�������t¶��

“If you look at the late Victorian clothes, the women’s wear is full of bits of animals, bits of unborn Persian lambs – quite grotesque things,” she says.

Margo and her sister, Denise, were sent to ballet class and kitted up in matching wool coats with Persian lamb collars; they mastered orthopedically correct posture and crisp speech.

It’s not just home cooking, but multicultural comfort food: coconut chicken curry, Persian lamb and herb stew, African beignets, Moroccan chickpea and noodle soup, eggplant masala, and Russian semolina cake.

A large, bosomy Slavic lady in a bulky sweater of natural sheep's wool, purple slacks, high-heeled black overshoes with Persian lamb cuffs and a matching toque, puffed white, inaudible words into the wintry air.

“She was going into town one day — we’re in Westport renting a house — and she has a black Persian lamb circular skirt in the summertime with black fingernails. Pretty good.”