If you've ever walked through Old Delhi smelling kebabs, you know what I'm talking about.
If you haven't, put it on your list for your next visit to India.
I was fortunate enough to grow up in a family that made kebabs often.
My mother made them.
My father-in-law made them too.
They looked different, smelled different, and tasted different.
Yet even today, the aroma of kebabs can transport me somewhere else entirely.
Back to a time when the people I loved were still alive.
Back to family gatherings that revolved around food and conversation.
Back to younger days, before life carried quite so much weight.
And perhaps that's what I was really remembering.
Not the kebabs themselves.
The ritual around them.
My mother loved having all three of us and our families home together.
Festivals, family gatherings, Sunday lunches –
somehow they always seemed to revolve around food.
Years later, I found myself doing exactly the same thing with my boys.
When they lived in Jacksonville, I'd look for reasons to get them together.
What would you like to eat?
Should I make this?
Should I cook that?
The food was never really the point.
It was simply the invitation.
The thing that brought everyone to the same table at the same time.
These days, life looks different.
We no longer live in the same city,
and the boys have lives and relationships of their own.
The conversations are more likely to be about family trips,
Christmas plans, Thanksgiving,
or figuring out when everyone can be together.
The ritual has changed.
The purpose hasn't.
Maybe every family has its version of this.
A favorite recipe.
A holiday tradition.
A yearly gathering.
An evening cup of tea.
Small rituals that quietly create belonging.
A reminder that no matter how far we wander,
there is still a place where we fit.
And years later, all it takes is a smell,
a taste,
a photograph,
or a familiar tradition
for those memories to come hitching a ride into the present.