COOKING MEANS LOVE

It All Started With
"Baby Tea" On Weekends

When we were little, Mom and Dad used to take us to a particular grocery store in Connecticut that had child-sized grocery carts. She let each of us choose healthy foods and ingredients and put them in our own carts for our weekend "Baby Tea Time."

She wasn't super strict about what we chose, and would allow us to get treats, too, but mostly this taught us to choose vegetables and fruits because we looked forward to helping arrange them nicely on inexpensive trays she found on sale at Michael's and Home Goods.

She also used this opportunity to teach us that access to healthy foods and easy shopping locations are luxuries many people don't have.

These trips to the store made us feel special and very much loved, while also teaching us to try new foods that were good for us, to have fun preparing and eating them, and gratitude.

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How I Started Cooking

I grew up in a house where specific dishes and celebratory meals for holidays, birthdays, and special occasions are important family traditions.

One of my earliest memories of being in the kitchen with my Mom is being small enough to have to stand on a stool just to get a peek over the counter. My siblings and I tried our best to participate as Mom made lavender cake. I had no clue what lavender was and thought it was odd that a flower would be added to a cake. However, it smelled absolutely wonderful and was delicious.

This is one of many times Mom made special foods for our family and our friends, treating us in a way that made all of us little kids feel important to her. We still remember a fun tea party she gave us for no special reason when we were in Pre-K. She let us pick out hats to wear.

Helping to prepare for the holidays and special occasions, especially food shopping for ingredients days before cooking, is what got me interested in trying to make some dishes on my own. I love the sounds of chopping vegetables on a cutting board and the delicious smells floating through the whole house while something tasty is in the oven. I also enjoy learning about the timing of what to start preparing first, based on how long it will take to cook. Seeing a huge dinner with multiple dishes on the table and knowing I helped makes me feel proud.

I now have my own specialties that my family specifically requests, such as my turkey chili and beef stew. I also love foods from all cultural backgrounds and took a cooking class to learn how to make Asian dumplings. When the class started, it was intimidating at first seeing so many ingredients laid out on the table, including some I had never used before. But after a few trips to specialty Asian food stores and making dumplings so many times at home since then, I know the recipe by heart and can make multiple batches quickly, without needing to look anything up.

Now I make the filling ahead of time and also freeze the dumplings before cooking, so we can pull them out of the freezer and have dumplings anytime we want, without much work. I am open to learning more about different kinds of food and enjoy experimenting in the kitchen.