My love of food started with towering stacks of cookbooks from the local library. I’d flip through them like adventure novels, and pretty soon I was taking over the family kitchen (at 13, thank you very much). My parents, who hated to cook but loved to eat, were thrilled. Total win-win.

Around the same time, the travel bug bit hard. I started collecting tastes like souvenirs: avocado and turkey sandwiches after a trip to California, linzer torte in Austria after singing in ancient cathedrals, pappa al pomodoro in Florence at 18. College brought more recipes — a roommate’s mom’s dal, another’s chicken and preserved lemon tagine. Each bite came with a story, and I wanted to tell them all.

Food and storytelling have taken me a long way — through school, work, and plenty of miles — but there’s still so much more to taste.