I can clearly recall growing up and going to my grandma’s house for holidays, birthdays, weekend barbecues, and weekday dinners. Like everyone’s grandma, mine is the best cook in the family. You can’t enter the house without eating something, and you can’t leave without taking home some leftovers.

And as I grow up and see movies like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and have holiday meals with other people’s families, I’ve realized all grandmas are the same - Italian, Jewish, Greek, Persian, Mexican. Grandmothers everywhere derive some sort of sick pride and happiness when you eat their food. The greatest insult you could ever give a grandmother is to not eat her food. And you can never eat enough, in her eyes. You could have just eaten an entire cow and she’d still insist you can have another plate followed by homemade pie (”After all,” she’d say, “I made it special for you. I know it’s your favorite”). And so you just eat it. So the irony is, she feeds you and feeds you and then if you get fat, she’ll probably tell you to lose a few pounds, while still insisting you finish seconds and thirds.

The stubbornness that mothers and grandmothers alike have that allow them to be so unhappy if you don’t eat their food is something I will never understand. For my mother, my grandmother and any future mother-in-law, all I can do is just pretend to be hungry and that their food is the best in the world. No questions asked. Just finish everything on your plate, even if it feels like you’re going to puke. She’d be happier if you did; you’d eat more.