“No one who cooks, cooks alone. Even at her most solitary, a cook in the kitchen is surrounded by generations of cooks past, the advice and menus of cooks present, the wisdom of cookbook writers.”
-Laurie Colwin
I’ve thought about this quote a lot. It’s stayed with me because it feels like home.
I grew up in a family of bakers and cooks. I remember watching my great-grandmother make fresh blackberry cobbler and creamed corn. I learned countless things from my grandmother, and my mom’s recipe book is one of my most treasured possessions.
Beyond my own family, I was surrounded by women who cooked—and cooked well. But more than that, they shared. Recipes weren’t guarded. They were gifts.
Most people I knew grew up eating Mrs. Decker’s Whole Wheat Bread. My mom’s pies were legendary, especially those flaky crusts. Recipes were passed hand to hand, kitchen to kitchen, and they created real community in our church.
When I later moved to California, I was again surrounded by kind, hospitable, talented cooks—but something felt different. Recipes were closely guarded. And a couple of times, when I shared one of mine, it was passed along without any mention of where it came from.
This didn’t bother me because I needed credit—but because it was so different from what I had been taught. The community of sharing got lost, instead it was about the status of who had the best recipe.
Every recipe I grew up with had a name attached to it. A kitchen. A woman. Often a story. Food was never just food.
This space is my way of bringing that culture back.
The photo above is from a day cooking with my mother-in-law as she taught me her favorite Nicaraguan dishes. That’s exactly what I want this to be: a place to create, to learn, to pass things on. I’ll be sharing recipes, stories, and the things Kyle and I—along with the boys—create together. We love creating as a family.
If this encourages you, I hope you’ll create alongside us.
Welcome
Thompson House 