I've always been terrible at fasting. Sometimes I think it's because for my mother, who began her family life in the Midwest in the 1960s by rejecting her parents' Orthodoxy, Yom Kippur was mostly about the break-fast. Mom prided herself on being, in her words, "the hostess with the mostess," and Yom Kippur was her time to shine.
So my younger sister and I spent Kol Nidre night helping Mom set out straw baskets and silver platters, every one of them blessed with a white doily. Mom had painstakingly penciled labels—bagels, salmon, cucumbers—so we could be entrusted while she was off at Yizkor the next day to get the cream cheese and blintz soufflé to their proper places at the table.
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