From early childhood, we spent time in Oswego, New York. My grandparents canned and pickled things in the summer: corn relish, dill pickles, seckel pears.

In my 20s, I took a two-week wilderness survival course with my dad. It started in Escalante National Monument, Utah.

We come from the generation where we had to eat what our parents prepared. My mom used to make stuffed peppers, and I hated it.

The go-to meal that my parents would make when my sister and I were growing up is a dish we call ‘cheese potatoes’.

When they were in their 40s, my mom and my dad would cook at the Sentul Buddhist temple every year on Wesak Day.

F Street was the shopping area in downtown Washington, DC. Before malls, before the suburbs, there was Woodies, Garfinckel’s, Hecht Company.