Launching this August!
Cooking Across Generations, hosted by museum Executive Director Laura Rafaty, featuring Victoria Wyeth cooking up her grandmother Betsy Wyeth's chocolate chip cookie recipe, and sharing fun, entertaining and insightful personal stories about growing up in the world of the Wyeths.
Cooking Across Generations: The Series
This live event series from the Napa Valley Museum of Art & Culture (The MAC) and Napa Valley Museum Yountville (NVMY) —captured on video— celebrates cooking across generations and the dishes that are literally made from memories. It explores how heirloom recipes, passed lovingly down through time, help preserve family history and reflect deeply rooted identity. The program emphasizes the shared act of cooking: a grandparent teaching a grandchild to recreate a cherished dish; friends exchanging family recipes that reveal who they are and where they came from; or a parent recalling an ancestor whose personality and passion come alive through their flavors and techniques.
The series focuses on families of all kinds. We are starting with some artistic families - names like Wyeth, Eames and Disney, tossing in some iconic Northern California chefs, and spicing things up with accomplished home cooks, all sharing their favorite family dishes. Because childhood food memories are both powerful and universal, the program is designed to resonate with home cooks and anyone curious about the personal histories of these chefs or the culinary traditions they represent. The dishes will often feature local ingredients, offering fresh insight into a region’s character and culinary landscape. Recipes and more information about the guests will be available on the website.
The concept was inspired by the Museum’s exhibition Julia Child: A Recipe for Life, which revealed how Julia’s influence continues to ripple across generations. Many visitors shared that their mother or grandmother had learned to cook by watching Julia on television—and that they, in turn, learned from those family members. Even decades after her passing, Julia Child remains part of countless family kitchens, where the act of cooking is not only a daily ritual but also a living link across time. This cooking demonstration series, like the” Julia” exhibition, will connect deeply personal experiences to a broader cultural legacy, reminding us that at the intersection of cooking and memory lies the story of who we are.
Our Sponsors
The series is sponsored by the Kuo Family Fund.
The Kuo family’s ancestry can be traced back to the Tang dynasty’s famed military general Kuo Tzu-i (697-781). The Kuo Family Fund is established in honor of the Kuo family's legacy and its support for programs driving positive community impact. The Kuo Family Fund makes grants to support community and cultural programs, liberal arts education scholarships, and local non-profit wellness initiatives in the San Francisco Bay Area. 
