My object is a handwritten recipe book created by my Abuelita. My grandmother was 13 years old when she wrote it in 1946 and living in Santa Domingo, then known as Ciudad Trujillo after the Dominican dictator General Rafael Trujillo. It is a collection of recipes typically passed on by observing or by telling, without notes. Included are recipes from her grandmother and great-grandmother, with whom she lived at the time. The book is bound, which would have been a luxury for her and was likely a gift for a special occasion. My Abuelita filled her book almost entirely with recipes for desserts typical of her tropical homeland. The recipes called for pineapple, coconut, guava, and mangoes which were abundant and always prepared fresh. This book was discovered among my Abuelita's things after she passed away. Making something from her handwritten notes reminds me of her and allows me to experience something she experienced when she was a teenager in a time and place I have never been.

– Scott Fairbanks

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