The Storied Recipe

Step back into the kitchen of your childhood. Can you remember? What color were the cabinets? Was their linoleum on the floors and laminate on the counters? Or tile and granite? Was it warm or cold? Cluttered or clean? Was it a happy place? A lonely place?

Now put yourself back into that kitchen - can you recall the first dish you made? And that feeling you had when you made your first dish — that pride in feeding yourself, the confidence that came from doing something so grown-up, the joy of sharing it with someone else?

I think about my own first memory in the kitchen, and my mom is there. Likely the same with you. Certainly the same with today's guest, Erik Fabian.

Erik's mom is, by his own description, a curious, caring, deeply intelligent woman who poured a remarkable amount of herself into her home and her kids. A nurse. A cook of Midwestern classics — chili, spaghetti, chicken soup. Just an American mom. But of course, there's no "just" about it.

Whether it's Erik's mom, your mom, or mine — it is not an ordinary thing to have a parent hand you an egg and say: you can do this. 

 When Erik's mom taught him to make an egg in a hole — a simple piece of grocery store bread, a hole cut out, an egg cracked right in — she opened a door to competence, to satisfaction, and to a lifetime of feeding himself and others.

Today, that egg in a hole has grown up a little — eggs sunny-side up, avocado, and microgreens layered on a thick slice of sourdough, made with the help of tools from Erik's own company, Sourhouse.

But whether we make our first dishes now as we did way back then, today’s episode is a wonderful timeto remember and appreciate that what is wholesome and universal — like bread, eggs, and moms — are no less precious because they are common .

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I like to think that Mama Issa had breakfast at her favorite place this morning—right on the edge of the Mediterranean. Imagine the soft clatter of dishes, waves gently splashing against the thick rock wall separating Mama Issa from that turquoise water. She sips that good, strong Lebanese coffee and breathes in the scent of warm manouche bread mingling with the faint salt from the sea. 

Maybe the electricity went out last night, maybe there will be strikes in the city this month. It doesn’t bother Mama Issa; she’s at peace. She’s been through worse, and after all, her life’s work is an unmitigated success.

Her phone buzzes on the table beside her. Maybe she doesn’t even hear it at first, as a large wave hits the wall and mist swirls around her, kissing her face. But as the wave recedes, she picks up the phone and sees it’s her daughter, Fatema, today’s guest.

Decades ago, not far from this very spot, Mama Issa cradled Fatema close at Beirut airport, guiding her other children as missiles exploded around. She was leaving her home, her heart language, her husband, her community, and her friends.

They escaped the war, but life didn’t get easier. However, with the support of her own mother and siblings, and driven by a vision for her children, she persevered. She gave them a life, a future, hope, education, worldly success—and more than anything, she gave them the lifeline she had received: an unbreakable bond with family.

Today, Fatema works with her brother, a restaurateur, at their newest venture in Washington, DC—Vera Cucina, a restaurant that celebrates a fusion of Lebanese and Mexican cuisines. The cultures share values of family and warm hospitality, a similar vibrancy in art and beauty, and the merging of their cuisines began with a wave of Lebanese immigration to Mexico in the late 19th century.

Fatema’s recipe is a prime example of this fusion, developed side by side in the kitchen with Mama Issa and the chef of Vera Cucina. And in that collaboration, you see Mama Issa’s dream fulfilled: her children working together, staying close, honoring their heritage, and creating something meaningful that carries their family forward.

So I imagine Mama Issa smiling as Fatema shares how guests are coming far and wide, asking for her lamb chops, tasting them, experiencing home—Mama Issa’s home—and above all, family.

The Storied Recipe is a community that believes food is a universal love language. Join for episode & recipe updates every Friday mornings. (And occasional free gifts!)

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Typically, I introduce episodes with a nostalgic story, inviting you all on an emotional journey with me - but I’ve opted out of that today as it doesn’t quite fit. Today’s episode isn’t about the past or the bittersweet memories of loved ones lost - 

Rather, it celebrates a friendship rooted in mutual respect and action - action to preserve the skills, wisdom, and cuisine of past generations. 

Today, Hank Shaw, owner of the world's biggest wild food site, is sharing a recipe made by his great friend, Patricio Wise. Patricio is a former finance professional, successful serial restaurateur, and immigrant from the Nuevo León region of Mexico to Sacramento, California—and the spontaneous creator of today's recipe: the Deathbed Tacos, so named because Hank would choose them for his last meal and “die happy”. 

