Catherine Gigante-Brown

Wrinkles or lifelines? Chunky or curvaceous? The choice is yours.

erotic. intimate. unapologetic.

I left Cuba in 1949, when I was 11 years old. Back then, I didn't understand why my mother sent me away. I still don't.

I’m sure you’ll find it a delicious and well-stocked place. There are just a few rules

In the photograph, my great-grandmother, Margarita Cirigliano, is sitting at a small table on the front porch of the family home in Borough Park, Brooklyn.

Food can be more than nourishing; it can be healing.

TCM (traditional Chinese medicine) has been around for at least five centuries –– there’s got to be something to it.

" Sure enough, the doorbell rang one early June day and there she was: curvy, seductive body, smooth black skin, bright blue eyes."

I was 21 –– a Catholic, heterosexual college student, living at home in Brooklyn and still trying to discover who I was. At the crossroads of her life, Lorde knew exactly who she was. She was waging a war against cancer and sharing an old house in Staten Island with her kids and partner. But maybe we weren’t so different after all.

Being a little bit chubby is better than being a lot dead.