IN CONVERSATION Mothers & Daughters

Conversations From The Kitchen TableThe storytelling website Eat, Darling, Eat presents conversations with some of Heritage Radio Network's (the world's pioneer food radio station) favorite hosts, this time talking personally about their own mother/daughter relationships and the ways that food helps to explore and define the family dynamics, history, and personalities. Whether Mom dedicated passion and energy to feeding her family, or made Sara Lee and Szechuan take-out her best friends, list...

Felicia Cocotzin Ruiz is known as a “kitchen curandera." Curanderas are traditional healers who have practiced throughout the Americas for more than 500 years. Following in the steps of her maternal great-grandmother, Ruiz brings to her practice a knowledge of indigenous foods and “earth medicines” (the title of her recent book). She lives with her husband and near her daughter in Phoenix, Arizona, where she offers workshops and one-on-one healing sessions. With her sister, a midwife in Oakla...

“Let Daddy move the chopsticks first” and “Do not leave one piece of rice on your plate."These maxims were part of the Chinese culture and tradition that Tina Yao imparted to her daughter, a first-generation Chinese-American. With a Yale degree (and wearing her mother’s suit), Nancy Yao Maasbach got a job at the Council on Foreign Relations, using her heritage and perspective to work on U.S. policy with China, as that country of her ancestors became an increasingly powerful player on the worl...

Internationally celebrated cake designer Sylvia Weinstock makes cakes that astonish the palate, dazzle the eye, and reward the spirit. She started baking at home while her husband and three daughters skied down Hunter Mountain. André Soltner, the renowned chef of Lutèce, recommended Sylvia as an apprentice to pastry chef George Kellner, who operated a guesthouse on the mountain. It wasn't long before her client list included Oprah Winfrey, Robert De Niro, Martha Stewart, Ralph Lauren, Michael...

Zarela Martinez is an acclaimed restaurateur and cookbook author in New York City. Her books include Food from My Heart, The Food and Life of Oaxaca, and Zarela’s Veracruz, the companion to her PBS series "Zarela!! La Cocina Veracruzana." Her personal papers are resident in The Schlesinger Library, one of the leading centers for scholarship on the history of women in the United States. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Mexican Cultural Institute of New York and is in the Jame...