We explore true partnership, parenting, and what it looks like to intentionally create a life that really reflects your values. For Steve and Jamie, it’s the road far less traveled. It’s a life of texture, and it’s included lots of border crossings in Central America and, currently, lots of chopping wood in rural Montana.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Join the What Feeds Us community on Substack for recipes, reflections, and real conversation.

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👉 @chefarangoldstein

#UnprocessedPodcast #SteveCoughran #JamieDavidson #Relationships #Parenting

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:) I don’t actually want that most of the time, but I do seem to have a habit of overfilling my life with to-do’s all too often.

Today, as I write, I am helping open a restaurant. Doors open at 11. Tonight, and tomorrow I have private dinner parties I’m catering to boot.

I’m prepping mise en place so my wife is set up for dinners the next two nights.

Swirling in my busy head, there is a list 20 deep of other “things” I’ll get to as the week unfolds. Just a few weeks ago I was on the beach in the Algarve. What just happened?

More on this in a post I’m writing on the space between “vacation” and arriving home.

But for now, these are moments that often call for the most simple of dinners. Which honestly, can be the best ones.

This week I made this beef, with Force of Nature Beef, which turned into an impromptu burrito rolling session with my little sous chefs. Perfect Night.

Thinking of you all as we start another week of living, and not just “getting through”.

20 Minute All Purpose Ground Beef

Recipe

You could argue this could take even less than 20 minutes, and quite honestly, even if you only do beef and salt it will still taste awesome, as you’re starting with awesome quality beef.

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We talk about preserving culture through food, the importance of clean ingredients, and why looking back at the wisdom of our ancestors is essential to help us feed our families better today. And in that wisdom lies reverence, simplicity, and beauty worth preserving.

🧵 Join the What Feeds Us community on Substack for recipes, reflections, and real conversation.

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📱 Follow along on Instagram for more of the day to day.

👉 @chefarangoldstein

#UnprocessedPodcast #JanetFlores #Coyotas

I’ve begun consulting for a local restaurant here in Austin to reopen under a new concept that I’m excited to share! It’s been an adventure getting into a space that was really mistreated and neglected. This is a bit of a scene from Restaurant Makeover playing out in real time. While I’m pumped to open this space and nourish the community from it, there is still no better place to nourish our families than from our own home.

Here’s to a week of delicious food we deserve.

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From there, we had a night layover in Munich, a night in Boston with my older brother and fam, then finally back to Austin. It feels good to be back. Nostalgic for what we leave behind, but happy to be back. That last night in Spain though…it is really lingering in my psyche. Spain always does it to me.

I’m a wandering spirit. I find it hard to be too tethered to any particular place for too long. I wonder if aspects of that come from an avoidance…to confront my shadow. To be ok with more stillness, more groundedness, less movement.

But on the otherhand, I really love to travel. To hop in the car with my boys and head across the border into Spain for dinner? It was a peak life moment for me.

I’m torn as I write, feeling the grief that yet another “Summer Vacation” has come to an end, but that feeling I realize is something stuck in me from childhood, from that terrible ritual of having to go back to school, to an environment I loathed.

I can still feel that heaviness in my gut the first morning waking up to go, already dreaming of the next summer.

And here I am as a Dad with the privelage to choose another way for my family. A part of me yearns to pack it all up, get rid of most of our stuff and hit the road again. Like tomorrow! Another part, of me is curious of what it may be like to accept some stillness and to lean intot he opportunities that are presenting themselves to me here and now.

Maybe, I can have both?

Either way, I am so grateful for this trip, especially these last nights. I felt an opening in my own heart that is lingering.

For years I have found myself rushing, even if in the most subtle ways…maybe it’s the years of the conditioning of the need to have “a sense of urgency” in restaurant kitchens. At 44 with these growing boys and the most beautiful wife, I say screw the sense of urgency. I just want to be present and linger. These dinners in Spain, we lingered. At the table with my big bro and the family we lingered. Here now, back in Texas, I find myself slower and more patient and I like it…

Here are some snapshots of our trip.

Wild Bass Ceviche With Passion Fruit “Caviar”

Oysters with berry foam and lime.

Foie Gras Ice Cream Cones. The boys insisted on a second round for dessert. :)

Mushroom and Truffle Risotto. It was one of the best rice dishes I’ve ever had. The Spaniards have a way with rice that I just love.

