Lily Eats

1.

"A family who has at least two kinds of whole, cooked garlic--garlic to be eaten as its own food."

(That's amore).  A family, which is where people go to eat and join and die, though I've heard some people go abroad for that.  For this one in particular: plump noses, and silent r's brought for the holidays from Boston, Antoinette (An-tone-ette) the Matriarch, the Oma and Bestemama, nervously stacking plates and emptying cans and looking for more bread.  It's not even her house, but when you get to be so old, who can sit still?  And who can move very much?

2.

There are three different constitutions, I told my father--and I'm Pitta, and bitter foods are good for me, and (tears in my eyes, now) I'm supposed to avoid garlic.  His eyes snapped to, "Eat as much garlic as you want," the authority and desperation of a general under siege on his own soil.  Or maybe, "Eat as much garlic as you can."