Cooking with My Nanas. Discovering Family, Traditions, and Love in the kitchen. Like so many others, the women of my family both formed and strengthened my family's foundation. Their resilience was born of the times in which they lived. From the end of the Civil War, Jim Crow, The Sinking of the Titanic, World War I, The Spanish Flu of 1918, The Great Depression, through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, and the Civil Rights Movement. They witnessed the presidencies of Benjamin Harrison to William Jefferson Clinton. Not to mention living during Queen Victoria's time and that of her great-granddaughter times three, Queen Elizabeth.

As women, they bore children through lean times with very few rights and even less money. Some worked in the fields and kitchens, while others worked in factories and did odd jobs to make ends meet. Their homes were clean, the children respectable, and the meals were so good, one could say they ate better than royalty on mere pennies.

While the recipes are to be treasured, it's the stories behind them that make them priceless. When a widow with seven children and one on the way during the Depression raises all eight with not one empty mouth. Then there's the farmer's wife, who makes the crops used for livestock as delicious as any vegetable dish in France. A grandmother who makes a jelly-roll cake as light as a Victoria Sponge. The aunt that cooks all day in a Manhattan apartment while her family waits for her almond cake to end the night on a sweet note. These are the women of my family, and it's because of them that I'm here. Therefore, this cookbook is more than just recipes, it's a blueprint for love and fortification found in each recipe. It has continued throughout generations and this is a small attempt to celebrate these incredible women. Besides making dishes for your family, I hope it inspires readers and cooks to visit their culinary history. I am sure they will find treasures to pass on through generations.