One year ago, three weeks before Passover, my mother lay dying in her bedroom. An intense whirlwind of a woman, a judge and a chef and the convener of her large extended family, she had been reduced by pain drugs, not sleeping and not eating, to a wisp who barely spoke and shuffled along the plush carpet and polished wooden floors. Cancer was having its final ways with her. But that Saturday morning, she got out of bed, put on a dry-cleaned pair of chic, gray wool pants, a crisp orange blouse, gold hoop earrings, combed what was left of her hair and went to the kitchen.
She had a brisket lesson to give.
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