Thirty-three funny and heartwarming stories. A few snippets to whet the appetite.

Home Cooking

“There was the time my grandmother nearly killed my entire family. She took a half-cooked brisket to Brooklyn for my cousin Matthew’s bris. It was an hour ride from The Bronx on an un-air-conditioned subway. Her plan was to finish cooking the brisket when she got there. Science had other ideas. It nearly wiped out three generations of our family in a single July afternoon.”

My Bar Mitzvah

“Today I am a man,” I said in a vocal range that ran from high alto to low baritone. All within the same sentence. I had a little peach fuzz above my upper lip. And my puberty hormones left me with a perpetual boner."

"I fell in love with my wife at a whore-house in Vieques. I should explain."

The Hooks Are in the Back, Stupid

"I was still just a boy. A couple of years past my bar mitzvah. With a girl on a fast track into womanhood. I was way over my head."

The Flash

"I donned my uncle Morris' silk, smoking jacket. It had an Asian design on it. My mother attached the Ponytail from one of my sister's dolls to a black Yarmulke. With an eyebrow pencil, she drew a Fu Man Chu mustache on me. Viola! I was Chinese. Though I probably looked like a cross between Bonanza's Hop Sing and a confused Tallmud student. Political correctness did not exist in the 1950s."