How Chef Aarti Sequeira Spreads Joy Through Cooking and Faith
Movieguide® Contributor
Food Network chef Aarti Sequeira is spreading the joy of cooking with actor Kirk Cameron — and anyone else who watches her cooking shows or reads her book.
“Wow…I’m telling you God knew what He was doing when He created food and He created spices,” Cameron said after taking a bite of Sequeira’s Bombay Gnocchi, “and thank you for turning something as mundane or as routine as cooking into something that can really be an opportunity to give thanks to God praise to God and then bring people together and make our families more wholesome and healthy.”
“It’s really a magical thing that he’s offered us every single day,” Sequeira agreed.
The star chef says the highest compliment she can get is when someone tells her she cooks with “balance.”
“Because that means you’ve taken all these different instruments, all these different paints in your paint box, and you’ve figured out a way to make them into something bigger than they were on their own,” she said.
“That’s really what God has done in the very beginning when he creates,” Cameron replied. “He takes light, He takes darkness, He takes air and water, and He creates a sunrise out of all these different things, and He’s given us an opportunity to also rearrange elements to become a new creation.”
Bombay Gnocchi is one of the recipes in the joy section of Sequeira’s book, “Unwind: A Devotional Cookbook for the Harried and Hungry.”
“I was always so puzzled by that idea of the joy of the Lord is my strength,” Sequeira said. “I was like, that sounds nice, but what in the world does that mean? And I’d read about this picture someone had given of a buoy in the ocean and that the joy of the Lord means that the buoy gets hit by waves, right? Boom boom boom all day long, but the buoy always pops back up right, and that is the strength.”
“Our joy comes from knowing that no matter what wave is coming for us it can never hold us down,” she explained, “because the Lord is always our strength and He’s always going to pop us back up. And so that has really helped me because I think from the very beginning, even when the Lord called me and I got baptized, the thing that He gave me as a gift was my joy, and it spreads no matter where I go, and I’m so grateful for having this second career of being able to cook and share the joy of cooking with people.”
READ MORE: HOW FOOD NETWORK STAR AARTI SEQUEIRA TEACHES HER CHILDREN ABOUT FAITH THROUGH COOKING
When Sequeira had postpartum depression with both of her kids and at other times of her life, she felt like the joy was almost gone…but it always sprung back.
“What a testament to God that like the joy is back and it’s better than ever, and I can use even those moments of being pushed down by the waves right as a way to redeem that time and tell other women, ‘Hey, this is not forever. You can come back from it too.’”
Spreading joy is something very important to Sequiera in all areas of her work. It’s the primary theme in her kitchen collection, too.
She shared: “I created this collection to bring back joy into your kitchen! And nothing captures joy quite like colour, and this collection embodies my roots, my present, and what holds utmost importance to me.”
Ahead of Thanksgiving this year, Sequeira spoke on the Table 5 Podcast, reflecting on her first Thanksgiving in America and her favorite holiday traditions:
READ MORE: FOOD NETWORK STAR AARTI SEQUEIRA REVEALS MOMENT SHE MET GOD
