How do families who grew up around the kitchen table with something always simmering on the stove raise the dead? By summoning the spirit of a loved one in the steam rising from a boiling pot of pasta.

“I make lasagna using my Sicilian grandmother’s homemade sauce,” said Raquel Casalena Cosden, 37, of Ellicott City. “It’s passed down straight from Italy. She was the matriarch, and she died not long ago. It’s my tribute to her.”