Lakshmi Iyer
India Post News Service
2020 has been a difficult year for the whole world, with most of us unable to see family, close friends, or even our colleagues in person. It has been a year of video conferencing and calls to dear ones.
Aarti Sequeira, Food Network star, host and judge, put out a post about her socially distanced holiday celebration. Aarti won the Food Network Star season six contest. She has her own show called Aarti Party and has hosted the travel show, Hidden Eats. She has served as a judge on several shows such as Guy’s Grocery Games and made appearances on several other shows. Aarti Sequeira is also the author of the cookbook, “Aarti Paarti: An American Kitchen with an Indian Soul”, published in 2014. In addition, she penned a nationally syndicated column for the Associated Press called “World’s Fare”.
Aarti had a multicultural upbringing. She was born in India, raised in Dubai and educated in a British school. She took up journalism, earning her Bachelor’s degree at Northwestern’s prestigious Medill School of Journalism. After that, she worked at CNN, covering varied topics. A multifaceted personality, she also produced the HBO documentary, “Sand and Sorrow” about the genocide in Darfur, which was narrated by George Clooney and directed by Paul Freedman.
Her foray into her role of cooking host and star started with her hosting her cooking show on YouTube, with her husband as videographer.
In her post on her Facebook page that she shared just before Diwali, she shared some personal family moments with her little daughters by her side, video chatting with her parents and youngest sister. True to her personality, she started off by making sweet potato and onion pakoras (‘fritters’) and topping them with creme fraiche and caviar, adding that extra pizzazz.
Aarti said, “It’s beginning of the holiday season…Diwali starts this weekend, then we have Thanksgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, New Year’s, this is my favorite time of the year.”
She added, “The holidays make me miss my family, especially my family all the way in India and I feel that this year, you guys are going to know what that feels like a little more because not that many of us are able to travel and go see our family.”
In her trademark cheerful voice and demeanor, she greeted her parents and younger sister on a video call on her laptop, with her two little girls by her side, all excited and chirpy to see their grandparents and aunt.
As they watched on the screen, Aarti offered them the beautifully decorated pakoras on a plate. She said that she wanted to send them a present to let them know that she and her family were thinking of them. Aarti proceeded to load the Xoom app on her cell phone to send them some money so that they could buy something.
In just less than a minute, the transaction went through and her younger sister could see the money deposited in her account, and was absolutely delighted, as were her parents. This was certainly a cool, spontaneous way to bring a smile on the faces of family members and other loved ones. (Xoom is a money transfer app from PayPal – https://www.xoom.com/).
Material reference courtesy IWC Group, Inc. (https://www.iwcgroupinc.com) and Aarti’s website – https://aartisequeira.com/
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