Printer friendly format - Hungry for Home

By Kim Sunée

Hungry for Home

Kim Sunée, constant traveler and our founding food editor, shares the exotic flavors of her newly released memoir, Trail of Crumbs.

All my life I've been searching for a place to call home. I was abandoned at a marketplace in South Korea and adopted by an American couple at the approximate age of 3. My search has taken me to live in New Orleans, Stockholm, Paris, and Provence and to travel around the world, at each stop learning to eat like the locals and having them share recipes for favorite meals that comfort and always remind them of home.

In some ways, it's ironic that I'm now the food editor of a magazine that has helped so many feel at home wherever they are. I am most at home in the kitchen, cooking something that I can share with others. So for my first book, Trail of Crumbs, a memoir about my adoption and travels, my new family at Cottage Living helped celebrate the publication. Our talented style editor, Heather Chadduck, pulled together this wonderful lunch of recipes from my book. In the end, the hunger for home and friendship may be the most important hunger of all to feed and nourish.

photography: Rick Lew

Trail of Crumbs: Hunger, Love, and the Search for Home by Kim Sunée
(Grand Central Publishing, 2008), $24.99; hachettebookgroupusa.com for info and retailers. Recipes reprinted with permission from Grand Central Publishing.

Recipes

Croque-Madame with mornay sauce

Notes from Kim's Recipe Journal
This is one of my first food memories of Paris when I was 18 and discovering French café fare. It's basically a really decadent ham-and-cheese sandwich with an egg on top, which elevates it from a Monsieur to a Madame. If you prefer, substitute thin slices of grilled chicken for the ham. I like my egg sunny-side up so I can swirl the cheese sauce into the warm yolk, but try yours over easy if you prefer. I usually prepare the Mornay Sauce in a nonstick saucepan, which makes for easy cleanup.

photography: Rick Lew
"Creamy egg yolk mixes with rich Mornay Sauce in this classic Croque-Madame," says Kim. "It transports me to my favorite French caf[SPECIAL_CHAR "233"]s."

More Recipes from Kim's book
Orange Couscous Salad
Almond-Saffron Cake