When I was four years old, my aunt and my mother left me unattended in the kitchen while they quickly went to handle something before a huge crowd arrived for brunch. I climbed the mountainous bar stool and sat daintily on the edge of the kitchen island. Seeing an unknown food — pale, orange and gleaming — artfully strewn across my Aunt Elaine’s good platter was too much for me to resist, I took a fistful and stuffed it into my mouth. Family legend states that day, I consumed a pound of belly lox and two of nova before they…