About

A love note from the founder, Abby: 

The Food Stories dream began with an idea to gather people around something simple and sacred: a shared meal. I pictured a long, lived-in table scattered with imperfect ceramics made by friends. Wax-dripped candles. Bowls passed from hand to hand. Family style. The kind of night where the air is warm and gentle, ripe with love, fizzy with new connections, an abundance of food, drinks, and good questions. 

Tucked between glasses and serving spoons, I imagined little food-themed conversation cards. Not about recipes, but about memory, meaning, emotion, home, and culture. The beginning of Food Stories was born.

This deck holds many things for me: it’s part invitation, part offering, and part personal reckoning. At its heart is a commitment that a portion of proceeds will go toward Food Justice organizations working to ensure everyone has access to nutritious, affordable, culturally appropriate food. 

In addition to giving back to organizations that are doing important work in the realm of food sovereignty, here are a few more reasons why I'm deeply invested in bringing Food Stories into the world. 

We're deeply hungry for connection.

In a world that lives hunched behind screens, we crave something to feed our spirits, yet we often drink from wells that don't feed us. I created Food Stories as a tool to help us slow down, soften, and truly listen to one another. The questions are playful, vulnerable, varied, and even a bit sexy, designed to help us meet one another beyond small talk. You’ll quickly find you’re never really just talking about food.

This deck is something I wish I had during the years I spent traveling to 19 countries between 2018 and now.

 
My most treasured memories live around kitchen tables, over bowls of soup, beside fires, or humming while something simmered on the stove. I’ve shared meals with strangers and friends in hostels and tents, on couches and floors all over the world. Waking up bed-headed and bleary-eyed to be offered a cup of coffee and something to eat restores my faith in humanity a little each time it happens. I believe that when we break bread with others, we heal the world a little.

 
Our relationship to food is a living thing.

For me, food has meant comfort, shame, celebration, stress, healing, and control. Some chapters I do not wish to return to. Others I hold close. I’ll never forget being 24, alone in Oaxaca, sitting in the sun with fresh figs, tamales mole, and nopales. The colors. The smells. The language of the market. That meal brought me home to myself after a long silence and reminded me that joyous eating can live in my body again.

 

This is an ode to those who serve and feed.

To everyone who’s worked in kitchens or restaurants, who’s packed a lunchbox, stirred a pot, or learned to make a family recipe to preserve the depth of their lineage.

My dad owned a barbecue restaurant for 45 years. I grew up surrounded by the rhythm of food, bluegrass, and the scent of slow-cooked meat over applewood smoke. Summers meant riding in a noisy catering van painted with dancing pigs through the rolling green hills of Appalachia, hauling trays into weddings, reunions, funerals, polka parties, and football games. I learned to feed people with care. To be kind. To think creatively. To tend to little details. I carry that spirit into this project.

 

And lastly, this is for you.

You have stories to tell. We all do. And they matter more than we often let ourselves believe! Sometimes, a single story shared at a table can change everything: it can spark connection, soften grief, make someone feel less alone. Food Stories is a prompt, an invitation, a mirror. It's a reminder that what we carry and what we share has weight and beauty. I'm grateful for many teachers like Gina Rae La Cerva, who reminded me of this during her Food Memoir Writing workshop in the fall of 2024.

My dream for this deck is that it becomes part of your most treasured memories: a warm dinner gathering, a lingering lunch, a hot date, a travel adventure, or a quiet moment of self-reflection. Whether played solo or with others, I want these cards to be well-loved, stained with curry, oil, or wine. I want them to remind you of times you found connection and nourishment in a world that often leaves us hungry and isolated. 

I can't wait to hear your Food Stories. 

Big love,
Abby