Becky Cooper was born in New York and has been cooking and traveling, stomach-first, ever since: to Japan’s Tsukiji fish market, to Galicia’s best pulperia, and to the tiny Italian town of Città Della Pieve where she trained as a dessert chef. After graduating from Harvard in 2010, she moved to Paris. By day she was a legal assistant, and by night–with the guidance of her friend, Verjus chef Alessandro Candido–she discovered the best Paris had to offer, like the dairy farm 17km outside the city and the unbelievable caramel éclairs at Jacques Genin. She guest-cooked in David Lynch’s Club Silencio, and she hosted a weekly Fat Tuesday dinner series. Now, back in NY, she’s excited to share all she’s learned.

And, a few words from Becky:

I’ve always been an eater. My first Thanksgiving, I was cheek-deep in a turkey drumstick, gumming my way through the thing, lack of teeth be damned. But you would be, too, if you grew up in my family. I joke that my parents married because my dad’s side loves Chinese food and my mom’s side is full of great Chinese cooks–but I’m not really exaggerating. My mother can smell water boiling.

Food is more than fuel for me. It’s the way I remember a place, the way I make my friends feel at home, the way I organize my memories. I started to cook because I wanted to be able to relive those memories or create them for someone else. All these recipes are stories: vanilla ice cream with sea salt and olive oil is San Francisco; the steak sandwiches are a friend’s house in Florida. And like any good story, they’re made to share.