Buttery, flaky, and able to go with literally anything that’s spreadable or dippable. These are the reasons my love for butter crackers runs so deep.

A big batch of chili is, on the surface, a simple lunch I can make on the weekend. However, once I reheat it during my lunch at the farm, and sit down, for a moment I’m transported.

Although our attempts at making pupusas were hit and miss (leave it to the pros from South and Central America) we did get the hang of making our own corn chips to accompany lunch-time sandwich situations.

As a little girl I’d have been delighted to have known that a decade or so later I’d be able to enjoy the rain in New York just like Momo. After all my dad was always talking about New York, it seemed like the place to be.

Fond, but increasingly blurry, lunchtime memories surround oodles and noodles. Intense sibling debates about pop culture brewed, secrets were shared, loose pacts were made, sibling produced tv shows were performed table-side, and sometimes it was just nice to have food in the house and we were too busy eating to talk.

Freedom looks different for different people. For my parents freedom seemed to look like teaching their kids at home. Free to offer their kids a combination of curricula to suit each of our differing ages and learning needs and desires.