The Recipe Keeper | Episode 1 When Winter Came to Stay

In 1930s Chicago, widowed mother Essie Washington struggles to feed her four daughters after her husband's factory death. With rent overdue and cupboards bare, desperation threatens to tear their family apart. When Essie discovers a mysterious cookbook hidden in their tenement apartment—filled with recipes calling for ingredients like "hope" and "faith" alongside flour and sugar—she dismisses it as foolishness. But with eviction looming and no other options, she decides to try one recipe. What happens next challenges everything she believes about magic, miracles, and the power of a mother's love to transform the impossible into sustenance.