White wine, lemon, and garlic

Back then when all I knew about food was what I liked, I liked my grandma's chicken dumplings and would ask her to make them for me over and over.

My grandma was an early adopter of Ronald Reagan, supporting Reagan enthusiastically when he became governor of California and started hosing people out of People's Park, saying things like, "if you've seen one redwood you seen them all."

I'd be sitting over a plate of grandma's chicken dumplings, having these monolithic political discussions with her. She not only liked Ike, and would have appointed Ike king, she liked Nixon and Reagan and whatever other Republican de jour was on the menu. I made little effort to argue--I was 18 years old, had just grown my first ponytail, what did I know--as I didn't want to jeopardize my supply of chicken dumplings. That's how good they tasted.

This story ends badly. I convert to communism one night in grandma's kitchen; grandma freaks out and places an embargo on her chicken dumplings. I call her a white bigoted Facist, she calls me a Marxist. I haven't had a chicken dumpling since.

Now I sit in quiet cafés in San Francisco, drinking white wine and eating black cod, sautéed in lemon juice and butter. Sometimes I bring a book like "The Devil's Chessboard" by David Talbot and read while I eat. The story of Alan Dulles, the CIA, and the rise of America's secret government is disheartening and makes me yearn for the days when I so enjoyed grandma's chicken dumplings, a time when it was much easier to live with one's illusions and even be happy with them.