At Home

“The ache for home lives in all of us, the safe place we can go as we are and not be questioned,” Maya Angelou

I’m a homebody. Not just somebody who likes to nest and entertain at home (and be entertained at the homes of others), but somebody who is just fascinated with the idea of home in general. I believe that Dr. Angelou wasn’t referring to a set of walls and a roof with the quotation I’ve shared above, but the intangible concept of home–what it is that brings us comfort, a sense of ease, a feeling of security. I think about expressions like, “a taste of home,” and conjure up images of the lines of newly arrived (and not-so-newly) arrived cab drivers who would idle their cars outside this tiny, Punjabi deli in New York City’s Chelsea neighborhood to grab a “taste of home” for the road. Or of my former French neighbor in the city, who would frequent one particular bakery (and that bakery only) for his staple baguettes because as he once told me, “they are the only ones that taste like home that I can find in this city.”

I think of the care packages we would receive in college when we were homesick, our parents and loved ones sending us a “taste of home,” whether it be the chocolate fudge sauce that I loved so much and would look forward to receiving or the homemade pierogis my (now) husband’s roommate would receive and devour upon opening. I remember once literally dragging prepared turkey and all the fixings up to my dorm room in Connecticut on a bus for Canadian Thanksgiving because I yearned for that “taste of home.” I happily devoured it with my suitemates on a tiny coffee table in our living room, proclaiming that this was one of the best and most memorable Thanksgivings ever. In short, we take a sense of home with us everywhere, whether we realize it or not. And the food connection is just a small part of the picture.

In this section of The Modern Bee, we’ll explore the many different ways home is conceptualized–from recipes to room tours, traditions to tips, and everything in between; there is so much to discover.

Welcome home.

-Michaela