May You die like Aunt Jane’s Mother: A Thanksgiving Story

May You die like Aunt Jane’s Mother: A Thanksgiving Story

Part of what attracted me to Korean and Chinese cultures was that their established hierarchy and obeisance to grown-up relatives resembled my family’s.  Any relative older than I was addressed by their well-earned title; great grandma, a quartet of grandparents, aunts, uncles and adult cousins.  The last group members were addressed as aunts or uncles.  My Aunt Jane, wife of mom’s cousin, Uncle Martin was lauded for her exotic cookery skills.  In our uber-diverse family, she was the only Sephardic Jew.  She brought with her an intoxicating cuisine; dinners of fresh sardines, shimmering in oil until crisp tender in an embrace of paprika, oregano, wine, cinnamon and citrus and desserts like Persian cream puffs, swollen with whip cream and robed in rose water and honey.

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