Love languages are always trending; acts of service, words of affirmation, all those. But in my family, we speak a different kind of language. One you won’t find in a book. We speak through food. It’s the lemon poppy seed muffins waiting after tryouts. The sweet dough Granny let us sneak before she turned it into pie. The birthday dinners made just right he table always set, the door always open on Sundays, even for folks who hadn’t walked through it in years. Even when times were tight, the one thing we always had was a meal to share and people to share it with.

    Before I could even see over the counter, I was in my Granny’s kitchen, the heart of our family. Generations of women laughing, visiting, and baking in one tiny space. My mom, my nanny, my Granny.....each of them taught us to mix, roll, and stir. Every holiday, the kitchen turned into what Granny called a hen party, a joyful chaotic mess of cousins, nieces, aunties, all elbow-deep in desserts. That’s how cake balls became a family staple. Oreo balls, peanut butter balls, even replacing the old school pies. And though I hated the sticky mess as a kid, I’ve come to love it in my own way. I started shaping them into pucks. Experimenting with flavors. Finding that old magic again...but this time, on my own terms. Now, every cake puck I make is more than dessert. It’s a love note. A memory. A warm welcome. Because that’s the language I was raised in.

                         And now I get to speak it every day.