The Light for June 7, 2022
 
By Myra Janus
 
The meeting was presided over by President Linda Gerber. Happy Pride Month! It is a month for love, respect, diversity, and inclusion.
 
Why We are Rotarians and The Thought for the Day were presented by Gary Peterson: “Don’t be pushed by your problems. Be led by your dreams.”
 
Announcements
 
June 13 marks the 37th Anniversary of the founding of The Rotary Club of Evanston Lighthouse. Paul Brown told us that in 1984-85, the Rotary Club of Evanston, a luncheon club, explored starting a new club, a breakfast club, and created the Evanston Lighthouse club.  There were 25 charter members and a banquet was held at the Orrington Hotel on June 27 to mark the beginning of the club.
 
Members included current members Paul Brown and Bob Teska. Other members included George Means, General Secretary of Rotary International, who was the speaker at the banquet, and Dr. Carlos Canseco, President of Rotary International in 1984.  Historical note: Dr. Canseco launched the international campaign to eradicate polio by using an aerosol vaccination he co-developed with Albert Sabin in 1982.
 
Evelyn Lee, our current Assistant Governor, introduced Scott Daniels, the incoming Assistant Governor.
 
Kristin Brown would love to have volunteers help send off campers next Sunday morning at the YMCA from 7:30-9:30 a.m.  Please let Kristin know ASAP if you are interested, because she needs to do background checks.
 
Katherine Peterson, as Club Service chair, reminded members that the Installation Dinner for the new Rotary year will be held on Sunday, June 26, at 5:30 p.m., at Lovelace Park, located on Gross Point Road between Central Street and Isabella Street.  Details and registration can be found at:  https://evlrc.org/event/installation-of-2022-23-board---dinner-on-june-26/
 
Katherine also announced that the Club Service Committee will be meeting tomorrow at Curt’s Café on Central Street. at 8:30 a.m. and asks that you let her know if you are coming.
 
Ann Searles thanked Kathy Tate-Bradish for her presentation at Ann’s PEO chapter about her project in Kenya.
 
John and Ann Searles passed their Bassett certification so they can pour alcoholic drinks at Taste!
 
Cassandre McGovern announced that the theme of the Evanston Fourth of July Parade is “Celebrating 100 Years.” Members are asked to sign up to march wearing Rotary attire. Volunteers are needed to pick up, deliver, and return flags from and to the storage locker. A vehicle will be needed to tow a trailer from U-Haul to Neil Gambow’s residence. If anyone has a convertible or other car to drive people who cannot march in the parade, contact Neil. We will be marching with the Noon Club. There will be an e-mail this week asking for sign-ups.
 
There was a ribbon-cutting on Saturday at C&W Grocery celebrating the opening of their new food pantry and attended by several members of the club. Evanston Rotary Club has sponsored this effort and our members have served as volunteers.
 
Highland Garden Club members Ann Searles and Steve Goranson were featured in the Evanston Roundtable for working at a sale for the Nancy Allred Garden, which is being rehabbed with a donation from Louis Allred.  
 
Bill Glader gave an update on Taste of Evanston:
 
Helen Oloroso is researching how to list Silent Auction items for bidding online before the event. Kelly Fidei has created a flyer for soliciting items for the Silent Auction. Social media preparation is well under way.  Linda Gerber (with assistance from Dan Coyne and MaLu Simon) have 15 restaurants signed up and a list of 60 more that they will contact to fill our goal of 40 restaurants.
 
Michelle Macklin from Reba is helping with volunteers. Randy Usen and the sponsorship team continue to work on leads. It's very helpful when members can pass along contact information for businesses that might be interested in sponsoring. Steve Steiber and John Osterlund have put together many sponsors that they are in the process of contacting. 
 
Jim McGuire is creating postcards to pass out at the Fourth of July parade as well as a Taste of  Evanston banner to display while we march down the street. We'll have a holiday sale presence at the event to make people aware of our products, or maybe even to get orders in. We'll have a Raffle Ticket kiosk to boost sales and offer them online again in the ticket purchasing area. 
 
