A gas stove from the fifties fit into one corner. Beside it stood an old wood stove, but I opted to use the fifties gas oven. On the giant beam over the stoves, amid a clutter of other collectibles, such as ceramic pots and candlesticks, Titi and Bruno had placed a collection of old irons, from the time when they were really iron and had to be heated on a stove. Bruno’s mother’s toy kitchen set hung on nails along the length of the same beam. I saw none of the American cookie pans and cookie cutters that my childhood set had contained, but among the little tin pots and pans of every shape and size were two little milk pails, a miniature potato purée presser, a colander, a coffee grinder, tarte pans, and skillets.

Here I am, I thought, when I looked at that set. I, who two years ago had inflicted pain on my hostesses by trying to help them cut strawberries, was standing in the heart of a kitchen this imbued with family and history; and I was doing the cooking. In fact, I was lead chef. Granted, my only following chef was a teenager; still, it was progress.

Several rows of shelves lined the top of the opposite wall. One was crowded with different pickled things from the garden—tomatoes, little onions, cucumbers. Titi came back in while Justine and I were stirring two different batches of fudge, took a beer out of the refrigerator, and started stuffing the small peppers we had picked the day before into a jar. “I don’t want to lose them,” he said.

“Aren’t pickles time-consuming to make?” I asked, remembering my mother with a pressure cooker when I was little. “I think the fudge is about done, Justine.”

“No! Not at all. It’s very simple. Look.” He poured vinegar into the pepper-packed jar and screwed the cap back on. “There you are. I just have to let it sit for a couple of years, and we’ll have ourselves some pickles. Here, try one from last year.” He pulled down a jar of cherry tomatoes.

Strange that my mother’s recipes had taken hours, if pickles were so easy. I accepted a cherry tomato warily, rather in the same spirit I’d once accepted Jean-Charles’s snails only with more pronounced fears of botulism. The pickled tomato was like eating condensed vinegar, straight. Tears started from my eyes. I tried to speak, and my voice came out as only a roughened squeak.

“Hmm,” said Titi. “Do I need to let that last jar sit for another year, or is this because you’re an American?”