Kathy grew up watching her grandmother make black sesame filling from scratch. Black sesame seeds, lard, sugar, and walnuts for tang yuan and steamed buns. It was the kind of food that didn't need explaining. It just tasted right.

Years later, a health scare in her twenties sent her back to that ingredient. What she found surprised her: something her family had cooked with for generations turned out to be one of the most nutritionally dense seeds in existence. Nobody had put it in a nut butter yet.

So she did.