To My Husband, Allen

Thirty-two years.

People ask me where the recipes come from, and I tell them the truth: they come from a life that somebody helped me build. That somebody is you.

You have been my steady hand through every season, the one who believed in the vision before it had a name, and the one who never once asked me to make myself smaller to fit the moment.

When the kitchen was chaos and the dream felt heavier than it looked, you carried what I could not.

You are the person I count on. Not sometimes. Always.

Thank you for your love, which has never wavered. Thank you for your support, which has never come with conditions. Thank you for the quiet things nobody sees: the late nights, the long drives, the patience, the prayers.

Faith, Family & Flavor is not just a title. It is the life we made together, and I would not trade a single day of these thirty-two years.

I love you, always.

Jacquie

To My Family

Every recipe in this book carries a name, a face, and a memory.

When I set out to write A Twist of Jacquie: Faith, Family & Flavor, I wasn't chasing a cookbook. I was chasing you all. The Sunday kitchens. The holiday tables that got longer every year. The aunties who never measured anything and somehow never missed. The ones who taught me that feeding people is its own kind of prayer.

So this page is for you.

Thank you for the recipes you passed down without writing anything on paper. Thank you for sitting at my table, for tasting things that didn't always work the first time, and for telling me the truth anyway. Thank you for every "you should put that in a book," said so many times that I finally listened.

Faith gave me the courage to start. Family gave me the reason. Flavor is just what happens when the two of them meet in a hot kitchen.

If you are reading this and you are family by blood, by marriage, or by the simple grace of showing up, then you are already in these pages somewhere. Find your recipe. Cook it. Then pass it on the way it was passed to you, with a story attached.

With all my love,

Jacquie A Twist of Jacquie: Faith, Family & Flavor

08/13/94 - 02/29/20

Six years of birthdays that still get counted. Six years of setting the table and feeling the space where you should be sitting. Six years of hearing your laugh in a room and turning around out of habit.

You were my daughter, and you are still my daughter. Time does not undo that.

People say grief gets lighter. What I have found is that it gets braided into everything, including the good things. It is in the kitchen with me. It is in the recipes I make on the days I miss you most, because cooking was how I loved you when you were here, and it is how I love you now.

We are taking care of Aaleyah. She is loved, she is covered, and she is surrounded by the same family that raised you. She has your spirit in her, and I see it more every day. When she stands beside me at the counter with flour on her hands, you are right there with us.

So this book is partly yours. Every page of Faith, Family & Flavor carries your name, whether it is printed or not.

Until we meet again, my girl. Rest well.

Mom!

To My Precious Aaleyah

You are my joy and my reminder that love keeps going. Standing beside me in the kitchen with flour on your hands, you carry your mother's spirit and your own beautiful light. Everything I cook, I cook a little bit for you.

You are loved. You are covered.

Grandma Jacquie