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Throughout my childhood in the 1970s and '80s, culinary life with my Indo-Caribbean father was one of substitutions and sometimes-haves. The foods particular to his Trinidad upbringing were hard to procure, even in New York City where we lived and where the relatively limited number of West Indians lived jumbled together in small areas of Brooklyn or the Bronx, island upon island, their differences forgotten through their common bond of longing for home.

In our house, aloo pie, a spicy potato turnover, was approximated with a knish slathered with pepper sauce. Blackstrap molasses replaced the burn sugar syrup that blackened our Christmas fruitcakes. Common string beans became the core ingredient in aloo talkari, a potato curry that normally featured bodi, the long Indian string bean.

For my father Krisnaram, never was his longing so great as during the days and weeks approaching the Hindu festival of Diwali in the fall. A celebration of the triumph of good over evil represented by light outshining the darkness, Diwali is marked in India, and in heavily Indian communities such as Trinidad, with elaborate light displays of small clay lamps, burning ghee or coconut oil. Intricate sculptures made from shaped green bamboo sticks, host these diyas, and, in modern times, electric string lights complement the show.

For us, surrounded by few Indians from the subcontinent or Trinidad, my father's favorite holiday passed yearly without ceremony. Sometimes, he would make jalebi--the sweetened fritter so popular during the holiday--or some kind of vegetarian curry, with powder he brought from his last trip home. But they were a far cry from the elaborate Indian sweets called mithai or curried chataigne (jackfruit) or pomme cythere, served on his island where Diwali is a national holiday. This year, 15 years after my father's death, I celebrated Diwali in the Indo-Caribbean section of Richmond Hill, Queens. Often called "Little Guyana" or "Little Trinidad," roti shops and Indian stores selling saris, jewelry, sweets and every "home" ingredient my father remembered, abound.