Transcript:
Panel 1: A family is sitting around a dining table, consisting of Mom, Dad, sister, and Len.
Narration: Food has always been important to my family.
Mom: Don’t spit it out. That’s rude.
Len (in the background): Blegh
Sister: Who would even want Parsley Jello?
Panel 2: Sister and Len are in aprons and chef’s hats while they pose with their cooking teacher.
Narration: I’ve taken cooking classes since 2nd grade.
Panel 3: Dad is helping Len prepare a dish
Narration: Outside of Lessons, my dad would teach my sisters and I.
Dad: Now you cover it in egg yolk.
Len: This feels slimy.
Panel 4: A family is scattered around the kitchen preparing different steps of making baklava.
Narration: Every Christmas,
Aunt: What layer are we on?
Len: Seven.
Narration (cont.): We would band together to make a giant batch of baklava. The house would smell like butter for days while the kids got sick on filo dough.
Cousin (in background): Nom nom nom
Panel 5: Great Aunt Kathy is serving Len a large plate of funeral potatoes.
Narration: We’d eat at great aunt Kathy’s.
Len: Why is it called funeral potatoes?
Great Aunt Kathy: Great Question.
Panel 6: Len and her cousins are eating their dinner on a ping-pong table.
Narration: There’d always be too many people so the cousins would go to the basement to eat at the ping-pong table– never actually play.
Len and cousins (in background): *Laughing*
Panel 7: Outside view of the Huntsman Cancer Research Center
Narration: Even when my sisters and I were celebrating our birthdays at Huntsman,
Panel 8: Len is hugging dad who is now in a wheelchair.
Narration: Even when we knew it would be the last celebration with dad,
Panel 9: A large family is sitting around multiple tables and talking jovially with one another.
Narration: We gathered around food
Panel 10: Len is sitting at a table with two relatives on either side.
Narration: And found a kind of bittersweet joy.
Panel 11: Len is standing in a kitchen with a frying pan on the stove:
Narration: All this to say that the kitchen is my safe space
Narration (cont): but…
Panel 12: Len is freaking out while holding a flaming frying pan
Narration: I still can’t cook.
