Hey, it's Elise Hugh. You're listening to TED Talks Daily, and today's episode is going to make you hungry.

It's a talk from Baker and entrepreneur Christina Tozzi at TED Women 2021. Between the behind-the-scenes

stories of sumptuous cakes, cookies, and ice cream,

Tozi shares a resonant message about how breaking the rules and challenging your own assumptions can make for a sweet life.

Please stick around after for an expanded conversation between Christina and me on site at the conference.

It was a pleasure, and I hope you enjoy it.

My very first food memory was when I was three or four.

It was a warm day, and my mom had just picked me and my sister up from school,

buckled us into the back of her dusty blue Ford Taurus.

She was halfway out of the school parking lot when she pulled over to the side. She strangely reached for her purse that was resting on the

dashboard, started fishing around for something until she found it. Then she twisted around to us,

and she tore open a yellow paper bag of slightly melted sugar babies.

She poured a few of the pellets into each of our tiny hands. Now, I want to be clear, this was not a normal mom thing. This was breaking several rules. It was after a lunch, but before dinner. We were in the car.

We hadn't done anything spectacular to be celebrated. And sugar babies are, well, pure sugar.

I was so confused. But I was a kid, so I took the candy and I started chewing.

I felt like I had just been inducted into the coolest club possible.

The one that eats candy on a random Wednesday.

And then the world, it slowed down.

Everything faded.

And then everything sharpened. There's only one word for what I felt in that moment. Magic. Real magic. Now most people think that's kind of crazy. Three or four years old.

I don't remember anything about my childhood for years after that.

But I remember that day, I remember those sugar babies.

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