If I had to describe the way my family expresses emotion (every emotion from despair to joy to jealousy), I could do it in one word: food. Celebration was food...and grief was food.

I was nine years old when my mother put together “The Cookbook”. After the death of my great-grandmother, my mother channeled her grief into cobbling together a collection of her recipes and spreading it out among the relatives. She took the pain she felt at losing someone she desperately loved and turned it into a remembrance: a way to keep, at least one aspect of her alive. This is where our story begins: with me, who has been cooking like a college student (ramen noodles for a week straight is healthy, right?) for -far- too long, who once-upon-a-time really was a decent cook, who feels a little disoriented about her place in the world, and a set of recipes: “The Cookbook” as well as many others. Recipes and family stories in hand, we’re going on a culinary expedition! I hope you’re hungry.