“My paternal grandmother, Sonia Fidler (whom I called “Babouchka”) was born in 1888 in Balti (a city in the Russian Empire, now Moldavian). In the 1920s, she came to settle in France, in Nice, after a visit to Warsaw. Widowed as early as 1937, at the age of 51, she worked hard to feed her two children, who were still young. She ran a ready-to-wear store for ladies in Nice, on the Promenade des Anglais, where this lovely photo of her was taken in the 1950s. Curiously, I never saw her cook: she had help with that, because she was away all day, but one day, long after she disappeared, I discovered a recipe for herrings marinated in white vinegar, a little sweet, and my mother (her daughter-in-law, so) said to me: “Ah, but they're Sonia's herrings! ” — and I've enjoyed them all the more since then! It's an easy recipe, which I called “My grandmother's herrings”, of course. Since I love them, I make them often, and every time I serve them, everyone thinks of her, even my children who never knew her. This delicious recipe that I got from my Babouchka is now in a book that I co-wrote with Daniel Rozensztroch, entitled: HERRING, A LOVE STORY (ed. Pointed Leaf Press, NY).”