Food has always been part of my life. I grew up on the Emerald Coast of Florida where “blackened” meant “Cajun” and “LA” meant “Lower Alabama.” I was always told anything southeast of Tallahassee had broken off of New York and reattached itself to us sometime in the ‘70s. I ate deer meat when we had it and bream at friends’ houses and pork chops from the discount freezer at the Pic-N-Sav. Anything fresh caught or killed was a little better. Nobody said it but you just knew to be more respectful.

My dad can cook anything. Growing up he was always “doctoring up” jar of spaghetti sauce with half the spice cabinet and a little Bud Light or simmering baked beans that’ll make a tadpole slap a whale. His words, not mine but true nonetheless. When I was in high school and he was working a little less he started making recipes that were a little more intensive. He made this shrimp and grits with sausage and red-eye gravy that was so good it ruined me for anybody else’s version. I don’t even order it anymore because it’s just not right if it’s not his.

My mother’s side of the family was not blessed with the cooking gene. Every year on winter vacation it’s critical we make the same food in the same order with the same sense of confusion and urgency. I have seen members of my family take an hour to pick all the leaves off an entire bunch of parsley because they didn’t think you could eat the stems, dice an onion with a steak knife, attempt to whip egg whites into stiff peaks with a fork, and cook a chicken leg in such a way that it came out both black and yellow. My aunt makes this beef stew that sits in a big pot all day while we’re out and by the time we get back in from the cold it has turned into this white, creamy, starchy, thick, hearty stew with big chunks of onion and carrot and stew meat that just warms us to our toes. Now I did not know that beef stew is supposed to be brown and a little brothy until this year when I looked up recipes and there apparently is tomato paste and red wine involved. That has escaped the Harrison family for at least as long as I’ve been alive. That said—I would never tell them.

I once went on a date with a sweet guy from Texas. It went well so for our second date, he cooked for me. He made a salad and some kind of pasta. I don’t remember his name anymore but I remember the way he talked me through each step of the meal. He told me about flaky salt and how the way it’s crystalized allows for control in your pinch. I remember the way the salt looked in his hand when he showed me the big flakes next to the ones he crushed. I remember he taught me about pasta water and the way it binds the noodle to the sauce and creates a bit of a gloss. I don’t remember his voice but I remember him telling me about Anthony Bourdain and how he thought of him as a friend and how he couldn’t watch the last season of his show because he could see the way he changed. And I watched him work over the meal and laugh and focus and I thought about how much he had told me about himself in the way he had prepared all of it and respected his tools and talked about someone he didn’t even personally know.

And I thought the way people cook is like their handwriting. Someone can cook the same thing a million people have cooked but in that meal in their house who they are is all over it. The heat they use, the length of time they cook it, the way the kitchen looks and smells when they’re done is like the pressure of a pen on paper and the way they slant their letters. It’s why I don’t make my dad’s shrimp and grits or my aunt’s beef stew. It’s not theirs when I cook it. It doesn’t have the most important ingredient—them. There is an unavoidable honesty in cooking for one another and each time I have a meal made by someone it’s a real privilege. I hope I’m always lucky enough to have that in my life.