Cuttlefish Croquettes in their ink with blue spirulina aioli. Stunning.

Fried Squid with Coconut. So good. The boys had to order a second.

Night Two at El Choco in Ayamonte, just around the corner from The Culinary Bar. It was full, but they let us hang at the bar. My wife stayed back to relax, so it was Boys Night Out, and we didn’t hold back. ;) This was a “racion” of Jamón from Huelva. So good. We ordered a second, 1/2 portion.

Braised Iberian Pork Cheeks. Not the prettiest plate, but absolutely delicious.

A couple we talked to all night from Sevilla (where I studied abroad 23 years ago) It was a perfect night.

Layover night in Munich. We had time for an early lunch at Emmeramsmühle Restaurant. This place caught my eye because it was near our hotel and they cook their Schnitzel in clarified butter… more of that in the world, please!

I ordered a beef broth with a liver “dumpling”, essentially a big meatball with liver. Really good! And the boys shared sausages with Sauerkraut and potatoes. I wish we had more time to explore, but I loved our little taste of Germany.

Our Hotel, The Freisinger Hof. It was really quite a pleasant stay. They had a nice Sauna that was super hot, and a pretty gorgeous breakfast spread the kids loved.

Praia das Furnas. So hard to leave this place…

I’m excited to share some fresh recipes with you! I have lamb, chicken legs, fish, squid, sausages, kefir, fresh produce and more from my market runs this weekend.

I’m hoping we all find the space to linger more this week, especially in the kitchen and at the table.

Aran

And good luck, as you may need to oversee some arguments over who gets the last one. ;)

Everyday Potato Cakes

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One of the cool aspects of travel is how it can stir up the family systems in surprising ways. It’s not always easy, but we always keep learning and growing. For whatever reason, even from pasture-raised programs, we are not loving the taste of the eggs here in Portugal, so our usual scrambled, sunny side up, omelettes, and frittatas are not the hits they are at home.

My mind went to crepes to get the eggs in. We had a bunch of beautiful Madeira bananas that we are obsessed with, and I started making a simple batter with the mashed bananas and eggs. I had picked up some potato starch to play with and added a little along with a pinch of salt. I’m not against wheat or buckwheat here, but just a little of the potato starch worked like a charm to give these crepes a lovely little chew.

There is one slight problem with these though…you will get asked to make them every day. :)

But they are so fast and easy, you can whip them up in no time.

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This was from last week’s “menu.” It was a huge hit with the whole fam!

There is a neat little organic store here in Luz that takes weekly pre-orders for pasture-raised, organically fed chicken. I’ve been getting whole birds with the feet and head the last few weeks, but decided to order these leg quarters to shake it up.

I was feeling like a braise, but I know my wife and kids, and they love really flavorful, crispy-ish skin, so I did this.

It’s simple. Brown the chicken skin side down in your fat of choice. Then flip and repeat. Set aside. Build the flavors in the pan with your aromatics and liquid. Add the chicken back so that the skin is exposed, and cook in a hot oven.

The skin won’t get soggy, and the liquid will reduce to a silky sauce.

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Eben is a former NFL offensive lineman, a father, a writer, a coach, and someone who has spent the last decade asking deeper questions about what it means to live a meaningful life.

What drew me to this conversation is Eben’s honesty.

We talk about life after professional sports, healing old wounds, fatherhood, faith, discipline, and the ongoing work of becoming who we really are beneath the roles we play.

It’s a conversation about truth, presence, and learning to trust your own inner compass in a world full of noise.

🥩 Join the What Feeds Us community on Substack for recipes, reflections, and real conversation.

👉 https://chefarangoldstein.substack.com/

📱 Follow along on Instagram for more of the day to day.

👉 @chefarangoldstein

We have two weeks left, and I want to go out with a bang and enjoy this Algarvian bounty as much as possible. The truth is we don’t know when we’ll be back as we are being called elsewhere next trip.

This week, the nights have been cool and windy after hot days. The contrast is amazing. Lunches have been our packed Earth and Maker bento boxes full of fresh local fruit, cheeses, charcuterie, olives, canned sardines in olive oil, and toasted sourdough on the beach.

