In a restaurant family, you're never just hungry--you're starving to death. And you're never full--you're stuffed. Patricia Volk's Austrian-Jewish family is as American as "Rhapsody in Blue." They came to these shores determined to make their mark, and each of them is a piquant morsel of history. Great grandfather Sussman Volk brought pastrami to the New World. Grandfather Jacob was memorialized by as "the greatest wrecker of all time" for his innovative method of demolition. Uncle Albert was the first man to stir scallions into cream cheese. One grandmother was a 300-pound calendar girl. The last of Grandfather Herman Morgen's fourteen restaurants was a famous garment-center hangout. For three generations, just about every Volk and Morgen has, no matter what the circumstances, exhibited a terrifyingly positive attitude. With a cosmic disdain for the status quo, all of them--the tyrants, do-gooders, lovers, martyrs, and fakes--lived at full tilt. Stuffed is a wildly funny yet unsparing look at how families work.