She says her bread making journey started with a story from her mother.

Right around this time, 14 years ago, she called me and said that she went to someone's house for a Rosh Hashanah meal.

And it was a woman, and she had baked a challah that had a layer of honey inside.

And my mother asked the woman...

Hey, this is a wonderful thing.

How do you make it? And the woman was secretive of her recipe.

And she's like, this is a recipe I'm going to take with me to my grave.

out.

Mandy, tell us about this cookbook that you're working on, and what inspired you to start? Is there a story behind it?

Starting Mandylicious was honestly because, um, my-- I never made challah bread ever because I, it's not just-- Like, it's a delicious bread and it's braided, but there is a lot of, um, hoopla behind it 'cause it's, like, religiously, it's, like, the bread.

If you don't celebrate any aspect of Judaism, you sometimes will have, like, a challah at your wedding.

If you don't know anything about Judaism, you know, oh, challah bread is great French toast.

You know, so there's, like, a lot of power that challah has [laughs] over people.

So I think I was intimidated to even try, even though my mom made challah growing up.

She went to someone's house, and they served a challah that had, like, a layer of honey.

Mm-hmm.