Perspective | Far from her homeland, my mother finds comfort at a Patel Brothers grocery store

Perspective | Far from her homeland, my mother finds comfort at a Patel Brothers grocery store
patel brothers, indian grocery stores, indian cooking, immigrant cooking, mothers, indian-american, voraciously
/ @dongonews9123
My mom’s bucket list doesn’t include lavish trips to far-flung locales like Bora Bora or Peru. Instead, it stars a grocery store - more specifically, a Patel Brothers location in Naperville, Ill. She has heard rumors of its size, including one particularly egregious claim that it’s as big as a football stadium. (Most people agree that it’s as large as any beloved Midwestern supermarket, which is rare for an Indian grocery store in the States.) Every time she speaks about it, her eyes become wide and animated, as if she is running through the aisles in her mind. Recently, upon hearing that one of my friends is from Naperville, she asked him a million questions, not about his childhood or career, but about the Patel Brothers. Is it really that big? Is it really busy? Is it really as nice as everyone says? It’s unfathomable to her that such a place could exist. [How Corelle plates came to fill immigrants’ kitchen cabinets] She arrived in the United States from India in the early 1980s, armed with a jet-black braid that fell down her back, dreams of dental school and an adamantine sense of determination. It was the first time she had been on a plane, the first time away from the comforts of home. Gone was the man who delivered fresh milk to the door in thick glass bottles and the vegetable seller who roamed the streets of her neighborhood shouting out his selections for the day. As she and my dad settled in a small, barren apartment in Detroit, with just a sleeping bag and a radio, there was only one place to find the flavors of home: a tiny, dimly lit Patel Brothers that was as well stocked as it could be. Still, she was thankful. There she could find mounds of jaggery; bags of crispy, salty sev; and pounds of whole wheat atta for making rotis. It meant she wouldn’t have to warm up limp grocery store pita and pretend it was naan or live off the one American dish she did like: bean tostadas at Taco Bell. Patel Brothers was started in 1974 by Mafat and Tulsi Patel. What was once a small grocery on Devon Avenue in Chicago has grown into more than 50 locations in 19 states. No Indian grocery store chain offers the same expansive selection of fresh produce, boxed spices, Indian beauty products and thousands of other items from the Indian subcontinent that were once smuggled back to the States in suitcases. Some have even begun to offer fresh, hot food, such as flavor-packed kati rolls. Most locations now feature the same fluorescent lighting and neat organization of a Whole Foods, but with burlap bags of basmati rice instead of boxes of quinoa, and a freezer full of paneer instead of a cheese counter. The author with her mother in Michigan in 1994. (Family photo) Just as Patel Brothers has evolved, so has my mom. She is no longer an immigrant fresh off the plane, trying to adjust to a new home thousands of miles from everything and everyone she knew. She owns a thriving dental practice that she built tooth by tooth. Her English features a robust vocabu