Last night I got back from a long weekend at my parents' house. When I was a kid, we used to visit my mom's parents on the weekends, and my grandmother never let us leave empty-handed. As my parents strapped me and my brothers into the backseat, she would come rushing out with a hastily assembled collection of foods she apparently believed could not be found in Manhattan. Fortunately she had a keen sense of balance; her gift of candies and cakes was always carefully paired with fresh fruits, vegetables, and cold meats left over from Saturday's dinner, which my mom used to make pita-bread sandwiches for the ride home.

My mom is falling into her mother's ways. She seems to have inherited an innate suspicion that her children, left to their own devices, will inevitably starve. But she also loves to make us happy. So she lavishes us with sweets. Yesterday she sent me home with a box of chocolate-dipped glazed apricots, a box of big chocolate-covered pretzels, a a case of liqueur-filled chocolates, and a five-pound bag of jellybeans. I very nearly made a meal of these treats tonight. I was reaching for my fourth chocolate-covered pretzel when it occurred to me that all the available calories in my house were empty ones. So I put in a call to Haru, in the hope that a sizable portion of raw fish could save me from myself, and from the guileless excesses of a mother's love.