A FAMILY OF SPICES
Just like the spices in a honey cake, a blend of ethnicities adds flavour to life
Iwas born in Georgia, U.S.S.R, and came to Canada when I was four years old. My husband Esfandiar was born in Iran and immigrated to Canada in 1987. Our children, Shanaz and Jean-diar, each have a partner in life (Brandon and Reilly respectively) with diverse ethnic backgrounds. My husband and I are proud grandparents as our daughter Shanaz and Brandon welcomed our first grandchild on March 2; his name is Lukenzo Kal Correia. Our beautiful little “Luka” has a mix of Georgian, Persian, Jamaican and Guyanese heritage. To me, this unique blend is a perfect recipe, and it’s the reason I was inspired to write my first-ever children’s book series, Honeycake: A Family of Spices, based on my own family and our diverse ethnic backgrounds. When I left the corporate world to become a Reiki master, I never looked back. Reiki is often described as an alternative medicine in which a “universal energy” is said to be transferred through the palms of the practitioner to the patient to encourage emotional or physical healing. I knew that this was what I was put on Earth to do. Because of my Reiki training, I am committed to my personal growth, healing and living my best life; and to inspiring others to do the same. This is what I teach my clients on a daily basis. So, transitioning into becoming a writer and sharing the same lessons and tools with children was seamless for me. My books and my career change were not planned; the universe showed me the way, so I had to follow my instinct, and I’m so glad I did. I feel like a
totally dierent person and I see things in such a dierent way.
The fact that I have no formal training as a writer didn’t stop me from trying. I always wanted to write my biography someday, later down the road, because I’ve had so many experiences in my life. But I never had any intention of writing anything else, especially not a children’s book series. But the universe sent me a sign, and the messages were in me to share, and they simply had to come out. I wrote five books in four days—i simply could not stop.
I was inspired to write these books when my daughter Shanaz became pregnant and I realized that I was going to become a grandmother. In honour of my own grandmother, I decided to bake a honey cake—a traditional Jewish cake from my native Georgia, which is typically baked for Rosh Hashanah and other special celebrations. It was a full-circle moment for me because my “Bebi” taught me how to make a honey cake when I was a young girl.
LIFE LESSONS The connection between the cake and my grandchild-to-be lay in the mix of different spices, which I realized was much like the mix of dierent ethnicities in my family. There are all these dierent spices in a honey cake, like cinnamon, cloves and nutmeg, and here is my grandson with all these dierent mixes of ethnicities. As I was baking, I realized that he was going to be my “Little Honeycake,” which gave me the idea of the name for the series.
In my first installment of the series, the grandmother (the literary version of myself ) explains why she calls her grandchildren “Honeycakes” while she teaches the fictional character Nala how to bake a
honey cake. Through imagination, the grandmother details how each delicious ingredient represents a di erent family member and his or her unique ethnic background.
The first book is a story about acceptance and celebrating the backgrounds that make us unique. Like the spices in a honey cake, our di erent flavours blend together to create the single beautiful entity that is humanity. At the end of the book, there is a recipe for readers to follow so they can make their own honey cake. This book has many di erent meanings, but above all, I view it as a recipe for life, because it teaches all about diversity and multiculturalism. The main message of the book is that it doesn’t matter where you come from or what colour your skin is—we are all a part of one race, and that’s the human race. We are all one!
The rest of the books in the series focus on di erent messages as taught to Nala by di erent family members. For example, the second installment is called Honeycake: Help, I Swallowed a Butterfly. It’s all about how to deal with anxiety. Nala is at school, and she’s nervous about presenting in front of the class. The teacher assures her that she just has butterflies in her tummy. But because she’s a young girl, Nala doesn’t understand what that means, so she runs home and tells her mom that she’s swallowed a butterfly. Through this anecdote, my second book teaches children the first steps of meditation and breathing exercises, and how to visualize positive outcomes. The remaining books in the Honeycake series teach kindness, trust and gratitude.
The biggest challenge I had to face when writing these books was fear, the fear of failing to be precise. Thankfully, my books have been welcomed with open arms and I’ve received such positive feedback. I’m beyond grateful and so happy to see that my positive messages are making an impact.
The one piece of advice I have to o er to new writers is to be passionate about what you’re writing, and be authentic and true to yourself. After all, isn’t that what we all should be striving for in life?