Why Mélanie Masarin Keeps Her Grandmother’s Cookbook Close at Hand

I grew up in Lyon, France, in an open-door culture of hosting and cooking. People were always coming over for dinner. Some of my uncles were chefs, and so was my grandma Mymo, who once owned a restaurant. She would visit my family once a month, and I loved visiting her house near Cannes in the summer because I knew when we arrived it would smell like pasta gratin, which was everyone’s favorite dish. She was the host with the most and cooked all the recipes we liked, which she kept in this cookbook she started when she was 18. When she passed away unexpectedly 10 years ago, my family entrusted the cookbook to me because I was very much the grandchild who cooked with her.

It’s kind of falling apart, but I go back to it often because it’s so beautifully designed. Mymo cut little index pages to create different categories, like one for vegetables. She also collaged in recipes she loved that she found in magazines, and there are even loose ones, since she ran out of pages to stick them to. She was never precious with the book; she would use it with her garlicky, oily hands and make doodles of little techniques, like how to fold puff pastry versus pie dough or how to layer jammy shortbread cookies called lunettes to get the shape right. You can also see how overtime she loses her little girl handwriting. I feel like I’ve read it hundreds of times, but I still discover new things.

I definitely feel the responsibility of this heirloom. It’s a reminder that it doesn’t take much to make people feel special and to create extraordinary experiences. As a child, I remember, Mymo and I would make chocolate-covered candied orange peels—in French we call them orangettes—to put on the table when we were playing cards. Even the snacks were important. They were catalysts for bringing people together. That thoughtfulness is partly what inspired me to start my nonalcoholic beverage company, Ghia. It’s so prevalent in these pages, and every time I use the book, it feels like a nod to Mymo and her emphasis on making special moments out of the mundane. She taught me that anything and everything can be celebrated.

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