{"id":505213,"date":"2026-01-10T03:21:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:21:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505213\/"},"modified":"2026-01-10T03:21:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-10T03:21:10","slug":"philadelphia-photographer-cielito-mercado-vivas-creates-cookbook-preserving-immigrant-family-recipes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/505213\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia photographer Cielito Mercado Vivas creates cookbook preserving immigrant family recipes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao MvWXB TjIXL aGjvy ebVHC \">PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) &#8212; Drawing inspiration from stories of immigrants, family and food, Philadelphia photographer <a class=\"zZygg UbGlr iFzkS qdXbA WCDhQ DbOXS tqUtK GpWVU iJYzE \" data-testid=\"prism-linkbase\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cielitovivas.com\/familypreserves\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Cielito Mercado Vivas<\/a> has turned her lens toward the kitchen to create a new cookbook that aims to preserve cultural traditions.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Everyone has something favorite of their mom or dad, I know I did too,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Born to Filipino immigrant parents and raised in Andorra, Vivas is a professional photographer who shifted her focus from portraits to plates.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Her upcoming cookbook, &#8220;Family Preserves: Home Cooked Stories From Immigrant Kitchens,&#8221; features recipes and stories collected from 13 immigrant families across the country.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Murfreesboro, Tennessee, has one of the largest populations of people from Laos,&#8221; Vivas said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">Among the dishes featured is a Hong Kong-inspired chicken wing recipe that combines ketchup, honey and soy sauce for what Vivas describes as &#8220;this kind of crispy, sticky, sweet taste.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;Finding flavor that&#8217;s similar to what they know and love, it makes them feel comfort and happiness,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">The cookbook includes detailed measurements for recipes traditionally prepared by feel.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">&#8220;The funny thing is, a lot of parents don&#8217;t measure, so this was a way for us to calculate in order to document it,&#8221; Vivas said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"EkqkG IGXmU nlgHS yuUao lqtkC TjIXL aGjvy \">With a foreword by James Beard Award-winning chef Phila Lorn of Mawn and Sao, &#8220;Family Preserves&#8221; is scheduled for publication in October 2026.<\/p>\n<p>Copyright \u00a9 2026 WPVI-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (WPVI) &#8212; Drawing inspiration from stories of immigrants, family and food, Philadelphia photographer Cielito Mercado Vivas has&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":505214,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[226308,5229,1448,2830,1311,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-505213","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-226308","9":"tag-america","10":"tag-pa","11":"tag-pennsylvania","12":"tag-philadelphia","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-united-states-of-america","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","17":"tag-us","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115868656380244770","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}