Kain Tayo! (Let's Eat!)

“Kain tayo!” means Let’s Eat! It is a phrase of generosity and celebration. It is an invitation to not only eat, but share a culture, a history, and lifestyle. This book documents the recipes and voices of generations before me. It is an heirloom of nurture, nourishment, and the passing of cooking as a love language. Each page is needle felted to illustrate the ingredients needed to create a Filipino dish that I grew up with, along with a pocket on the backside that includes letterpress printed instructions on how to prepare it through the voice of my Mom and Lola. As these books were constructed, I thought about the similar processes of cooking to printmaking. Gathering and preparing ingredients mimic gathering material and creating sketches. Slow cooking is similar to tediously setting type, felting, and printing. Then, finally plating the food is like binding it all together. I wanted to capture not only the warmth of eating this food, but the ritual of making it.

Kain Tayo! (Let’s Eat!) have been displayed in:
K for Kapwa SOMArts - December 2022
Tending Gardens/Fertile Grounds at Root Division Gallery - April 2023
Moving / Transfer - تنقیل at Pearlman Gallery, Pique Gallery, and Gazala Project - October-January 2023/2024
Family Affair at Wave Collective - April 2024