Chapter 1

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DEDICATION

For everyone who knows that the best recipes come with a story.

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Maya found the recipe book on a rainy Saturday.

She was looking for crayons in the hall closet when a thick book fell off the top shelf and landed on her foot.

"Ow!" She picked it up.

It was old. The cover was soft brown leather, and the pages were yellow and wrinkled. Some pages had food stains on them — tomato sauce, chocolate, something green.

Rose Hassan was Maya's grandmother. Grandma Rose, who lived upstairs and made the most amazing food Maya had ever tasted.

Maya flipped through the pages. Each one had a recipe written in Grandma Rose's loopy handwriting. But the recipes weren't just ingredients and instructions. Under each one, Grandma Rose had written a story.

Maya sat in the closet and read for an hour. Each recipe was a person. Each person was a story. And each story was a piece of her family she'd never known.

She took the book upstairs to Grandma Rose's apartment and knocked on the door.

"Grandma, what is this?"

Grandma Rose's eyes went wide. "Oh, habibi. I thought I'd lost that years ago."

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Grandma Rose sat at her kitchen table and held the recipe book like it was made of gold.

"Every recipe in here came from someone I love," she said. "My mother, my aunties, my neighbors, my friends. Every time someone shared a recipe with me, I wrote it down — the recipe and the story behind it."

"Can we cook one?" Maya asked.

Grandma Rose flipped through the pages. "Let's start with this one. Your great-grandmother's rice pudding."

"My grandmother made this when anyone was sad," Grandma Rose said, measuring rice into a pot. "She said rice pudding can't fix your problems, but it can remind you that someone cares enough to cook for you."

Maya stirred the pot slowly, watching the milk turn creamy. The kitchen smelled sweet and warm.

"Grandma? Why did you stop writing in the book?"

Grandma Rose was quiet for a moment. "Life got busy. And then I forgot. And then I thought the book was lost."

"But there are blank pages in the back."

"I know."

"Can we fill them?"

Grandma Rose looked at Maya — at her granddaughter's eager face, her hands still holding the wooden spoon. She smiled.

"I think that's a wonderful idea."

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The next day, Maya knocked on the door of their neighbor, Mrs. Kim.

"Mrs. Kim? Can you teach me a recipe?"

Mrs. Kim blinked. "A recipe? What kind?"

"Your favorite one. The one with a story."

Mrs. Kim's face softened. "Come in, dear."

Her kitchen smelled like sesame oil and garlic. On the counter, she had glass noodles soaking in water, and vegetables cut into thin strips.

"This is japchae," Mrs. Kim said. "My mother taught me when I was your age. In Korea, we make it for celebrations — birthdays, holidays, family gatherings."

She showed Maya how to cook the noodles, stir-fry the vegetables, and toss everything in soy sauce and sesame oil. Maya watched carefully.

"My mother always said that the noodles represent a long and happy life," Mrs. Kim said. "The colors of the vegetables — red, green, orange, white — represent harmony. When you eat japchae, you're eating a wish for happiness."

Maya wrote everything down in Grandma Rose's book — the recipe and the story, in her neatest handwriting.

"Thank you, Mrs. Kim."

"Thank you, Maya. Nobody has asked me for this recipe in a long time. It felt good to share it."

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Mr. Okafor lived on the third floor and always had music playing.

"Jollof rice!" he said when Maya asked for a recipe. "The king of all dishes. Come, come, I will show you."

His kitchen was the loudest kitchen Maya had ever been in. Afrobeat music played from a speaker. Pots clanged. Oil sizzled. Mr. Okafor danced between the stove and the counter, tasting everything with a wooden spoon.

"In Nigeria, everyone argues about jollof rice," he said, laughing. "Who makes it best? Nigeria or Ghana? My mother said Nigeria, obviously. My wife said Ghana. They argued about it for twenty years."

"Who won?"

"Nobody! That is the point. Jollof rice is not about winning. It is about gathering people together to eat and argue and laugh. My mother's recipe is special because she added a little bit of smoked fish at the end — her secret. She said it was the taste of Lagos."

The rice was orange-red and smelled like tomatoes and spices and something smoky. Maya's mouth watered before it was even done.

"Can I really put this in the book?"

"Of course! My mother would be honored. She always said food is meant to be shared, not hoarded."

Maya wrote the recipe carefully, including the part about the smoked fish and the twenty-year argument.

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Ms. Reyes ran the laundromat on the corner. She was small and quiet, and Maya had never really talked to her before.

"Tamales?" Ms. Reyes said softly. "You want to learn tamales?"

"If you'd share the recipe."

Ms. Reyes was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "Come to my kitchen on Saturday morning. Tamales take all day."

