Lucie, my maternal grandmother, was the most adorable granny. But before being a granny, she had been a stunningly beautiful young girl, the youngest of 6 children in a family uprooted from the Ottoman Empire. Married to my grandfather Joseph at the age of 21, they lived a golden youth in Cairo before being forced into exile in 1957, like most Jews in Egypt. She enveloped us in her love as a Jewish grandmother and called us, her three little girls, Rohi (my soul) or Katkuta (chick), pinching our cheeks a little too hard for our taste. She never lost her accent and always rolled the R's, unlike my grandfather who thought it was necessary to “grease” to better integrate. Each of our visits was an opportunity for her to prepare our favorite dishes for us: bamya, meatballs with tomato sauce, sambousseks, baklawa, roghayebas, menenas, savory or sweet rosquettes... What is certain is that we did not lose weight by going to visit them. When I was little, to find what to make cheese filas or other oriental dishes, I had to go to the Armenian grocery store at the Cadet metro station, in the 9th arrondissement. It was an expedition from which we came back armed with treasures that could not be found elsewhere. Now, I'm mad at myself for not having taken a good look when she was making the rosquettes or the meatballs... All the recipes written by her hand contain few instructions and a lot of “you see how it comes”. Well it never comes like her for me!