My grandmother sparked my love affair with cooking. I used to sit in her small kitchen and watch her cut out round discs of biscuit dough, slice tomatoes while juice ran down her hand, stir pots of boiling beans, sift out flour to make a cake, and fry chicken. But something about the bacon that she fried to the end of its life and served on a plate covered with carefully folded paper towels to soak up the grease, I think that’s what started my love affair with cooking.