I’ll never forget the mixed taste of cucumbers, tomatoes, balsamic vinegar, and olive oil together in a big bowl of salad. It had to be a glass bowl and Yiayia always put way too much vinegar. Bamba would salt his own salad because he knew it had none on account of my grandfather. He was diabetic amongst many other heath issues, some of which he’s passed down to me. I can still smell the kitchen from that old house in the Bronx. Onions and garlic it smelled like, and I’d snatch a few slices of cucumber before they could make into the yucky salad I couldn’t stand until my tween years. By then, it was too late to enjoy that salad with my grandfather, my papou. It takes me back to that brick house where I’d go every morning. I was too young then to know the dangers of the world. Now that I’ve grown older, the house that holds that scent sometimes has changed and the family to make it has become smaller; but we haven’t lost tradition. We still have our traditions and our love.