Wednesday, June 20, 2018 6:06 AM

I walk past a cluster of caregivers at the House of a Hundred Grandmothers. They are sharing an English word. "Vegetable?" one says, then another: "Vegetable?" At lunch, the server announces what soup they have, then asks us how to say it in English. It is, again, "vegetable," though when she tries it, it sounds more like "basketball." Another server summons the chef from the kitchen to the table beyond us, where a gaggle of Grandmothers sit in judgment. This might be a chef's nightmare: a roomful of Jewish mothers second-guessing his cooking. But instead, they are full of praise. The rice and meat dish turned out exceptionally well, almost as well as if each of them had cooked it herself. Heading out from lunch, I forget my shoulder bag. We get a call about it the moment we get upstairs. When I come back to retrieve it, each Grandmother who is still there tells me that I forgot it and where it is. The only thing to do is to smile at each and say "Thanks."