Brian Lear on WNYC and it's the holiday season and while we've talked a lot about

gathering, conversing about hard topics and preparing gifts for our loved ones

something missing from this conversation here so far is food.

After all, what would a holiday celebration be without a table full of familiar foods cooked

by the people we love the most, right?

Here at WNYC, our community partnership's desk

has been out and about collecting food memoirs

from New Yorkers as part of the Queen's Memory Project.

Take a listen to one of these food memoirs

that aired on Morning Edition earlier this month.

This is about two minutes long.

My name is Lisa Wade and I live in Addisley Park, Queens. The

recipe that sticks out for me is salmon croquettes or salmon cakes depending on

where you're from. It was a breakfast like a

Sunday morning breakfast that we would have my great-grandmother would make for

me and especially with grits. It was the best thing ever. We're from Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina.

So I share that love of rice.

What floods back for me, that memory is me sitting in our dining room on a Sunday before church, so she made it very early,

and gobbling it up and just think about how good it is because it's usually very

crispy and I like the crispiness of the salmon cakes. My great-grandmother

died when I was 11, no no 15 and she was particular about not sharing the recipe

with me because she was a cook and she wanted me

...