In assimilation, food is always the holdout.

When I think of my grandmother Diva, the first image my mind calls up - before the long, black bobby pins resembling spiders' legs that she left around the house, before the hiss of the pump she ritually cuffed around her upper arm to check her blood pressure - is one of her in the kitchen, sleeves rolled, brows knit in focus. There are squeezed lemon halves littered across the countertop, washed herbs swaddled in a dish towel, and she is working her magic on an eggplant. She slathers it in oil, and when she later pulls it from the oven, the gentlest scrape of her fork brings it sloughing out of its skin in a rush of steam. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]