Hi, I'm Emma.

Sunday dinner was a big deal in my family. Nobody was allowed to skip it, and the best part was standing next to my grandmother while she pulled out a shoebox of handwritten recipe cards, half of them stained with butter. I never thought of it as learning to cook. It was just what we did.

The copycat obsession came later, mostly out of stubbornness. Eating out got expensive, and I got tired of paying restaurant prices for soup I was pretty sure I could figure out. My first attempt at a gnocchi soup was a soggy disaster. My second was better. By the sixth, I'd stopped writing 'good luck' in my notes and started writing down what actually worked. That notebook became this site.