Thank you Peter, Melisande and Sara and all the incredible team for your expertise, kindness and support. See you in New York soon, for the next chapter.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been filming with Zimbabwean Sephardic cookbook author Stella Hanan Cohen, making a documentary about the always delicious and sometimes tragic story of her life, family, and community.

Stella’s extended family died at Auschwitz after the Nazis deported almost the entire Jewish population of Rhodes on a single day in 1944.

Stella’s parents were among the lucky few who started a new life in Africa. They found each other in the Congo and eventually settled in Zimbabwe. They worked hard to build a new community, but that community disappeared as well. Today, the two synagogues in Harare, Zimbabwe struggle to form a minyan.

Stella preserves Sephardic and Rodesli (aka Rhodian) traditions through her food, art, and memory. Just this morning, we filmed her reading someone’s fortune in the grounds of a Turkish coffee!

The story has taken us to Harare and Rhodes and next to Athens and New York. We’ve visited too many cemeteries and eaten too many pastries. Along the way, she has revisited joyful and painful memories, and she made some surprising discoveries about her family (you will have to watch the film to find out).

I know that many of you are already fans of Stella. Stay tuned for updates on the project. And enjoy a few stills below in the meantime.

I’ve been joined by an incredible crew: Producer/Historian Sara Byala , Cinematographer Melisande Brie McLaughlin, Local Producers Kenny Letshesa Takalo and Vikki Richardson, and an extra great group of Penn student fellows (Penn Global Documentary Institute), (Stella's Cookbook).