of sweets, tons and tons of sweets, which are known as mitai.

And my mom would also always make some very special dishes, things that required, you know, perhaps a little more

labor, this thing called Shrikund, which is strained yogurt, thickened strained yogurt that's,

like, sweetened with cardamom and saffron and sugar, one of my all-time favorite dishes and

buries, which are these deep-fried flatbreads that like puff beautifully. So Shrikun Buri is like such a

special celebratory meal and my mom very rarely goes at the Bali without making it. Are celebrations

for Diwali typically kept at home with family and friends or are there public celebrations ever?

Or do you visit different friends houses yeah historically over the years it's been something celebrated you know very much at home

people have different the vali parties and gatherings you know where there are just immense

...