As for our guest, Hank - well, Patricio himself shared these words about Hank in an introduction to Hank's latest book, Borderlands:

Hank used to work as a political reporter, underpaid by his own accounts, and would for years live off the fish and seafood he could catch himself. He has since become, in my not-so-humble opinion, the foremost authority on wild food in the United States. His blog won a James Beard Award in 2013 and if you've ever heard him talk about foraging, fishing, or hunting, you know the man doesn't just read about things—he does them….

But what really sets Hank apart isn't just the encyclopedic knowledge—it's the storytelling. He has this way of weaving personal experience with fact, of grounding hard research in soft dirt. And nowhere is that clearer than in Borderlands. One of the things that struck me most is how he managed to capture the spirit of the people who live in this liminal space between the U.S. and Mexico. People like me, who grew up in Monterrey with Sunday carne asadas… People who know that food isn't just about sustenance—it's about identity. Culture and story. Hank gets that. He gets us.

Now, having heard from Patricio about Hank, we welcome Hank to tell us more about Patricio and these birthday tacos that Patricio invented one sweltering night in Sacramento.

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What was your first moment of consciousness this morning? The sound of an alarm clock? The feeling of a toddler whose presence you felt before you even opened your eyes? If you’re really lucky, maybe it was the sun in your eyes?

For Dom, it was the smell of garlic, gently frying outside. Then sounds - a burner catches, the scrape of an aluminum pan, the soft shuffling of small feet, rain on the roof of their home harmonizing with the sound of rain on the roof of their small outdoor kitchen in Thailand. 

Still bleary-eyed, but now awake enough to put his feet on the floor, Dom follows another scent  — jasmine rice, steaming, floral and comforting - through a doorway and into the morning light. 

Predictably, she is already there. Dom’s grandmother squats near the burner, reaching for the soy sauce in its place in line with the other small glass jars of cooking essentials. 

When she turns and sees Dom, her beloved grandson - her precious son - her face opens into a smile and the beauty of her youth, a beauty that lifted her from poverty, glows undimmed. 

Years later, Dom and Sherri’s kids come home on Friday evenings in their suburban North Carolina home to the same smell - but much more significantly, to the same stability, the same predictability, the same safe assurance of a loving home where they are cherished and prioritized - that Dom awoke to a generation ago.

This is the story of a woman who changed the future of generations. Tiny as she was, she stood in the path of generational addictions and said, like Gandalf to the Balrog, “You shall not pass.”

Because of the way she loved and raised Dom, her grandson turned son, a legacy was changed for generations.

Read more about Sherri on Thai Foodie.com

Email Sherri at [email protected]

Learn about Sherri's cooking classes

The Storied Recipe is a community that believes food is a universal love language. Join for episode & recipe updates every Friday mornings. (And occasional free gifts!)

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If I had to pick a word for my 2025, it would be bittersweet.

This is now the 5th time I’m releasing the Christmas Pudding episode - I love it that much!

But this year, it’s hitting a little bit differently. 

I’ve always loved this episode because it’s fun and funny and full of laughter. The conversation was a cherished opportunity to connect with a friend from my youth that lives across the world from me. 

But in light of our experiences this year, it’s landing a little differently for me.

This year, I found myself tuned in to a note that’s been right there all along, underneath the humor — the tenderness of Robert and Lisa’s memories. 

And I’m wondering - How didn’t I hear it before?

The way these traditions didn’t just hold joy for Robert and Lisa, but also the pain of absence and loss? 

Like the thestrals in Harry Potter, the truth is, we can’t see what we can’t see. 

But sooner or later, the events of life will afford all of us, hopefully, an ever expanding vision. 

And here’s that word, bittersweet, again - In a dish, bitterness doesn’t cancel the sweet. Rather, orange zest will balance - more than, it will sharpen and amplify the sugar in a dish, allowing us to taste it more fully. 

And so, as life changes us, expands us, and makes us more attuned to other notes, may we not forget the purity, the clarity, the melody of life’s sweetest moments, which are so often found in our traditions. 

But with some pain and in some seasons, this is not reasonable or respectful 

And in that case, may the bitterness of this broken world point us — as Robert and Lisa do at the end of this episode — to the eternal love of God.

Emmanuel, God with us - So gloriously on display, each and every Christmas.

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The Storied Recipe is a community that believes food is a universal love language. Join for episode & recipe updates every Friday mornings. (And occasional free gifts!)

If you listen closely, you can almost hear the soft rattle of a bicycle coasting over cobblestones, weaving past tractors and farm fields on its way toward a small German village kitchen. 

