I traveled the world for a year, cooking with grandmothers along the way.
Also, grandmothers are the best cooks on the planet.
Predictably, I was motivated by food.
Aminah in Melaka, Malaysia.Photo: Photo by Brooke Siem; Design by Tyrel Stendahl
During my year abroad, I cooked with 14 different grandmothers in nine countries across four continents.
Over and over again, despite different lives and different languages, these women invited me into their homes.
Together, we cooked the food that spoke to their soul.
Design By: Tyrel Stendahl
And in turn, they helped me gather the pieces of my own.
Throughout most of history, though, waste wasn’t an option.
Instead, dessert recipes were created using whatever was left over from the main meal.
Photo by Brooke Siem
I asked, through my translator, for the name of the sweet.
From there, the dough can be used in a variety of ways.
Physically touching the ingredients forms an almost sacred bond between you and your meal.
Photo by Brooke Siem
No longer is food a mindless means to an end.
Instead, there is earned respect for the raw ingredients and what they do for your body.
The combined effort between you and the food, quite literally, sustains life.
Photo by Brooke Siem
This doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice the whole day to the kitchen.
Making a chestnut cake in Italy with Grazia only took about 20 minutes.
To destroy them is much more difficult."
