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young to be riding bicycles. They both were short and round, like grandmothers were supposed to be. We called them by their husbands’ names. For Nana Bill, a neatnik from Berlin who maybe reached five feet tall, the purpose of dinner was to have the dishes done and put away. While others sat and talked, a redheaded cyclone swept away half-finished plates. The fleshier Nana George had a sweet way of speaking, even when she got mad, using “her” when she meant “she.” She must have missed the pronouns lesson in English class. The only scary thing about Nana George was that she kept a bottle of prune juice in the refrigerator and was always ready to use it on the child who admitted to not having a bowel movement that morning.
    Nancy pretty much grew out of her allergies, not by puberty as doctors had promised, but by her late teen years. In the college dorm she didn’t have to pour apricot juice onto her granola.
    As an adult, Nancy stays healthy by walking every morning. She enjoys eating, but not with abandon. Nancy’s family attends baseball spring training in Phoenix but has never been to Pizzeria Bianco. Widely regarded as the best pizza place in the United States, Pizzeria Bianco would be my family’s first stop, perhaps our whole reason for visiting Phoenix. Nancy keeps kosher and health-conscious. After an anniversary party at her house, I stood by and watched as Nancy threw out the remains of an excellent chocolate cake.
     
     
     
    When Chez Panisse opened in 1971, I lived a few blocks away and never even looked at the menu posted outside. I was studying journalism and social unrest at the University of California, Berkeley. Soon after, I moved to a cottage in Silicon Valley and, to keep a little Berkeley with me, I became a vegetarian. Sometimes I made my grandmother’s blintzes and sometimes an even-richer dish, spinach lasagna, for guests. But mostly I ate vegetables, took up jogging, got very skinny, and dabbled in the New Agey Human Potential Movement. One dalliance involved a three-day fast, an organized event bookended by the group gathering at the start and then breaking the fast together at the end. After the first day’s headache went away, I felt light and energetic. I went running. I went to see a new movie, Rocky . Bloody fight scenes, screaming, and triumphal music went down easily on an empty stomach, but when Sylvester Stallone swallowed raw eggs to build up his strength, that was repulsive. I could have kept fasting much longer. Later, I would compare my experience with Lisa’s anorexia, but for me, starvation lacked purpose; It was just something to try.
    I was bored. The problem was, my fast occurred over a long holiday weekend. I had made no plans and no one was around. Actually, my plan was to reach some misty point of enlightenment, but it could go the other way and I’d be very grumpy, so I thought it better to keep to myself. Now there was too much time in the day, with no friends and no meal planning, preparing, or cleaning up. I wondered what the other fasters were doing, but I didn’t even know their names. I napped a lot. I couldn’t wait to get eating back in my life, not so much for the food itself as for the activity.
    I never would have met Ned in a fasting group, or even in a restaurant. He loved the hot fudge sundae at Lyon’s coffee shop and the chili burger at Original Tommy’s in Los Angeles, while indulgence for me was the slightly greasy lentil patty at the Good Earth, an early health-food restaurant. We were introduced by one of my college roommates. When Joyce met Ned, they knew after one date that they were not made for each other, not least because Joyce had so many food allergies. A taste of ice cream made her puff up and break out in hives. Ned could not imagine life without ice cream.
    I ate ice cream. On our first date, a scoop of chocolate ice cream was the dessert. We went to Susie’s, a fifties-style dinner house featuring chicken-fried steak, not an