I started cooking at the age of six. My single mother worked two jobs to keep my sister and me afloat. So I took on the responsibility of making pancakes. As I “added water and mixed” to dry pancake mix, magical things happened. We used an old pan where three-quarters of the plastic handle was burned off. I learned to navigate that burning pan, to create something that I could call my very own. There was very little at that time that I owned. But I owned my pancakes. What started off as a necessity became a necessary self-expression. To this day, my four children and I bond over breakfast.

By the age of 10, I cooked almost every meal. In our fridge, there were eggs, cheese, milk, canned tuna, usually a quarter of a head of lettuce and certainly white rice. It wasn’t a farmer’s market by any means. It was, like so many American households, meals on a budget where we ate a tiny lunch so there’d be something left to eat for dinner. But with those paltry ingredients, I realized how creative I could be. It became a special test for me to come up with something different for every dinner with those limited ingredients. But twice a month, payday in our house brought amazing treats like Salad Nicoise, braised meats, and over-the-top stews peppered with multiple meats and vegetables. This extravagant bi-weekly cook-off in my house as a child set the tone for my inner cravings to discover the flavors I’d not yet experienced.

At the age of 13, I was peeling potatoes at a Greek diner in Florida for 2 bucks an hour. You could say I became addicted to the social interactions in the kitchen. One guy in the kitchen would tell the other to “go F himself.” To the rest of the world it sounded like a curse, but in a typical restaurant kitchen this was a term of endearment. It captured the passion, the heat and the madness of the kitchen. And I never looked back.

Earning money was important, but my money had been spent before it was earned. Instead of my social circle playing sports and chasing girls, we were making reservations. It was our thing; we loved the conversation and the bond the restaurant scene created.

Like a flashlight turning on and off, every bite was brilliant.  The expressions through the flavors inspired my inner creativity. I was 15 years old, making reservations, getting dressed-up, and dining out three or four times a month, and that’s when it started to become serious. I was comparing one restaurant’s food to others, comparing similar dishes and basing my favorite choice on things like visual appearance, texture, and taste.  I never considered the price, and always sought out high quality ingredients.  I was building a palate with no guidance, just based on my own personal tastes. My palate was growing and I was becoming more aware of what was actually tasty. Literally tasting my way around the city on the weekends and exploring the flavors of the melting pot of South Florida.

When I was in my early twenties I found myself in the South.  As a native of South Florida, I moved a few times in my late teens/early twenties from Indianapolis to Chicago, and then finally to Memphis – the Delta, as natives call it.  Needless to say, I was in culture shock. There were so many details to be overly critical of, but as I settled into southern life, those same criticisms quickly became the substance I loved the most about Southern living. The South is a way of life, a culture with layers of sub-cultures, and I embraced them all.

In the South, it all begins at the Supper Table, and any family disagreement can be resolved within one or two meals. For southerners, food is comfort.  The tenderness of your Mom’s black-eyed peas aren’t tender until you soak them for a day, and the buttermilk fried chicken might not change your life…but it sure is a start and certainly memorable. It’s the love and attention that each simple ingredient receives that makes Southern food so remarkable. There are no impostors in a Southern kitchen; it’s just the way “we” do it. It’s not right or wrong, it just works. Some of my favorite examples of true Southern food break every culinary rule I’ve learned. But, who am I to change tradition?  And why would I want to when it tastes so good?

As I grew into a young adult and began a family of my own, food not only became an outlet for my imagination, but also, a way for me to express love to those around me.  I bonded with my children over the breakfast table and, on rare occasions, the dinner table.  With kids, I had to simplify my culinary efforts at times, coaxing them to eat.  As they grew, my kids got to participate in the process, gaining pride as they learned to scramble eggs or flip their first pancake.

The bonding of family over food is a world-wide tradition; the passing down of Grandma’s sweet potato recipe and the conversations that occur subsequently, family gatherings just aren’t the same without food.