"In my family," Ms. Reyes said, spreading masa onto a husk, "tamales are not something one person makes alone. My mother, my aunties, my cousins, my grandmother — we all gathered in the kitchen together. Twenty women, talking and laughing and rolling tamales."

Her voice got soft. "I have not made tamales since I moved here. Three years ago. There was no one to make them with."

Maya picked up a corn husk. "I'm here."

Ms. Reyes looked at her. Then she laughed — a real, full laugh that filled the kitchen.

"Yes," she said. "You are here."

She showed Maya how to spread the dough, how to add the filling, how to fold and tie the husk. Maya's first tamale looked like a lumpy sock. Her second was better. Her tenth was almost good.

They made forty tamales. It took five hours.

"That's the longest I've ever cooked anything," Maya said.

"That's the happiest I've been in this kitchen," said Ms. Reyes.

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Word spread.

After Maya collected Mrs. Kim's japchae, Mr. Okafor's jollof rice, and Ms. Reyes's tamales, other neighbors started knocking on Grandma Rose's door.

"I heard Maya is collecting recipes," said Mr. Petrov from the fourth floor. "I have my grandmother's borscht. The best in all of Ukraine."

"My naan recipe goes back four generations," said Mrs. Singh from 2B. "It comes from a village near Amritsar."

"I make the best mac and cheese in this building," said old Mr. Thomas from the ground floor. "My mama's recipe. Don't let anyone tell you mac and cheese isn't heritage food. My family's been making it since before the Civil War."

One by one, Maya visited each kitchen. She watched, she helped, she tasted, and she wrote down every recipe and every story.

The recipe book filled up. Grandma Rose's loopy handwriting was joined by Maya's rounder, more careful letters. By May, they had added twenty-three new recipes from twelve different countries.

Persian rice pudding. Korean japchae. Nigerian jollof rice. Mexican tamales. Ukrainian borscht. Indian naan. American mac and cheese. Filipino adobo. Ethiopian injera. Jamaican rice and peas. Syrian kibbeh. Chinese dumplings.

"It's a whole world in one book," Maya said, flipping through the pages.

"It's a whole world in one building," said Grandma Rose.

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Maya had one more idea.

"What if everyone cooked their recipe — all on the same night — and we had a big dinner in the lobby?"

The building manager, Mr. Weston, was skeptical. "The lobby? With all that food?"

"We'll cover the floor. We'll clean up. Please?"

He looked at her face. "Fine. One night."

The dinner happened on a warm Saturday in June. Every family brought their dish. The lobby tables groaned under the weight of food from twelve countries — steaming pots and colorful plates and baskets of bread and bowls of soup and platters of rice in every color.

Mrs. Kim set her japchae next to Mr. Okafor's jollof rice. Ms. Reyes's tamales sat beside Mrs. Singh's naan. Mr. Petrov's borscht steamed next to Mr. Thomas's mac and cheese.

And at the center of it all, Grandma Rose placed her mother's rice pudding.

People who'd lived in the same building for years and never spoken sat together and ate. Mr. Okafor tasted borscht for the first time. Ms. Reyes tried japchae and asked for seconds. Mr. Thomas declared Ms. Reyes's tamales "the best thing that's happened to this building in thirty years."

Kids ran between the tables, trying everything. Maya's little cousin ate so much naan he fell asleep under a table.

Grandma Rose sat in a folding chair and watched it all. Maya sat next to her.

"You know what's funny?" Grandma Rose said. "Every recipe in that book is different. Different ingredients, different spices, different techniques. But they all do the same thing."

"What?"

"They bring people together."

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At the end of the summer, Maya opened the recipe book to the very last blank page.

She'd filled twenty-three pages with new recipes. But this last page wasn't for a recipe from a neighbor.

She picked up her pen.

"Maya's Recipe for a Good Neighborhood," she wrote.

- 1 building full of different people - 12 kitchens from 12 countries - 1 old recipe book - A lot of curiosity - Patience (stir slowly and never rush) - The courage to knock on a door

1. Find out who lives around you. 2. Ask them to share something. 3. Listen to their story. 4. Cook together. 5. Eat together. 6. Write it down so nobody forgets.

She closed the book and put it on the shelf — not the hall closet this time, but the kitchen shelf, right where everyone could see it. Right where the next person who needed it would find it.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Crimson Ark Publishing publishes fiction for readers of all ages, drawing on the spiritual principles and rich cultural heritage of the Bahá'í Faith. Our stories explore themes of unity, justice, courage, and the transformative power of love — through characters and communities that reflect the beautiful diversity of the human family. Every book is an invitation to see the world not only as it is, but as it could be.

Visit us at crimsonarkpublishing.com