Last night I braised Chicken Leg Quarters in white wine, oregano, stock, and lots of garlic…guys, you have to try this one.

I braised more beef this week too and had a bit of a “light bulb” moment with it, which I share below.

I hope this finds you well.

Sending you love from the Algarve, Aran

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I don’t get too caught up in specific nutritional profiles. I like the good stuff, but sometimes it helps to frame our decision for our kids, especially.

Here’s some cool mussel info.

• 3.5 ounces of mussels provide 24 grams of protein and tons of B12.

• They are full of omega-3 fatty acids (EPA and DHA) - brain food (my friend Hilary Boynton loves to say, “We’re building brains here folks!”)

• Mussels contain more iron than a steak!

• Full of manganese for strong bones

• Thyroid health: A great natural source of iodine

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Mussels with Garlic, White Wine, Apple and Thyme

Recipe

1 bag of mussels, 2 pounds

3 cloves of garlic, sliced thin

1 spring onion, sliced thin

1 apple sliced or julienned

3 tablespoons butter

1/2 cup white wine or cider

3 sprigs of fresh thyme

Salt and freshly cracked pepper to taste.

Method

Debeard your mussels by pulling off the little hairy thing sticking out of the bottom. You may find some mussels don’t have many depending on where they are coming from.

Wash very well in cold water. I do this in a big bowl of running water or in a colander. Transfer to a platter or bowl with a towel underneath to absorb excess water.

Bring a large, wide pan to medium-high heat.

Add your butter, followed by the spring onions, garlic and thyme with a pinch of salt.

Sweat for a few minutes.

Add your wine and cook off the alcohol for a few minutes.

Add your mussels and toss with the mixture.

Cover and steam for a few minutes until the mussels are open.

Discard any that refuse to open.

Serve as is, or with pasta, rice, or good sourdough bread.

I am in the Algarve, Portugal now and these are coming from Galicia straight up north from here. I’ve always wanted to go to Galicia. These were so delicious.

Discard any broken ones as they could be bad.

Debearding. I like to use a kitchen towel, as it helps you grab the beard. (of course clean your sink really well. I’m in an Airbnb here. At home I have a different setup and move the mussels to a big colander in the sink.

See how important getting the beards off is? This would have been a hairy mess in your dish. :)

Now get your kid to be sous chef and wash the mussels well. ;)

Add your aromatics to the fat. I used olive oil here. I put butter in the recipe. I was out of butter, which I prefer here.

Adding

the apples and wine.

Dinner is served.

We had the mussels with this simple salad of local avocados, peppers, and cucumbers. It was such a light and satisfying meal

With the leftovers, mostly the cooking liquid, I heated it and boiled some rice noodles, and finished cooking them for the last few minutes until cooked through. It was so good!

I need to be honest with you.

I was afraid to write this article. Growing up, I would always say, “I don’t know what I believe” when it comes to God. I shared it in discourse in Hebrew School. I said it in the Catholic High School I went to. I was open, but I didn’t “know.”

At 44, a father of two with a beautiful wife, I am realizing that there has been something blocking my faith in God, and I’m getting pretty close to understand that thing.

There, even typing God, I felt a cringe of discomfort.

And that fear, that sneaky fear bleeds into these thoughts of uncertainty in life, even in this moment. What if people unsubscribe because I’m talking about God? What if people want me to stay in my lane and just share about food and cooking? What if people have judgments of me because I’m Jewish? What if, what if, what if?

I grew up in a conservative Jewish home. I went to Hebrew School through High School. I had a Bar Mitzvah. I can chant countless prayers in Hebrew, even though I don’t know what most of it means. I never progressed to learn spoken Hebrew.

I’m also half Irish. My mother converted before she had us five kids. Before meeting my Dad, my mother used to tell us that she had seriously considered joining the convent and becoming a nun.

We celebrated Christmas at Grandma and Grandpa’s house in Western Mass in a little town called Gill.

My great-grandparents left Western Ireland, landed in the town over, Turners Falls, and worked in a paper mill and lived in a small tenement building.

Our “Christmas” presents were wrapped in blue Chanukah wrapping paper. I always found it weird and uncomfortable that we had to have different paper. We were different…

I was confused as a kid. Are we both? Am I half Jewish? What does it mean to be half Irish Catholic? Let me tell you something about growing up “part Irish”…you’re Irish, and you’re proud to be Irish. But Irish Jews? How many of those are there, like nine?

