For Betty, Wilma, Helen, Eileen, and of course, Mom by Kelly Sears

Most of us have a recipe box, binder, or electronic folder filled with recipes that have been shared, scribbled, torn from a magazine, passed along for generations, or clipped from a newspaper. Recipe cards in ink or pencil, with cross outs and additions, notes to remember, and spills from tasting. The dishes we make and the tables we set give us our culinary identities; they shape us into the cooks we are and the cooks we have yet to become. But there’s cooking, and then there’s everything else. The “everything else” doesn’t make it into the box. These are what I like to think of as “culinary tattoos” – experiences with loved ones who have influenced our way in the kitchen. These are glimpses into the hearts and minds of those I hold and have held dear, those that have settled into permanent residence inside my personal recipe box.