What do family visits and aluminum foil have to do with each other? Read on…

One such visit was to Doug’s cousin Charlotte Ermoian, who
manages—and lives in—one of those tall condo buildings in Fort Lee, NJ where
Palisades Amusement Park once stood. She’s really awesome—keeps fit, works
hard, and lives life to the fullest. Charlotte treated us to lunch at a trendy place
on the Hudson River, overlooking NYC while we caught up on family news.

As we were parting, Charlotte said she was going to call
her aunt Alice Bakalian to tell her about our visit, which meant Alice would be
expecting us to visit her too.

Personal Aside:

The store was chock-full of delicious-looking items. Before we knew it, our arms were loaded down with lots of goodies—lahmajoun, manti, string cheese, etc., and a magazine called ‘Dining Out’
which features restaurants in New Jersey’s Hudson and Bergen counties. We
snatched-up two copies, mainly for these reasons: #1- Doug’s cousin, Paul
Turpanjian is the publisher, and #2- Doug had an article featured in that particular issue, ‘Food Culture:Armenia – An introduction to Armenia, plate by plate.’
If
we hadn’t stopped at Arenie, we would never have seen his printed article – oh, and
the food we bought there was really good, too! Dawn and Ara agreed.

The day we departed my sister’s in North Jersey, we
detoured to South Jersey to have lunch with Alice and her husband Azie, who
live outside of Atlantic City. Both are in their 90’s, but you’d never know it. They’re in great shape – physically
and mentally, and could, literally, run circles around the two of us.

I thought the addition of the foil was a bit odd until
Alice told us the story behind it: She’d bought her usual brand (Handi-Foil) at a local grocers and didn’t think anything of it until her granddaughter pointed
out these words on the label: “Packaged in U.S.A. from foil made in
Armenia.”