Don Gwinn announced that painting will continue on Saturday, June 11, starting at 9 a.m. at 1930 Jackson St. Brien Johnson, Dan Coyne, Nick Powers, and Keith Sarpolis volunteered.
and that he and Bill Vernon did a repair for Lula, who is still making lunch every day for Connections for the Homeless. Don leaves for Guatemala this week.
 
Nick Powers asked what the largest cities in the world were in 1900. The answer: London, New York City, and Chicago in that order. Today none of the largest cities are in the U.S. or Europe. They are in Asia. In the future it is predicted they will be in Sub-Saharan Africa.
 
Linda Gerber thanked Dan Coyne for hosting the Taste of Evanston meeting on very short notice.
 
Bill Glader thanked Don Gwinn for his hard work organizing projects with Rebuilding Together.
 
Neil Gambow thanked Kassandra  McGovern for stepping up to work on organizing our part of the Fourth of July parade.
 
Keith Banks thanked Michelle Macklin and Dan Coyne from Reba Place Development Corporation Board for their work on TEO and their affordable housing work.
 
 
Program
 
Topic – Inspired Indian Cooking
 
Speaker – Kalpana Waikar, founder and CEO
 
Kalpana’s parents came to the U.S. in the 60’s with her and her two brothers and settled initially in Columbia, Mo. They had come to the States on student visas for higher education.
 
Her mom had a hard time adjusting to the cold. Her dad earned his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. They later moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, where they were part of an Indian community. Kalpana’s mother and the other women cooked for the men.
 
Kalpana was the only Asian in her high school and there was only one Black person. She badly wanted to fit in with her peers, asking for P&B sandwiches for lunch instead of Indian food. Her parents were strict but loving and she has a deep appreciation for the obstacles they faced in coming to this country.
 
She never learned how to cook Indian food in her youth. Her mother knew the recipes well, but there were no cookbooks or written recipes, and her mother’s instructions were rather vague. Kalpana earned a degree in English at the University of Cincinnati and went to work as a sales rep for Abbott. She had met her husband before he went to college in California and they reconnected. She moved to Los Angeles and her love of cooking started in the mid '70’s when she finally saw an Indian cookbook.
 
She married her husband, who was a management consultant, and they moved to Chicago with their 10-month-old son. Soon after, her husband was diagnosed with cancer and after 6 months of treatment, he was cancer-free and has remained so for 20 years. The experience made them yearn for a change.
 
He left his consulting job and became a creative writer and stay-at-home dad, and she started business school at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern in 2005 when she was 37 years old. She was hired at Kellogg as an academic advisor and then director of academic services and worked at Kellogg for seven years.
 
By this time they had both a son and a daughter. Kalpana was ready for a change and wanted to start a business. She learned that people wanted to learn how to cook Indian food but had difficulty sourcing the necessary fresh spices.
 
In 2019 she was selling monthly subscription boxes with curated meals and shipping them around the country. With the beginning of the pandemic, as the business grew through word of mouth, it became too much for one person.  In August 2020, she put the business on hold and started working on a long-term viable business of selling spice kits for specific Indian dishes.
 
These included a recipe and were easier to distribute. She and her husband decided she needed a retail store and found the former Hewn Bakery site on Dempster to be an ideal spot to carry out her new retail business plan. This required cleaning, painting, and meeting Evanston zoning requirements. She signed a lease in September 2021 and opened her store, Inspired Indian Cooking,  in mid-December of that year.  They sold 2,000 spice kits in the first 10 days!  Her son just graduated from college and her daughter has finished her freshman year.
 
Guests and Milestones
 
Visiting Rotarians
 
Evelyn Lee – Asst. Governor 2020-22 - Rotary Club of Evanston
 
Scott Daniels – Asst. Governor 2022-23 – Glenview Sunrise Club
 
Other Guests
 
Kalpana Waikar – Speaker
 
Jose Lopez
 
Birthdays
 
Bill Vernon – June 11 
 
Club Anniversaries
 
Brad Weiss – 16 years – June 6, 2006
 
Kathy Tate-Bradish – 7 years – June 9, 2015
 
 
Sponsors