A little girl, Heidrun, is on that bike and, as her hair streams behind her in the wind, she can hardly hear anything herself. Her head is full of questions about what she’ll gather or forage with her Oma today - and what they’ll bake when they return to her kitchen - and hoping that, earlier this morning, while the moon was still high, Oma made her perfect yeast cake with soft streusel crumbles. 

When she walks into the kitchen, Heidrun is delighted to see that - yes! Oma’s yeast cake has already risen, baked, and is now cooling in the window. And she’s comforted by the familiar sight of fresh quark wrapped in a muslin cloth, dripping its healthy whey slowly into a bowl below, where it will be saved and later added to bread. 

Heidrun’s Oma was steady, disciplined, neat, tidy, and hardworking. She wasn’t talkative and she never used a scale. Nevertheless, she managed to teach generations, Heidrun included, the precise art of German Baking, an art which Heidrun has now put into book form with images, explanations, careful instructions. 

And at the center of today’s story - and so many recipes in this book - is a cornerstone of German baking. Quark is a soft, rich, creamy, protein and calcium-rich, slightly tangy cheese essential to both sweet and savory German dishes. 

To be honest, when I started the process of creating this episode, I thought quark was too technical, difficult, or time-consuming for me and thought, “Well, quark will be fun to talk about, but I’ll just use the substitutions that Heidrun mentions.” 

However!   

Much like her Oma did for her, Heidrun drew me out of my comfort zone through her quiet enthusiasm, empowering knowledge, and gentle insistence that it's always worth learning a new skill and making a recipe the right way.

If you can't see these in your podcast player, visit TheStoriedRecipe.com to see them.

Mesophilic Cultures

Calcium Chloride

Buy German Heritage Baking

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For many of us, Athens is inseparable from ancient—towering colonnades blinding white in the Mediterranean sun, rowdy crowds packed into massive amphitheatres, then those same crowds dispersing into balmy evenings washed in golden light, the 195 The Honest Magiría and Its Humble Chickpea Soupsmell of olive oil and roasted chickpeas drifting through the air.

But what about the Athens of the last eighty years? The last thirty or ten? A city shaped by occupation, migration, rebuilding, prosperity and globalization, then crisis and austerity?

Today’s guest, Diane Kochilas, has written a cookbook that does what I now consider essential for any cookbook I recommend: it is a book only she could have written. Part memoir and part modern history of her adopted city, Athens, she writes with the authority of the food journalist she once was, sharing dishes from over 100 Athenian restaurants (and modern home kitchens). The book contains the fresh recipes of today’s Athens, shaped by new arrivals and new ideas.

But in this episode, as in her cookbook, Diane honors Diporto—a restaurant that has steadfastly weathered all of these changes, remaining a constant for every class and community in Athens. And we celebrate Diporto’s simple five-ingredient soup made from  those staples of ancient Athenian cuisine, chickpeas and olive oil. It’s a dish that reminds us again of the power of food to connect every version and every iteration of a city into one continuous and beautiful story.

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Diane's Website: www.DianeKochilas.com

Buy her latest book Athens

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Today’s guest Lynn describes Maria — just like a glowing fairy come to life: barely five feet tall, vivacious, chatty and outgoing, and as charming as they come.

So imagine this tiny Maria 100 years ago, just a teenager tripping over the cobblestone streets of Budapest, chatting with her friends, then opening an heavy, ornate and entering a cafe - 

And quickly, let’s replace our images of a “cafe” - the cafes of 20th century Budapest were grand, glittering spaces.  Picture soaring ceilings multiple stories high, crystal chandeliers, marble pillars, rich, heavy window treatments, carved staircases, and waiters in tuxes.

Tucked in the corners were the who’s who of Budapest - poets, intellectuals, and artists.But Maria and her girlfriends were simply there to do their homework — giggling, whispering, and flirting like any teenagers over the clinking of silver spoons against porcelain coffde cups. 

Maria, the daughter of a cafe owner herself, knew and loved all the famous cafes - and they loved her. In fact, as family legend has it, she charmed the pastry chefs into sharing their best recipes for tortes and cakes.

A century later, Lynn opened a nondescript box and discovered fifty-two of Maria’s recipes, handwritten in Hungarian. Well — fifty-one of Maria’s recipes. There was one, a simple Walnut Torte, just like what would have been served in those grand cafes, written in English - not by Maria, but by Maria’s daughter-in-law, Janice, who is Lynn’s mother-in-law. 