When I went to a Catholic High School, I tiptoed around the awkwardness I felt. I wanted to tell people, hey, I’m Irish, I belong.

When I was with my Jewish friends, though, I always felt at ease, and I relaxed into that identity.

In high school, I wanted to join the chorus. I always loved to sing, but I didn’t. My fear? What would people think about the Jewish kid singing about Jesus?

When my Grandfather Malcolm Conway passed away, my older brother and I sang “Oh Danny Boy” with the accordion player from the balcony in the local Catholic Church. In that moment, with tears in my eyes, there was no confusion. There were no thoughts of “identity,” just love for Grandpa, and the knowing that God existed, even if I didn’t ever seem to know how to articulate that belief with grace.

So deep down, I don’t just believe; I know.

But a funny thing has crept into my subconscious over the last number of years. I have this fear of expressing and living a confident belief in God. Maybe it’s the word and the religious context.

This part of me is not at peace.

Perhaps, this is the midlife crisis…

And that’s okay. It just is. Here’s what I know, though, in my heart to be true.

Kids are full of light, which I would describe as godlike. They have a brilliance, a light that reveals a connection to the divine, which I have all too often strayed from in my adult life.

I think there is an epidemic of sorts, a distortion, in the way we are raising kids that squashes a kid’s light and tears them from their inherent divine connection.

The screens, the countless hours indoors, the endless medication, the punishments and reprimands, the plastic pouches, and sterile snacks, the outsourcing of their “education,” in artificially lit rooms and school lunches I can only describe as offensive.

I don’t write this from some higher ground. I live in this world and make all the mistakes.

What I share is because I know what held back my own light as a kid. It’s my self-work now.

The other day, someone sent me a reel that stated, “Create a life for your kids; they don’t have to heal from.”

I look at my sons in wonder at their brilliance. Every kid has it. Every single one. That radiance…that lucid, brilliant, pure living essence. As a closet perfectionist, I have all too often felt ashamed that I am coming up short as a father to them, repeating some of the generational patterns I inherited…mindlessly repeating the same behaviors of my parents.

And I am not here to blame them. I own it. And my path is my path. My upbringing was right. All of it. My fire is born out of it.

So the thing I mention, holding back my lived, embodied faith in God? It is tied to the faith in myself, and I have felt that faith slippery navigating my role as a Dad of two boys, husband to the most amazing wife, and provider for them all. And that friction comes from living too often in my head rather than in my heart, operating in the matrix vs expressing the true essence of my soul.

My soul’s purpose is to shine light on the way we feed kids and our families. I do it because no one held this essential space for me as a kid, especially as a pre-teen and teenager. A guide showing the way. This is how a human eats to be well, strong, aligned, and alive. And if you really want to have an amazing life, eating this way is at the very least a pretty good idea.

And what more could we do to connect with God, than to honor the sacred light we are born with? And in doing so, we return to that same light within ourselves. In a funny way, is that all there is to self-actualization? To remember who we are inherently, and to learn to just be, and to expand that light instead of letting it dim, which is the path of so many souls.

So, where best can we devote our energy and life force beyond rituals at our places of worship? For me, the ultimate is through our kitchens. Our kitchens are our hearth, our fire. And we parents are the fire keepers. The way in which we tend to it will mean the world to our kids, and it will shape their relationship with the world and themselves.

I imagine a blank page in a notebook. Written in the center is “the kitchen.” It’s circled. From there, we can look at the rest of our lives. Draw a line out and write something, then circle it. This is what mine looks like: job, fitness/health, education, play, travel, faith/rituals.. and you can see that the kitchen makes the most sense to be at the center, as it touches it all. It’s like a beating heart and all the life force flows out and back through it.

This week I launched my pod, Unprocessed. It’s the vocal and conversational pillar of what I am building. It’s a medium for us to voyage through this central “beating heart” of the kitchen. I hope that you feel a part of these conversations and that there is resonance through this exploration of this amazing life.

And, I hope that it will offer us more light, more connection, and more kindling for our fires, both in our hearts and in our homes.

I want to leave you today with a story from my childhood that is tattooed in my heart forever.

