Friday, April 20, 2012

Spicing things up at the Indian Oven

 India is a country with an array of holidays, traditions and people. This week marks the New Year in India – but not for all of the population. Celebrations often vary due to beliefs and geography.
 Hindus are celebrating Rongali Bihu on April 15, which marks the first day of the solar calendar.
 Certain provinces of India are celebrating New Year’s Day, called Ugadi, which begins with the coming of spring.

 Puthandu is the New Year for yet another province of India on the April 14.
 There may not be Ugadi or Puthandu celebrations happening on the streets of Cache Valley this week, but there is still a sense of the Indian culture here on Main Street in Logan at the Indian Oven.

 Founded nearly five years ago, the restaurant was founded by a native of India – a professional chef with no formal cooking education.
 Ash Oberoi left his home in India at the age of nineteen. He had managed to get a job about a freight ship, so he left his home and family behind for the prospect of work. While aboard the ship he would travel the world.
 “I left my country, I travelled to 47 different countries,” Oberoi said. “There was no way I could afford to travel to those countries, but because it was my job I could.”
 Growing up, cooking had been Oberoi’s passion. He was often at his mother’s side learning to cook meals, often at the request of family and friends.
 “Cooking has always been my passion. Back home, I was thirteen or fourteen and cooking for my parents,” Oberoi said. “I was always in the kitchen trying to lend a hand. My uncle used to own a catering business and I would help him too.”
 At the age of 19 Oberoi got a job on a freight ship, which would take him from India to countries all around the world. As he circled the globe visiting foreign ports, Oberoi would learn the local cuisine and add it to his cooking repertoire.
 He claims to have mastered Indian, American, Greek, Italian and Chinese cuisine.
 “He knows cooking from one end of the world to the other,” said Oberoi’s wife Jenise Oberoi. “We walk into any restaurant somewhere else and if we really like something he can just go home and make it.”
 Oberoi’s first restaurant featured mostly American food, but once the lease was up he decided to open a new restaurant closer to his roots – Indian food. After Oberoi purchased the former premises of the Italian restaurant Le Nonne, the Indian Oven opened for business on Main Street.
 Outside of the restaurant business, the Oberoi’s teach classes for anyone to learn how they can cook their own Indian food at home.

“I teach classes how to teach Indian food, and the classes always sell out,” Oberoi said. “Indian food is not that prevalent in Cache Valley.”
 Between constantly publishing coupons, catering to local Diwali festivals at Utah State University and teaching classes on cooking, Oberoi makes it a point to give back to the community when he can. The Indian Oven has won several local awards at a cooking competition called Spice on Ice.

 For Oberoi, it isn’t about the money or the awards – it is about the food.

 “I don’t say that I’m a rich man,” Oberoi said. “But I do know I eat the best every day.”

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