I’m from Washington, D.C.

It’s where I grew up. It’s where my parents still live. It’s where I fell in love with public radio, and it’s the city I now cover as a journalist.

It’s home.

But after all the time I’ve spent here, I’ve gotten used to answering one specific question that often follows my telling someone my last name is Martinez:

“Where are you from?”

Telling people that I’m from Washington is simple enough, sure. But answering where my family is from is where things get complicated. The best way to understand our story might be to sit at our dinner table and eat my mother’s mole.

It’s not easy to make a good mole, even though there are countless ways to do it. If you want to get a sense of what it takes to cook a good one, and what it can mean to a family, you should listen to a conversation my colleague Ruth Tam and I had with Pati Jinich last fall. Her passion for her mother’s cooking, and for the dish that’s been described as the “cornerstone of Mexican gastronomy,” will bring you to tears.

Over the years I’ve learned that if mole is anything, it’s a celebration.

Everyone in my family can handle this part, but we definitely lean on my mom, the least-Mexican person among us, to pull together the cooking. Mom grew up on Long Island in a family with German and Irish roots. She met my father, who grew up speaking English and Spanish in a city right next to the Mexican border in Texas, while they were working for the State Department here in D.C. They married and soon set off to travel the world together as Foreign Service officers, with stints in West Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

At some point during their assignment in Ivory Coast, my mom challenged herself to master the kind of mole my father loved in Laredo, Texas –a classic mole poblano. She not only won over my father with it, she had nearly all of Abidjan going crazy for it. One of the top judges in Ivory Coast once caught word that my mother was cooking mole and sent over a personal assistant to ask if he could claim the leftovers. I know how he feels.

My mom and I cooked mole together last fall, just a few days before Ruth and I talked with Pati. As we slowly combined all the ingredients that Sunday afternoon, from cinnamon, chiles, raisins and chocolate to tomatillos, onions and almonds, it occurred to me that making mole with my very un-Mexican mother made me feel more connected to that part of my family’s identity than anything else in my life. I never learned to speak Spanish, and I certainly don’t keep in touch with my relatives in Texas as well as I could. But a Mexican dish my German, Irish, Long Islander mother mastered while she was living in West Africa somehow cuts through all that.

I know my family’s not alone in this way.

Few things tell our stories –and this city’s story– as well as the food we share with those closest to us. That’s why I’m so excited that the Kojo Nnamdi Show will soon be hosting our very first live audience show for a food conversation. Pati will lead the way as our first guest.

We want to know about the dishes and recipes that make your homes and your neighborhoods what they are. We want to learn about the history of the immigrant communities that have shaped this region through the cuisines they brought here from other countries. And we want to do it with you. So we hope you can listen on Wednesday afternoon, and we hope you perk up your ears for opportunities to meet in person and talk about food in the days ahead.

Oh, and by the way, you don’t need wait to meet me in person to get my opinion about who makes the best mole in Washington. I can answer that right here: My mom.