I wish to publicly thank Ellis Island for my Irish surname. Having walked the breathtaking landscape of my faux homeland, I will increasingly claim this island as my own. Actually, my kids are a quarter Irish, thanks to my husband’s great-grandparents who came from the Dingle Peninsula. So according to a Scientific American article (I’m not making this up), “Scientists Discover Children’s Cells Living in Mothers’ Brains,” I may be part Irish after all! And why shouldn’t I claim Irish food as my heritage? Smoked salmon, for which my brain has a unique receptor, appears in convenience stores, for goodness sake. I breakfasted on sweet, freshly smoked kippers, a royal relative of the canned…