Dan Sullivan

USA. A seafood restaurant called Red Lobster. I had not yet opened the menu when a waitress named Brenda placed a cloth-lined basket between us and issued a battlefield order. "Eat 'em while they're hot, sugar." Inside the cloth slept four golden mounds brushed with melted butter and herbs. They are called Cheddar Bay Biscuits. I took one bite. I must speak the truth, even if my ancestors cover their ears. In Japan, poets have spent eight hundred years writing verses about cherry blossoms falling in the spring wind. If a sixteenth-century poet in Kyoto had tasted one Cheddar Bay Biscuit four minutes out of the oven, every scroll in the imperial palace would be about garlic powder and sharp cheddar. I ate three in complete silence. Then I understood the terrifying genius of the restaurant's strategy. They send their strongest general onto the field before you have even read the menu, so that by the time the shrimp arrives, your belt is unbuckled and your spirit is already conquered. When Brenda returned with a notepad to take our order, I looked down at the empty cloth napkin in shame. "Forgive me," I confessed. "We have destroyed the garrison before the meal has even begun." Brenda did not even look down. "Baby, that's basket one," she said, clicking her pen. "I don't even start counting till basket four." Basket four. This nation does not ration joy. It measures you by how many baskets you survive. By the end of the evening, I was a defeated man. I paid the check and stood up to leave. Brenda intercepted me by the lobster tank. She was holding a large brown paper bag folded twice at the top. It was warm through the paper. "Here," she said, pressing it into my hands. "Put these in the oven at three hundred degrees tomorrow morning for five minutes." I looked at my receipt. "I did not pay for these." "You looked like you had a heavy week when you walked in here, hon," Brenda said gently. "Nobody should wake up to a cold kitchen on a Sunday." Inside the bag were eight fresh biscuits wrapped in silver foil. A warrior can defend himself against a blade. He has zero defense against a woman named Brenda armed with aluminum foil and a warm bag.