Family recipes are much more than written-down instructions on how to cook things. They are connections, and they are memories. 

Cooking from a recipe in your loved one’s handwriting carries you to their kitchen and their table. Cooking a dish the way your grandfather taught you places him next to you, guiding and supporting you with each chop, stir, and step.

A recipe can pull a child, who has since grown and moved away, back to Saturday afternoons spent with their grandmother, listening to his stories and lessons, told as he slices and turns and seasons. A recipe can seat us at the memory of a crowded table packed full of family, celebrating holidays, and stoking traditions that have lived on through decades past.

That is the magic of food. Eating involves and includes all of our senses, creating the perfect bond to hold our memories close. Add to that the feelings and emotions of being with the people we love, and the simplest dish or the most weathered recipe card can entangle itself with who and how we are.