"I'm an island girl who grew up surrounded by bursts of colors. Even the sounds of my childhood exploded with colors. I spent my youth wrapped in the blanket of the melodies that my mother and her sisters, their mother and her mother, created as they bustled about, mothering, caretaking, cajoling, threatening, crying, laughing, shrieking, singing, cooking, praying, hoping and teaching. Their voices, raised or whispered, radiated green lushness, fire hot reds, golden yellows, cool shades of blues, and in their most fearsome moments, deep black. My memories shimmer in colors, and all of the colors radiate from those women in my life, and nestled at the heart was always a plate of food, then and now. ... Remember the Rain that Made your Corn Grow (Part 1: Gumbo) "