JACKIE KAI ELLIS ON COMMUNITY, HERITAGE AND CULINARY TIES THAT BIND

We are LOVING this recent piece by the über-talented multi-hyphenate @jackiekaiellis that was just published in @dishedvancouver.

In it, Jackie details the life of her grandfather and his culinary journey from a small town in Shandong, China to Hong Kong, where he and his wife opened his own bakery and restaurant and unknowingly served as Jackie’s inspiration on her own career path.

When Jackie’s grandmother moved to Vancouver to be with her children, she would serve the same dishes they both made in their Hong Kong restaurant.

“It’s truer than we think, that we are what we eat,” she writes. “Because everything I’ve eaten, every new dish, every celebration around a table, every bowl of long noodles in black bean sauce, has formed who I am. In fact, everything my grandfather had eaten, and my grandmother, and their grandparents has as well, I’m sure. Their meals are footsteps that carried me to where I stand. Their dishes have become mile markers on this road that I find myself on. And so it is with the food I have cooked and shared with others, whether at my own dinner table, or at the bakery. I’m sure that I have placed a marker on someone else’s path at some point too.

“But let us not miss the most crucial part of this equation: that this, this Canadian culture, this Canadian food is created only through the sharing of it. Let us cook and plant markers on each other’s roads, create new roads to explore, roads that lead us to delicious meals together.”

An inspirational read from an inspirational pastry chef, entrepreneur, author and homegrown success story.

Read the full piece at the link in our bio 👆above.

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