The Honey Spoon: A Chef's Journal

The Day My Daughter Took a Photo That Became an Exhibit

Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:18:40 GMT

By Chef Melissa Garret

Today I experienced one of those rare, quiet earthquakes — the kind that shift something inside you and leave you standing still, holding your breath.

I walked into a museum to see a new exhibit on Indigenous farming practices, and there I was... right beside the teachings of the Three Sisters.

And the photo they chose — the one representing Indigenous food systems and cultural survival — was taken by my daughter.

Her little hands. Her perspective. Her love.

That alone would have been enough to undo me.

But being in that exhibit brought another wave I didn't expect — the way that food carries memory so powerfully that it can bring someone back into the room with you.

There are foods I can't make without crying.

Beans are the hardest.

Because the moment I rinse them, the moment I hear them hitting the pot, the moment the aroma starts rising — I'm standing in my grandma's kitchen again.

The sound of her spoon against the pot.

The look she gave me when she realized I was paying attention.

The smell of home, even when life didn't feel steady.

I make my beans exactly the way she did, even now.

Not because it's the easiest way or the fastest way — but because it's the way that keeps her close.

I cry almost every time.

And I love that.

I love that food can hold a memory so tightly it refuses to let it fade.

That is what Indigenous food sovereignty means to me.

Not just reclaiming ingredients.

Not just rebuilding food systems.

But holding onto the people who fed us, even after they're gone.

Letting the recipes keep speaking when their voices have gone quiet.

Standing in that museum, surrounded by the stories of our people, I felt my ancestors with me.

The ones who taught without knowing they were teaching.

The ones who fed without knowing they were preserving a culture.

The ones who would have been so proud to see this moment — to see me teaching, planting, cooking, and carrying this work forward.

But I was not alone today.

I felt the strength of my living family too — my husband, who has carried so much of this journey with me, steady and unwavering, even in the moments when I doubted myself.

I felt my mom, whose presence is stitched into everything I cook and everything I love.

I felt my sister, whose support has been a backbone for me in more ways than she realizes.

And I felt my cousin, who has shown up for me again and again with encouragement, laughter, and love.

Every one of them has helped me keep going on the hard days.

Every one of them has celebrated the small victories and held space for me when the work felt heavy.

And somewhere in the middle of all of it — the beans, the corn, the squash, the tears, the memories, the museum lights — I realized something:

Our foods evolve, but the love inside them never changes.

Our stories adapt, but the truth inside them stays the same.

And even when the people we love are no longer here, the recipes let them come home to us.

Today wasn't just about being featured in an exhibit.

It wasn't just about being seen.

It was about understanding that every seed I plant, every lesson I teach, every pot of beans I stir —

I am not doing any of it alone.

I carry my grandmother.

I carry my ancestors.

I carry my daughter.

I carry my husband, my mom, my sister, my cousin, my community, and the generations yet to come.

And maybe that's why this moment feels so big — because it isn't just mine.

It belongs to everyone who fed me, loved me, taught me, believed in me, and walked with me, seen and unseen.

This is what food sovereignty looks like in real time:

memory, reclamation, evolution, and love — all simmering in the same pot

"How Life Brought Me Back to the Kitchen: A Journey I Never Planned"

Mon, 24 Nov 2025 07:50:18 GMT

Where Memory, Culture, and Food Meet.

wouldn’t say I always wanted to be a chef.

It wasn’t some lifelong dream I carried since childhood.

It was a hope that formed later — something I started imagining quietly, slowly, almost like it was calling to me. I began dreaming about what it might feel like to cook, create, feed people, and teach through food. It wasn’t a straight path, and honestly, I didn’t even know if it was possible. But the dream was there, growing in the background of my life.

In 2017, I took what felt like the practical route and began working toward becoming a substitute teacher. It seemed stable, manageable, a good direction.

And then everything changed at once.

That same year, I needed emergency spine surgery — the kind of surgery that forces your entire life to stop. Overnight, the plans I had been building fell apart. I couldn’t work the way I planned. I couldn’t stand for long periods. I couldn’t return to the path I thought I was supposed to follow.

I felt hopeless.

I felt lost.

It was one of the loneliest seasons of my life.

So I turned to what I could do — small things, creative things, things that gave me purpose without requiring a healed spine.

That’s how Aiyana’s Flowers began.

My daughter, whose name means “forever flower,” survived her birth with the cord wrapped around her neck three times. She came into this world fighting. Her name became my anchor, so I created flowers inspired by her — strong, long-lasting, crafted with love and intention.

After that came Carefree Creations — baked goods, handmade items, anything I could create from home during recovery. Those small projects didn’t seem like much at the time, but looking back, they were the first steps toward something bigger.

Then the Heart of America Indian Center asked me to help with pies, and that small moment began nudging me back toward food.

From pies came cultural foods.

From cultural foods came opportunities to serve our community.

And slowly, unexpectedly, I found my way back into the kitchen.

My first big cultural food moment was the Shawnee Indian Mission Fall Festival, where we set up our very first fry bread tent.

The wind tried to blow us out.

The burners fought us.

Nothing went smoothly.

But even through the chaos, something in me woke up again.

At the same time, I was losing so many of my elders and family members.

The people who once guided me, grounded me, or reminded me who I was were no longer here.

My circle felt smaller.

Quieter.

And there were moments when I didn’t know who I could turn to for cultural guidance or emotional grounding.

I only have a couple of elders left now, and that loss sits quietly underneath everything I do — not to weigh the story down, but because it’s part of the truth.

I also learned how complicated Indigenous spaces can be.

Sometimes our communities fall into that “crabs in a bucket” pattern — where the moment someone starts rising, someone else tries to pull them back down.

I’ve felt those pulls.

I’ve felt people distance themselves.

And navigating that tension made me question myself more than once.

And then came Monique Mercurio.

She offered me a spot at the All-Inclusive Art Market, and I didn’t fully realize at the time how much that moment would change my trajectory. I was still tired, still unsure, still grieving, still trying to rebuild myself.

Her invitation wasn’t just an opportunity — it was a lifeline.

She believed in me before I believed in myself again.

She opened a door instead of closing one.

She lifted instead of pulling down.

And it’s incredible what the right person can do for you at the right time.

Through everything — the grief, the doubt, the unexpected turns, the small beginnings — one truth kept pulling me forward:

Food connects us.

It brings us home.

It brings us back to each other.

It reminds us that we’re part of something bigger, even when life feels uncertain.

Sometimes when I’m cooking, the smell of a dish will take me instantly back to my Grandma’s kitchen — the warmth of the stove, her hands moving with confidence, the way she cooked without measuring because she carried every recipe in her bones.

Those memories still guide me.

They keep my elders with me.

They remind me why food matters.

All of these experiences — the losses, the shifts, the loneliness, the moments of doubt, the people who drifted, and the few who showed up — shaped the way I move through my work today.

It’s why I want to create spaces where we all feel included.

Spaces without gatekeeping.

Spaces where no one has to feel alone the way I did.

Spaces where Indigenous families can reconnect with culture, community, and each other.

Spaces where we lift instead of pull down.

I didn’t choose this path all at once.

Life nudged me toward it again and again — through pain, through creativity, through culture, through memory, through resilience — until I realized that food was always going to lead me home.

This is where my story truly begins.

And this is where The Honey Spoon begins too.