This week for our tasting lab we were treated with a visit from the elusive Annie Sloan, accompanied by Alana. Alana provided lunch – a simple but delicious lunch of grits, corn, beans, and tomatoes, and Annie brought us individual vegan banana puddings.

While last week’s tasting lab was uplifting, this week’s experience was a bit emotionally heavy. After Alana shared a heartwarming podcast excerpt, Annie had us all, one by one, light a candle in our banana puddings and share a memory about food. Annie began with a very personal story that set the tone for the rest of us.

Prompted by Annie’s story of her and her father, I followed with one of my favorite childhood memories related to food. As an only child of parents who worked around the clock, my summers were spent from 7AM-6PM at a YMCA day camp. Every evening my father, a carpenter, would pick me up in his white work van. I would join him in the passenger seat, both of us covered in dirt and sweat that you can only acquire from being outside on a sticky, hot summer day in rural New York. With the windows down we would drive to the gas station on the way home and pick up a well earned pre-dinner snack. My dad would get the red Gatorade and red Doritos. I got the blue variety of each, respectively, and we would make the 10 minute drive home happy and satisfied, discussing the previous happenings of the day.

I hadn’t thought about that ritual for years until that tasting lab. Being away from home, it made me miss my dad and long for the simple days when I could eat Doritos with no guilt or knowledge of what I was putting in my body. But I also got around to hearing everyone else’s stories with similar themes of single parents and tragically unhealthy food. I felt very connected to my classmates in that moment.

I think that was the point. To be reminded of the emotional connection we all have with food, and the connection we can make with others through food.