As a child, I had a hard time eating. I had to eat, but I didn’t like it, except for sweets.

Breakfast and lunch were easy.

In elementary school, lunch was always sandwiches. Usually deli meat, but sometimes liver spread, or (bonus) peanut butter and jam or Nutella. Once, I almost choked on a piece of ham in sixth grade because it was so big and my dad hadn’t cut the fat off. 

Scents, flavours, even songs evoke memories and transport us to another time and place.

Over the years, we’ve all gotten so busy, leaving little time to cook or bake, to celebrate family traditions. But we need those rituals, the familiar scents and flavors. They take us back.

Like passport stamps, meals mark our journeys.

They keep a record of people, places, and events that all contribute to making us who we are. Food feeds our souls and helps the memories of those who are no longer with us to live on through snapshots of dishes we recall when the right breeze catches a particular fragrance and blows it across our memory.

White soup, also known as afia efere, originated from the Efik tribe in southern part of Nigeria, which is the culture of the Cross River State Indigenes.

In 1987, the state was divided into two and the other part is now called Akwa Ibom State. The Efik tribe is known for their interesting and rich cultural heritage when it comes to cooking, dancing, language and dress.

The ruins of my garden had been visible from the deck for some time, but I had not yet ventured outside. It was time to get out there and acknowledge the ravages of time. To neglect, weep, and get to work — as my grandma used to say — to formulate a rebuilding plan.

My husband helped, but he wasn’t a gardener.

He knew where everything was, but it was a jumble in there. WWII paraphernalia rubbed shoulders with broken clocks, radios, mysterious machinery.

In “Gramma Cookies, Midnight TV, and the Case of the Missing Crabapples” Recipes & Roots founder, Shara Cooper reminisces about the role her grandparents played in her childhood.