The Kitchen God's Wife [antikvár]

THE SHOP OF THE GODS Whenever my mother talks to me, she begins the conversation as if we were already in the middle of an j argument. ' "Pearl-ah, have to go, no choice," my mother said when she phoned last week. After several minutes I ! learned the reason for her call: Auntie Helen was in- f viting the whole family to my cousin Bao-bao's en- ¦ gagement party. : "The whole family" means the Kwongs and the Louies. The Kwongs are Auntie Helen, Uncle Henry, Mary, Frank, and Bao-bao. And these days "the I Louies" really refers only to my mother and me, since my father is dead and my brother, Samuel, lives in | New Jersey. We've been known as "the whole family" for as long as I can remember, even though the Kwongs aren't related to us by blood, just by marriage; Auntie Helen's first husband was my mother's brother, who died long before I was born. And then there's my cousin Bao-bao, whose real name is Roger. Everyone in the family has been call- 3