It's such a corrosive chemical: fame.

By some people the meal itself is a long delay between the appetizer and the dessert.

Borscht is more than a soup, it's a weather vane. When my family says they want hot borscht I know winter is coming, and when they want cold borscht I know how far can spring be behind?

Some people have family crests, lions, tigers, unicorns, elephants - a whole menagerie - and if my family had a crest, you know what would be on it? A blintze. I mean it. All the good things in my life are measured in blintzes because by us it's not a party if there isn't a blintze.

So the legs are little short, the knees maybe knock a little but who listens?