Harvard University

With a mug of tea on the table before him, my Russian-speaking, émigré grandfather peels a carton of clementines for my little sister and me. Methodically pulling peels and separating segments, my grandfather always prepares too much fruit. He knows one bowl would suffice—but I suspect he frets that a single bowl on the table might not catch my preoccupied eye as I whiz through the dining room, textbooks in hand, eager to commence my homework. Until quite recently, I paid little attention to even his most extravagant displays of citrus. Eating the fruit he set out with his granddaughters in…