What do warm and chewy chocolate chip cookies have in common with kheer? Or for that matter, how about Chicken butter masala and home-made Ricotta and basil pizza? Well, as it happens, these diverse delicacies that hail from all over the globe peacefully co-exist in my kitchen.

Hello, I’m Shan Lateef, and I’m a rising junior at Yale University studying Neuroscience and Global Health Studies. Food is a science to me, and more recently, I’ve become interested in the ways we can create recipes that are both delicious and nutritionally beneficial to our health. Understanding the ways in which food transcends public health is one of the things this blog aims to accomplish!

Both my parents are of South Asian heritage. My paternal grandparents immigrated from Pakistan. Crushed red peppers are a staple in my grandmother’s purse, readily available to provide additional seasoning to any unsuspecting pizza. Yet to my father, who grew up in Youngstown, Ohio, greasy wings and nachos were the perfect complement to watching any football game. My mother came to the United States as a student from Madras, India. Her family traced its cultural roots to Persia. My mother valiantly tried to appreciate peanut butter and mayo even as she reminisced about eating Dosa and Idli on Sunday mornings. And to add to this cultural mayhem, our rabbit, Oreo, is a Holland lop! Perhaps he dreams of Pannenkoeken, while we keep offering him romaine lettuce.  So, what, you might ask is the purpose of tracing my immediate genealogy? Well, I have realized that my inherited DNA has many different culinary genes represented within it and this directly impacts my own efforts and outcomes in the kitchen.

I have loved experimenting and creating in the kitchen, for as long as I can remember. The smells, colors and textures conjure endless possibilities in my mind. With me, my parents don’t have to worry about sports injuries—instead, they have to be wary of heavy appliances, sharp knives, and burning hot stoves. While my busy physician parents indulged my love for cooking, they didn’t share quite the same passion.

But one summer vacation, I finally discovered the roots of my culinary obsession. I met my maternal grandmother, a highly regarding chef among our clan in India and a caterer by profession. Yes, it seems that the apple was indeed from this tree – just one branch removed! My grandmother, Sophia Iqbal, lives in Chennai (formerly known as Madras), on the south eastern coast of India. She is a consummate cook and effortlessly caters food for groups of over a hundred people. Yet cooking is so much more than a job to her- it is a calling and a true commitment of the soul. It is etched into her lovingly maintained but worn, hand-written recipe books, her confidence as she deftly mixes multiple spices into a marinade, and as she intently scans her recipes, acquired over the years and from her own mother, another legendary cook. What seemed like a lazy beach vacation, among tranquil coconut palms last summer, now became an exciting adventure in a Madrasi kitchen. I happily struggled to absorb all the information: small and large cardamom, black versus white pepper, tangy tamarind versus lime juice amidst a dazzling panorama of exotic spices that were in stark contrast to the peeling paint on the old kitchen walls.

Summer ended, as did my time in Madras. Surely, I thought upon returning to Virginia, there must be other kitchens where coriander chutney stares defiantly at ketchup as they both beckon a succulent hamburger.    And so began this journey: a quest to explore together the familiar and the unknown, to blend spices of the east with meat and potatoes of the west, and to also savor each cultural flavor as unique. While Madras is oceans apart from Manassas, my grandmother and I make sure that they are only a stovetop away. Reflecting on our own backgrounds, we hope to share with you recipes both traditional and modern, both complex and simple, and plenty in between. I am only just beginning this journey so I invite my own peers to come and experience the joys of cooking and baking with me.