Many sweets—including the Stout Gingerbread, the Chocolate Chip Cookies, and Mamá Carmelita’s Flan—remind me of the incredible baking my auntie would do for birthday parties when I was growing up. Birthdays were when you killed the goat and cooked it in a big fire outside, a giant pot, making curry goat, mannish water, because the party wasn’t just for the children, it was for the community. But then auntie brought out the cakes and other sweets she had baked. Talk about coconutiness.

I think my favorite is the Stout Gingerbread. One cup of Guinness helps make it delicious. A stout has more of the hops and B vitamins than a regular beer. It’s important to get those vitamins in there, you know? That’s what the Guinness is for, because I don’t have no real need to drink beer. My body does not ask me for beer. Alcohol in general, I’m not curious or nothing. My culture is very deeply embedded in me, and we don’t believe in alcohol so much.

But when the gingerbread is asking for the stout, that’s another story. Sometimes the stories food tells are the best.