That recipe card from became the basis of the cake Lynn has dubbed “Mother-in-Law Cake” and she shares with us today.

If you can't see these in your podcast player, visit TheStoriedRecipe.com to see them.

Lynn's Website: Family Tree Foodie

Lynn's Hungarian Heirloom Walnut Torte on her website

Email Lynn: [email protected]

Lynn's Instagram: @familytreefoodie

The Storied Recipe is a community that believes food is a universal love language. Join for episode & recipe updates every Friday mornings. (And occasional free gifts!)

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The Second World War has started and teenage Dolores stands over a small suitcase laying open on her bed in Columbus, Ohio. She slept in this room through her mother’s three years of illness and the tragic night her mother died, when she was just fifteen. 

Some nights, Dolores falls asleep quickly after long days of managing school and a home at that tender age. Other nights, she can't sleep, thinking of her handsome fiancé, Bill Wood — a very young man himself, standing on the brink of battle. But tonight, after Dolores tucked a small white New Testament and a white handkerchief on top of her modest clothing and clicked the suitcase closed, she sat down on the bed and looked around the room as if to say goodbye - not to the room, but to her girlhood. For tonight she may not sleep at all, as she cherishes a very secret hope in her heart - the hope that she will return home to this room as a married woman. Because if all goes well on her trip to Washington State, she will marry Bill. He will go to war as a husband, while she waits, prays, and works for Victory Day.

Today, we hear from the youngest daughter of Dolores, who was always a homemaker first, and Bill, a career baker.

Through their many kitchens - her mother's home kitchens and her father's bakeries - Melissa traces her parent's life of steadfast love and deep devotion: to one another, to their God, and to an institution that, at times, threatened to take advantage of that devotion.

And in that crisis, it was Dolores and Bill’s love for one another — steadfast, selfless, and always protective — that preserved their hearts and family.

We start with a recipe in Dolores’s handwriting, but titled “Dad’s Apple Dumplings”. For what God joined together in Washington State more than 80 years ago, Melissa could not separate — not even when choosing a recipe. 🙂

If you can't see these in your podcast player, visit TheStoriedRecipe.com to see them.

The Storied Recipe is a community that believes food is a universal love language. Join for episode & recipe updates every Friday mornings. (And occasional free gifts!)

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Let me introduce you to little Maureen — a tiny girl with glossy dark hair and big dark eyes — sitting on the counter of a kitchen on Maple Street, USA. She’s sipping a root beer float, watching the house buzz with cousins, aunts, and uncles, their laughter and teasing filling every corner. The smell of nutmeg drifts through the air; rhubarb simmers in a pot. And at the center of it all stands an older woman — though not nearly as old as you might imagine when you hear the word Grandma — effortlessly making a Lebanese feat for all of them. 

Not very many years later at all, little Maureen tiptoes into another kitchen — her own. This time, a young woman — much younger than you might imagine when you hear the word Mother — stands quietly. That same smell of nutmeg fills the air, warm and familiar, but now mingled with something tender, something sad. A handwritten recipe lies open on the counter, its corners soft from years of use. This young mother is making her mother’s favorite cookie, the one everyone calls Grandma’s Best. And though she doesn’t say it aloud, she’s remembering. 

Later, little Maureen and this young, beautiful mother sit at the table with their teacups and a single cookie on each napkin. And now, mother does remember out loud. She talks, Maureen listens, and in that quiet moment, Alice’s gentleness passes down another generation to today’s guest, marvelous Maureen, author of the best baking cookbook I've ever used, Lebanese Baking. 

Today’s episode is an exploration of grief — and creating as a response to grief - but also a celebration of three generations of highly skilled Lebanese American women who held the highest standards for themselves and the gentlest postures toward others. 

This was meant to be an episode about Grandma Alice — and it is. But perhaps nothing would please her more than knowing that, in the end, we couldn’t  tell her story without telling her daughter’s and her granddaughter’s. It turns out, it’s all one story. 

Through their lives, these cookies, and Maureen’s cookbook, Alice’s spirit, sacrifice and skill continue to shape not just her expansive family, but all of us as well.

Buy Lebanese Baking on Amazon

Buy Lebanese Baking at Schuler Books

Visit Maureen at her website www.MaureenAbood.com

The Storied Recipe is a community that believes food is a universal love language. Join for episode & recipe updates every Friday mornings. (And occasional free gifts!)

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Where every print tells a story.

High end prints for your kitchen walls: Download and print immediately.