I made this dish for the first time today. I am Asian, my husband is Haitian and I wanted to do this for him I'm glad I did bc it was very nostalgic and comforting. I surfed the web for different recipes and this seemed similar to my mother-in-laws whenever I'd peek at what she was doing and eat it. The soup joumou was delicious, hearty and flavorful. I made the Epis but used Italian parsley bc that's all the store had. I could tell the flavor prob wasn't exactly how it should be but it still worked. I minimally deviated from the recipe. Changes I made were no turnips and I used a cherry pepper bc the Whole Foods had no habaneros. I took the seeds out (was scared too spicy for my toddlers) . I speared the cloves into the halved pieces of habaneros so they wouldn't get lost. Bc of what was available at the store, I had about 2lbs of stew meat and 1 lb of shank that ended up being mainly bone. My meat marinated overnight. And I used more rigatoni.. total about half of the package (they're big lol). 1 cup was like 7 pieces of rigatoni. After the last simmer advised for 15-20 min, it tasted good but my husband said the meat and vegetables, particularly the celery needed to cook more and be softer. I prob let it simmer on low for about 10 more minutes but I covered the pot also so I wouldn't loose as much liquid; it didn't need much more reduction. The food was very tender at that point. I ate it with toasted sourdough bread. Delicious! 1 improvement I'll make next time is making sure my squash is more ripe (I used butternut) and maybe mixing with another type of squash. Thank you for the recipe! I'm officially a Haitian