Food and family are part of the recipe that create warmth in one’s childhood, as is for Anusha.

I am three years old in my Dadi’s (paternal grandma in Hindi) Los Angeles home, sitting on her kitchen’s marble countertop, using her recycled cookie tins as drums. I watch as she kneads the dough for her Fijian-style phulka and think, “that looks fun.”

I am six years old and my very brown self has just moved to Saint Louis, Missouri, and I am scared. I am scared of this place and I am scared I will have no friends and I am scared that I look a little too different than everyone else in my first grade class. My Nani (maternal grandma in Hindi) picks me up from the bus stop and welcomes me home with a warm bowl of chana masala and suddenly I am not so scared. 

I am 15 years old and my single mom is out of the house and I decide this is the moment I’ve been waiting for. Let me host a dinner party for my friends. Except my friends invited their friends and they invited their friends and suddenly there are 30 people in my kitchen. My phulka is burning on the stovetop and my chana masala is too watery and my white friend is freaking out because she’s never seen cilantro chutney before and she is scared. I sigh as we ditch my kitchen for Panera and realize that this was not the moment I had been waiting for. 

I am 18 years old and I am about to move back across the country for college and I am scared. Not scared of the move, but scared that I haven’t done enough before the move. I haven’t spent enough time with my mom. I don’t know enough of her recipes. I am going to miss her palak paneer. I take the summer to sit on her kitchen’s marble countertop and watch as she slices and blends and sautés and bakes, and I think to myself, “that looks fun.” 

I am 20 years old and living in my first apartment. I am sitting in my kitchen with my then-boyfriend and it is so painfully obvious that we need to break up but instead I am cooking for him. I am hungry and I am homesick so I mimic the movements of my Dadi and my Nani and my mom and find comfort and identity in their recipes. 

I am 21 years old and I am living in a beachside house with four other girls. I am single and I am fulfilled and I have finally found my best friends. It has been a long day and I want nothing more than to sink back into my kitchen and make my mom’s palak paneer. I tell my friends to come over. They watch as I slice and blend and sauté and bake and they constantly ask if I need any help. I say no. 

We sit in my backyard, in mismatched lawn chairs found on the streets of Isla Vista, as we eat. More friends are walking in and out of the house and I offer all of them a bowl. That night, they all took me up on it. Music is playing and the weather is perfect and my friends tell me this is one of the best meals they’ve ever had. We clean up and return outside and dance. This was the moment I had been waiting for.