“One discovers the light in darkness, that is what darkness is for; but everything in our lives depends on how we bear the light,” wrote author and civil rights activist James Baldwin. Amid the leaden skies of November, it is important to remind ourselves of this and lean into whatever brightness we can find. Luckily, Diwali, the annual celebration of light, arrives just as we need hope. Symbolically, it marks the triumph of good over evil, justice over tyranny, knowledge over ignorance, and reminds us that light will always prevail.

Religious festivals, regardless of our beliefs, help unite communities, help us understand each other and give us licence to partake in each other’s unique traditions – especially food, which is integral to all celebrations. Diwali is not complete without platters of colourful mithai, or fudgy Indian sweets. Jalebi, which came to India via Iran, are a perennial favourite. A saffron batter is skilfully swirled into hot oil until it resembles an orange Mr Messy, fried until crisp and dipped briefly into a rose-infused sugar-syrup bath. Tamal Ray’s recipe unusually adds apple juice to the syrup, and makes for a tart contrast to all the saccharine stickiness.

If mithai feel a bit of a mystery, try an Indian-inflected bake instead, such as the brilliant Tarunima Sinha’s mango mithai cake, which captures the essence of Indian sweets in the familiarity of western baking. For more treats that riff on Indian flavours, indulge yourself with a biscuit tin from Biskut Bar – their coconut ladoo cookies are especially irresistible, and make your late-afternoon Hobnob seem pedestrian.

When I was growing up in Kenya, we took celebratory food to our Muslim neighbours at Diwali, and they returned the favour with pots of mutton biryani during Eid. Biryani is an opulent crowd-pleaser and a good idea for a party. But for Hindus celebrating Diwali, food tends to be vegetarian, so Dishoom’s jackfruit biryani served with its famous house black dal would make a marvellous main course. Just add Asma Khan’s vibrant beetroot raita.

Snacks of the crisp, salty variety are also encouraged between meals at Diwali. Chaat is a category of Indian snacks that has an enormous but unquantified number of delicious manifestations. They are a flavour party. What unifies each unique chaat, however, is the tangle of blistering heat, mouth-puckering tang, addictive sweetness and lush herbaceousness. There’s pani puri, a dribbly, joyful sphere, my take on an unusual crab bhel puri with puffed rice or Yotam Ottolenghi’s chaat masala potatoes with coriander chutney, while tamarind samosas also make the best munchies. Making them was always a communal effort round our house, so grab some friends, open some wine and perfect your pastry folding with Felicity Cloake’s recipe for vegetable samosas.

Happy Diwali: may the year ahead sparkle with good things.

The best thing I ate this week | I was startled by Tomas Parry’s thoughtful cooking at Mountain in London’s Soho, and ate many good things, including a sprightly cucumber salad and charred vine leaf samosas stuffed with wild mushrooms, but the Tamworth sow collar, a colossal slab of luscious, unadorned meat, stole the show. It’s a study on the primal compatibility of meat, salt, wood fire and smoke.

What I made this week | We’ll be hosting an event at my London restaurant Jikoni later this month with the brilliant Nik Sharma to celebrate his new vegetarian cookbook Veg-Table (see what he did there)? The book is bursting with ideas, including a bolognese that swaps out minced meat for a head of humble cauliflower, and uses miso and soy to replace the umami you might get from beef. It’s been added to my repertoire.

What I’m drooling over | The team behind Bob Bob “press for champagne” Ricard’s newest addition to London’s restaurants is Bébé Bob. Top-quality rotisserie chicken carved tableside, plus caviar and truffle chips. Sounds like the most delicious kind of Instagram bait to me.

What I read this week | How to Butter Toast: Rhymes in a Book that Help You Cook by Tara Wigley, who brings together her genius for both rhyming and cooking in this witty, illustrated book. Recipes are replaced by rhyming couplets that are entertaining, sometimes silly and always wise: “Melted butter on hot toast and served up on a plate. / It seems like nothing, really, could be clearer or more straight.” The ditties make the instructions for how to poach an egg, make hummus or even roast a chicken easier to commit to memory.