Just when you think you’re done, they pull you back in…
A stomach full of wonderful is the common denominator for Home Cookin’ subjects. Their quests are stories worth hearing, but finding new subjects to write about hasn’t occurred to me in quite awhile. I stopped at twenty because with little interest garnered from 100+ unsolicited queries and a plague, I couldn’t justify spending more effort on it.
It was time to put it to bed.
But good stories (like good songs) are like evergreens, they keep going. In resurrecting the manuscript aka putting effort into publishing it after a 3 year nap- a few opportunities have come my way, Carolina and Hassan among them.
The stories in Home Cookin’ weren’t meant to be such a representation of world citizens but it is, so what’s two more? Carolina from Cuernavaca is the abuela I’ve been searching for knowing I needed someone like her to represent the Mexican culture so prevalent in Chicago and up until now missing from the manuscript. Been looking on and off for 5 years with many leads that didn’t pan out. When we started talking recently it stoked el fuego.
Then one of the authors in Melissa1’s authors group contacted me after our zoom call meeting to tell me about Hassan, a man she works with from Mauritania and whose father was a slave. He’s here in Chicago waiting for asylum papers and goes to the literacy program she runs. He wants to go to culinary school and being a chef she thought I may be able to help him, which I will if I can.
Again reminded of my father’s pointing finger as he turned around while driving our 61 Olds 98 down Lake Shore Drive and said to a bratty 8 year old moi in the back seat “you’re not just here to consume, you must contribute as well.”
As Cultures Collide Food Connects People
So I do. It feels good to help, like paying off some karmic debt. We’re more alike than not, and as cultures collide food connects people.
Also a path to our identity and traditions, it’s who we are and where we came from. The last vestige of culture we shed and a prism through which to view our humanity. It brings us together and makes us less afraid of our neighbors.
More Home cooked Than Hip Cheffed
In writing about the food that interested me most, that resonates deeper and vibrates at a higher level- it was more home cooked than hip cheffed. Meals in homes not restaurants. Home Cookin’s global course is of its own making, ending up including numerous newly arrived that are now citizens of our world.
Besides the United States- England, Greece, Macedonia, Japan, Ethiopia, Syria, N Korea, Hungary, Italy, China, India and now Mexico and Mauritania are represented.
WARNING: Reading Home Cookin’ may result in better understanding of the human condition. If knowing your neighbors and appreciating the dignity of everyday life is something you find attractive, you’re in the right place.
Nice to meet you.