Karen Shasha is an artist and performer who cooks. What have you been cooking during the pandemic? So many by necessity are cooking more, but it’s nothing new for me, I’ve always been interested in cooking, how it transmits a sense of a culture, or a place where ancestors come from. Cooking is something that people always take with them regardless of what they leave behind. Both my grandmothers left Iraq, raised children in Iran, and came with their families to the US. Their cooking was a major influence. And my travels to Italy and Italian friends have been a major influence. Several years lived in France were a revelation. And then there is Vietnamese and Thai cooking . . . so much to explore. In spite of having a tiny kitchen, I have developed a lively culture of cooking. But, because the kitchen won’t hold more than one person at a time, I was never able to transmit what I know to my now adult, children. I always felt there was not enough cooking together, other than at our annual family gathering for several days each Thanksgiving. And so, it is with great joy that I noticed I was having a text and photo exchange with my daughter Cloe, who is cooking now. This conversation really developed during the pandemic, and lo and behold, recipes, methods, inventions, ideas about tastes and ingredients and more have been going back and forth. I discovered that what I have been doing is sharing the experience of an evolving culture of food and cooking over the years with a willing daughter, which has yielded insights about how and what to cook, and touches on so many aspects of life. I've decided to share the results of this conversation with you.