Hi there. I'm Deb Perlman, creator and mastermind behind Smitten Kitchen and the author of three

cookbooks. And I'm Kenji Lopez Alt. You might know me from Serious Eats, the Food Lab, and

the Walk.

We're both professional home cooks,

which means that we create and test recipes

obsessing over them until they're just right.

And on our new podcast, The Recipe with Kenji and Deb,

we'll share our techniques and

ingredients so that you can learn everything you need to create your own perfect

recipes. From Radiotopia from PRX. It's the recipe with Kenji and Deb.

Out now on your favorite podcast platform.

Welcome to the Moth Podcast. I'm Kate Teller's, senior senior director and your host for this episode.

My mom was one of six siblings descendants of Lebanese immigrants who landed in Erie

Pennsylvania a few years after their mother, Myona, died, the siblings decided to get

together in my uncle's backyard for a weekend spent cooking and sharing the food they had been

raised on. On a whim at the last minute,

my aunt printed t-shirts,

and, as with most things in my family,

things escalated quickly.

And now, Lebfest is a decades old annual tradition whose ever expanding guest list includes

extended family, friends, neighbors, and hundreds of cloves of garlic.

More than once, we've needed to rent a tent. Our core menu is

...