I was going down into my basement in our home in Worcester, Mass. I must have been 4 or 5. I fell hard and I was wailing. It was one of those early scary moments where you feel hurt in a certain way for the first time. My Mom came rushing and she held me in her arms. As she soothed me, she explained how I had two Guardian Angels. One on each shoulder. They are always with me, and they were during the fall. From that moment on, I have walked this life believing Mom and the magic of life, even if that belief has fallen to a whisper at times.

And here lies the crux of what I believe to be the most essential aspect of life we could explore…to re-learn how to live through our hearts more than our heads. To live with faith in God, in ourselves, and in each other. That’s a frequency. It’s a vibe. It’s the sweet spot. It’s where we find our flow state. Our kids are born with it. We were born with it. It’s a remembering.

Big hugs and lots of love. Let’s cook with our hearts. Let’s live in our hearts this week and have that guide us and our intentions.

In solidarity,

Aran

Questions about food, sure, but also about family, fatherhood, health, community, and this feeling that I just can’t shake, that there’s got to be a better way to live.

So this is really the beginning of that exploration, and I’m glad you’re here for it.

🥩 Join the What Feeds Us community on Substack for recipes, reflections, and real conversation.

👉 https://chefarangoldstein.substack.com/

📱 Follow along on Instagram for more of the day to day.
👉 @chefarangoldstein

This week, I cooked this stew for my in-laws who were here visiting. They first visited us when we lived here in 2021, and it was love at first sight… They were not happy when we moved to Texas. ;)

With them here, we slipped deeper into vacation mode and have been eating out more often than we ever do, and I just needed to ground the family with a proper meal at home. And as I often do, beef stew does the job so well.

Early in the morning, I went to the old market in a little village called Villa Do Bispo. It’s a sleepy little place kind of suspended in time. There is an organic farmer named Ophelia whom we love. She cures her own olives and amazing produce, including bananas and the varietal from Madeira that is so delicious. I had planned to grab squid to braise, but there wasn’t any, so I pivoted. I went with Ariel, my 3½ year old over to the butcher, and he cut a fresh kilo and a half off a leg. There are aspects of the old way of doing things intact here that resonate with me. This is one of them. The old school butcher.

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In 2020, after we had moved to Piemonte, Italy (a story for another day), we soon moved to Portugal to be by the sea and live with more sun on our faces. It was Lisbon first... then lockdowns... then the move to the Algarve, where we found ourselves one village over from Burgau, in Luz. When we moved to Austin, Texas, a year and a half later, we mourned leaving this place, our new and old friends, and these sacred beaches, but we’ve been back 3 of 4 summers now. This place just keeps calling me, and now my family.

This week’s “What to Cook Series” is a bit of a love letter to this incredible country I love so dearly. I hope you’ll save this one and cook all of these dishes over time. Even the octopus is so simple, though it may be intimidating at first. How fun would it be to do this with your kids? My kids love it.

Happy cooking, guys. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate you being here. I love sharing this love of food and life with you each week.

Aran

The Week’s Dinners

Monday — Amêijoas à Bulhão Pato Clams, garlic, cilantro, white wine, lemon. Amazing with pasta for day one or with leftover broth as another meal.

• Purge the clams in salted water for about 30 minutes.

• Sauté a generous amount of sliced garlic in good olive oil over medium heat until fragrant, not browned

• Add the clams and a splash of white wine, cover, and steam 4–6 minutes until they open (toss any that stay shut)

• Kill the heat, fold in a fistful of chopped fresh cilantro, and a good squeeze of lemon

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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come back to the poem when I need my compass calibrated. Sometimes I can feel crazy choosing a “harder” path. As parents choosing an “alternative” life for our kids in the realm of food, education, travel, and health, my thoughts can spin that we’re making things harder on ourselves at times. When things feel messy, I remember that this comes with the territory. Adventure comes with pain at times.

Sometimes, it's literal, physical pain. My wife stepped on a weever fish the other day on one of our favorite beaches in the world, Beliche in Sagres, Portugal. The last time I saw her writhing in such pain was when she was birthing our second son.

My elder son remembered a local on the Aran Islands last summer who mentioned that you need to soak the foot in hot water. (It denatures the poison) He spoke up, and a local confirmed.

