Because this book isn’t just about food.
It’s about the burn of wanting. The sweetness of trying. The strange alchemy of care.
It’s about chemistry—the molecular kind, and the human kind. The kind that simmers low and slow, or sparks hot and irreversible. The kind that lingers on your tongue long after it’s gone. The kind that sneaks up on you in a kitchen, when you’re just trying to make something decent, and suddenly you realize you’re making something that means something.
Cooking is chemistry, yeah. I can tell you the exact temperature beef fat begins to render. I can explain the molecular structure of an emulsion, the bonds in caramel, the slow miracle of a reduction. Science demands respect.Timing. Attention. The Maillard reaction doesn’t give a shit about your feelings. It needs the heat high, the surface dry, and the contact exact.
But even the most scientific recipes can’t account for grief. Or joy. Or memory.
They won’t tell you how laughter gets caught in the shell of a crawfish. How bacon and eggs the morning after can feel like a truce. Or how ice cream for breakfast can feel like equilibrium.
How honey, slow and sticky on your fingers, can feel like love.
There was a time I thought I had to keep every part of myself separated—my past, my work, my body, my family, my future. Like I could compartmentalize myself into being palatable. But real flavor needs contrast. Sweet and acid. Soft and sharp. Something to burn, and something to cool it down.
This book came out of a season of undoing. Of unlearning shame. Of finding ways to say what I couldn’t say out loud. It’s full of recipes, yeah—but also full of risk. Of things I made when I didn’t think I was allowed to want anything. Of moments that demanded truth when I wanted to hide. Of the ways I’ve tried to be brave.
Of mistakes I didn’t think I could come back from.
Because sometimes, one wrong move can ruin everything. One missed cue, and you scorch the pan. Overbeat the eggs. Oversalt the broth. You lose the thing you didn’t even know you’d been building toward.
But if you’re lucky—and if you care enough—you try again. You taste as you go. You make adjustments. You get better. Not perfect, just braver.
Because cooking isn’t about perfection. It’s about attention. About presence. It’s about watching somethingchange under heat and not walking away. Letting it get messy. Giving it time. Giving it care. Trusting it to bloom.
You improvise. You ruin things. You start again. You remember how someone takes their coffee, and you try to get it right next time. You feed people the way you want to be fed.
That’s what this book is about.
It’s about split-second timing and slow forgiveness. About chemistry, memory, and the miracle of what softens when it’s seen, what melts when you look at it long enough. About the truth that heat, when applied with care, can turn almost anything tender.
I’ve never been the one with the right words. That’s her superpower. But I know what it means to try. To keep trying. To beg. To make something with both hands and hope it lands as love.
This book? It’s messy. It’s meticulous. It’s full of heat, hunger, and a hell of a lot of heart.
It’s: Here. I made this.
It’s: I thought of you the whole time.
It’s: You’re allowed to want more. Please come back for seconds.
Let’s begin.
—N.G.
I touch my face. It’s wet.
There is a loud sniffing noise behind me. No, four.
“Wow, that’s pretty bad,” Betty squeaks out.
“Leaned on the metaphors a little too hard,” Fernanda sobs.
Izzy swipes at her face. “It’s better than the groceries.”
“It’s better than the handwritten recipe for sorbet that I can never make because I one, don’t have a Pacojet, and two, have no idea how or where to get essence of black sesame.”
“And the dress that he wasreturningto you,” Izzy sniffs.
