Trail of Crumbs

At a South Korean marketplace, three-year-old Kim Sunee's mother deposits her on a bench with a fistful of food and a promise to return. Three days later, a policeman takes the little girl and what is now a fistful of crumbs to a police station, where she learns that her mother isn't coming back. From here, her extraordinary life journey begins. Adopted by a young New Orleans couple, Kim spends her youth as one of only two Asian children in her entire school and church. At the age of 21, she becomes involved with a famous French businessman, and suddenly finds herself living in France, mistress over his houses and stepmother to his eight-year-old daughter.But despite this glamorous lifestyle, Kim feels like an outsider, and it is in food and cooking that she finds solace and a sense of place.

Kim Sun+¬e is the founding food editor of Cottage Living. She was born in South Korea and adopted and raised in New Orleans, and lived in Europe for ten years. She now resides in Birmingham, Alabama.