After about 20 minutes and a few rounds of hot water from the little beach bar espresso machine, the pain subsided.

We talked as it did, and I reminded her of her courage and willingness she was showing to feel this life. Even that terrible pain can be seen as a privilege, as it was a stark reminder of her aliveness, and for choosing a life of adventure.

We both reflected on how amazing it was that Rafael remembered the hot water trick from one chance conversation on Inis Oírr, the smallest of the Aran Islands, last summer. We’re doing it, we agreed. This is “worldschooling”. We can often slip into worry; we aren’t teaching him “enough”, but then realize how much richness and texture he is absorbing through all these adventures.

There was something about that weever fish sting that reminded us of the privilege we ALL have to choose our paths, no matter the circumstances. There is always a way.

And when you muster the courage to take the leap and choose the road less traveled, you may get stung, and that part will suck ;), BUT it will make all the difference.

Beautiful, wild Inis Oírr last summer.

Praia do Beliche, scene of the crime. How beautiful is this beach?

P.S. Our What to Cook Newsletter is coming Sunday morning to test the waters and see how that lands in your weekly rhythms.

Our first meal we had mussels, lamb brochettes, and salad — and my wife a beautiful piece of grilled Corvina with boiled potatoes, salad, and some Romano beans (feijão verde here). This meal set the tone for the week.

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We are in New England on leg one of our summer travels. First stop, Connecticut, where my wife moved with her family from Poland in the summer of 1990, months after the Solidarity movement won, leading to the dissolution of communism in the months to come. There are so many stories in the family, some tragic from the war/wars, life under communism, my father-in-law coming to the States to work for years ahead of the rest of the family. Woven throughout, though, are seemingly endless stories Babcia and Dziadek (Grandma and Grandpa) have of food in their lives.

This trip we learned for the first time a story about Babcia. When she was a little girl, visiting her Babcia in the mountains in southern Poland, she would clean her feet before entering a wooden crate barefoot to stomp cabbage for kapusta kiszona (sauerkraut), much like the mashing of grapes to make wine, to last for months.

My wife’s Babcia, Eugenia, would come home from work and spend an hour and a half cooking for the family. To this day, my wife still raves about her pierogi and gołąbki. I got to visit with her in Opole, Poland, where she lived. She was such a beautiful woman. We shared Kluski śląskie, a potato dumpling of sorts, kind of like a big gnocchi but with a unique, pleasant chew. I remember a slow stroll to a bakery with her while she held my arm, my wife on her other arm. It was such a beautiful moment where time seemed to dissolve. We ate apple cake and drank tea at the bakery-cafe. I can still taste both the cake and that moment. Just perfect.

That same Babcia always cooked with butter, and would spread it on fresh sourdough with scallions or radish, sometimes with some fresh pork belly fried with onions, or just caramelized onions when the monthly income was tight.

In fact, Babcia tells of her Mom, often having to get an advance from work to be able to buy groceries. They ate simply, but with ALL real, raw ingredients that make my mouth water just imagining it. The fresh bread with butter and caramelized onions… Babcia and I are both moved as she tells me of it.

One day, when margarine was becoming popular as an “alternative” to butter, she bought some. She made sandwiches for her kids for school. They came home uneaten, the kids proclaiming, We can’t eat “soap.”. I’ll never forget this story. Once you taste and get used to real food, your body rejects the fake stuff. What a beautiful expression of a child’s intuition.

I just can’t help but think of these stories and find the lessons for us in 2026. Even when faced with limited resources, the cheaper “fix” was rejected for the real deal that has always nourished us. There weren’t wasted resources on endless packages, snacks, and drinks. Now the environment still supported eating well on less. The bakeries, delis, butchers, and produce stands were still the norm, and industrialized systems had yet to infiltrate at scale. Real food, rooted in tradition, was simply how people ate.

Decades later, I have been blessed to have a seat at Babcia’s table and cook by her side, while every meal feels like an offering worthy of savoring, no matter how simple.

Let’s linger a little more at our tables this week, even for just a moment, and remember our blessings. Let’s let our kids into the kitchen and tell them our food stories we cherish, or even cringe at from our childhood.

Someday they will do the same, and personally I’d love for those stories to be told with fondness, humor, and love. I hope some of these ideas can inspire the same for you.

Aran

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