Inside the Unconventional Journey Behind Bonny Reichert’s How to Share An Egg: A Candid Interview
Amy: Because that’s who he was named for?
Bonny: Exactly.
(Note: Eastern European Jewish tradition is to name your child after a relative who has passed away, so it is common to have grandchildren bear the names of grandparents that they have never met).
Bonny: His mother was from Warsaw. She went to a town to get married. And we just never thought that we had roots in Warsaw. So my dad finds the tomb, and we have this incredible moment where, yes, he reads his own name on the tomb, and it’s beautiful. And then I’m like, Great, let’s go home. And it was, it was just a three or four day trip, and leaving the cemetery, we were all very hungry, and we stopped for lunch. It was mid afternoon, and Warsaw is one of those cities in Europe where things really close down between lunch and dinner, and it was hard to find a restaurant. We had a guide with us, and she said, “Here, we’ll just go here.” And it was this dubious looking restaurant. The air is blue with smoke, and there’s no one in there, and we own restaurants. That was my father’s business, our family business, and you don’t eat in empty restaurants. That was our rule. But my dad, who is sort of on another planet from this experience, says “This is wonderful. Let’s sit down and eat.”
