“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”  —Viktor Frankl

Welcome, beautiful squash blossoms.  If you've made it this far into the site, then you should be familiar with my storytelling-through-recipes style by now, and you're probably wondering:  "What is the point in all of this?"

When I retell the stories of my family’s suffering at the hands of war, poverty, and oppression under the Communist regime, I can choose to focus on our injustice and agony to invoke your pity, anger and despair.

Or I can highlight the fact that my parents stood firmly in their integrity against the face of corruption, or the fact that they rose from the ashes to become teachers to their oppressors, or the fact that my great-grandmother could recite classic literature from memory despite not being allowed a formal education like her male family members.  Suffering is inevitable, but being the stoic calm in the face of the storm is a choice.  And that is what I want my audience to learn from my wisdoms and stories.