Recipes

The recipes are symbolic of healing, catharsis, and family. Emoni exchanges recipes with her mother's older sister Aunt Sarah. These family recipes allow Emoni to get to know her mother’s family, as well as forge her own identity in the process of modifying the recipes. Cooking also provide Emoni with a sense of comfort and a cathartic outlet for all of the responsibilities she possesses. She puts such care and thought into her recipes, people who eat her dishes become emotional, remembering some part of their lives. Also, the recipes allow Emoni to blend both parts of her heritage, as she adds Puerto Rican twists to her maternal family recipes.

Ice Cream

Ice cream is representative of comfort and companionship. Malachi firsts asks Emoni out for ice cream after Pretty Leslie tries to sabotage their connection. Malachi's willingness to befriend Emoni despite her reticence poems...