Loaned by Lenora LaMarche

“There is a Sephardic custom where women serve sweets to visitors. They put the sweets in a serving bowl-a kucharéra-which is a round, highly decorative silver bowl that has the spaces for the spoons and forks. When someone would come to visit they would take out a tray of the sweets and they would put in the silverware and the glasses of water and serve to the people. And each guest would take a spoonful of the preserve and then a glass of water, and they would express a blessing for the bride or groom or someone that had just had a baby.

“I remember one time one of our schoolteachers came over to visit. And my mother immediately took out the silver tray and the bowl of charope or preserve, and the glasses of water and the container for the forks and spoons, and served it to the teacher. And the teacher took the bowl in her hand thinking that the whole bowl was for her. And she ate three or four spoonfuls and then she said, ‘Do you mind very much if I don't eat the whole thing? I think it's a little too much for me.’ And so my mother said, ‘It's all right. It's all right.’ She didn't embarrass the teacher.”