When I was 22, I lived for six weeks in Guatemala, at the Missionary Training Center (MTC). Each meal, we went down to eat in the small cafeteria and were served steaming bowls of native Guatemalan dishes by smiling seƱoras who spoke only Spanish, and who I couldn’t converse with much until the very end of my time there. I roomed with the other hermanas (sister missionaries) on the third floor of the compound, and each morning we were awakened by smells—fragrant cinnamon-and-vanilla avena (hot cereal), the slight cornmeal smell of atol, but most often, the pungent onion and humidity…
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My mother-in-law Sherry raised five boys, and when we all get together with my husband’s family, the stories of how much they all could eat growing up are legendary. My husband Matt often talks fondly of a day in high school when he ate his way through an entire loaf of bread, making one PB & J after another, until there was nothing left but crumbs. As I’ve gotten to know my mother-in-law more over the nearly 9 years I’ve been married to Matt, I have found that she is one of those cooks who possesses that sense of intuition…