"Imagine a New York City apartment at six in the morning. ... Coffee is bubbling in an electric percolator. On the table is a basket of rye bread, an entire coffee cake, a few cheeses, a platter of cold cuts. My mother has been making breakfast -- a major meal in our house ... . 'Darling,' she says, 'I need you. Get up and come into the kitchen.' My father, a sweet and accommodating person, shuffles sleepily down the hall. ... He leans against the sink, holding on to it a little, and obediently opens his mouth when my mother says, 'Try this.'
"Later, when he told the story, he attempted to convey the awfulness of what she had given him. The first time he said that it tasted like cat toes and rotted barley, but over the years the description got better. Two years later it turned into pigs snouts and mud and five years later he had refined the flavor into a mixture of antique anchovies and moldy chocolate. Whatever it tasted like, he said it was the worst thing he had ever had in his mouth, so terrible that is was impossible to swallow, so terrible that he leaned over and spit it into the sink and then grabbed the coffeepot, put the spout into his mouth, and tried to eradicate the flavor. My mother stood there watching all this. When my father finally put the coffeepot down she smiled and said, 'Just as I thought. Spoiled.'"
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