Jessica Schulman: I take great pride in the food that I cook for it is an expression of myself and it is rich with ingredients that form the history and culture which I come from. But more than that, I find that when I share my cooking with others, it often leads to my story — my childhood of growing up in a Filipino and Jewish household, getting home after school or swim practice to a house filled with the smells of cooking that were so bold you could taste it, which would only then result in the uncomfortable realization that your stomach was empty. On rare occasions, it has even led much farther into the past, to the story of my grandmother and her brave journey across the Pacific from the Philippines to Hawai’i.
