A restaurant on Wilshire Boulevard in Los Angeles. Ten-foot marble columns. A coffered ceiling painted with palm fronds. A chandelier the size of a small car. Above the door, in gold lettering: THE CHEESECAKE FACTORY I entered. A hostess in a black dress stood at a podium beside a glowing rotating glass case full of cheesecakes. "Welcome to the Cheesecake Factory, hon. How many?" "One." "Right this way." She walked me through the dining room. Booths upholstered in green velvet. Mirrors framed in gold. Pillars that did not appear to hold anything up but were doing so with conviction. We arrived at a small booth in the corner. She placed a leather-bound binder on the table. It thudded. "Your server will be with you in a minute. Take your time with the menu, hon." She left. I opened the binder. The binder was twenty-one pages. Each page was the size of a regional newspaper. Each side densely typeset in three columns. At the top of each section, a small color photograph of the dish. At the bottom, a sentence or two advertising the dish. I closed the binder. I bowed to the binder. I opened it again. This was not a menu. This was a treatise. A compendium of stratagems. The household had committed to writing every dish it could prepare and had bound the result in leather. This is what a samurai is given by his commander before a long campaign. A book of every formation ever attempted, every river ever crossed, every fortress ever taken. The diner is not to choose a dish. The diner is to study. I studied. Page one: appetizers. Avocado eggrolls. Korean fried cauliflower. Buffalo wings. Brussels sprouts. Page two: salads. Eighteen salads. A salad with chicken. A salad with steak. A salad with shrimp. A salad called the Cobb. A waitress arrived. Her name tag read TIFFANY. "Hey, hon, can I get you somethin' to drink while you look?" "How long do I have." "As long as you need, sweetie." "In my country, when a commander hands a man a book of stratagems on the eve of battle, the man is given one night to memorize it." "Hon, you can come back tomorrow if you don't finish today." "I will finish today." "It's a menu." "It is a book of two hundred and fifty stratagems." "Yeah, we got two-fifty dishes." "How does one household prepare two hundred and fifty dishes." "We just do." "There must be cooks of three different lineages." "Yeah, kind of." "There must be a cook from the southern coast for the seafood. A cook from the inland for the pasta. A cook from the mountains for the steak. A cook from the eastern provinces for the orange chicken. A cook from the deserts for the avocado eggrolls. A cook from the rivers for the salmon. A cook from the orchards for the salads." "They're mostly from El Salvador, hon." "All seven lineages, from one country." "Yeah." "Then El Salvador is the warehouse of every cuisine that has ever come to America." "That's nice, hon. You want water?" "Please." She brought water in a tall glass with crushed ice. I read on. Pages three through eight: small plates and street food. A snack tray. Sliders. Nachos. Fried zucchini. Flatbread. Korean fried chicken sliders. Pages nine and ten: twelve pizzas. A flatbread that was not a pizza but shared the page with the pizza, which seemed dishonest of the binder. Page eleven: twenty-five pastas. Pasta with chicken. Pasta with shrimp. Pasta with sausage. Pasta with vodka sauce. Pasta with bolognese. Pasta with Cajun shrimp and chicken in one bowl, which is two campaigns conducted at the same table. Page twelve: specialties. Chicken Madeira. Chicken piccata. Chicken Marsala. Three chickens named after Italian regions. Page thirteen: steaks. Page fourteen: fish and seafood. Page fifteen: lunch portions, served until five. Page sixteen: a section called SkinnyLicious for the diner who has come to the household but does not intend to be fed. Page seventeen: burgers and sandwiches. Page eighteen: a short dessert preface, the remainder of dessert reserved for the rotating case at the door. Pages nineteen and twenty and twenty-one: drinks. Cocktails named after destinations. A drink called the Long Island that was not from Long Island. A drink called the Mai Tai that was not from where the Mai Tai is from. I closed the binder. I sat with my hands on the cover, the way a man sits with his hands on the lid of a chest he has decided not to open a second time. Tiffany returned. "Ready, hon?" "I have read the book." "Yeah?" "Twenty-one pages. Two hundred and fifty stratagems." "That's the menu." "It is a book." "Yeah, hon." "I cannot choose. I have studied for too long and I have lost the right to choose freely. I will accept the recommendation of the household." "What kind of mood." "I am hungry and far from home." "Try the chicken Madeira." "What is its strength." "It comes with mashed potatoes, asparagus, and mozzarella melted on top of the chicken." "Who is the cook of the chicken Madeira." "Marco. He's been with us twelve years. He came from San Salvador." "Twelve years of service to this dish." "Yeah." "Then his stratagem is now mine. I accept." "Soup or salad?" "What is the soup of the day." "Loaded baked potato." "A peasant soup made from the lord's potato." "Yeah, kind of." "Then I will have the soup." "You want bread?" "There is bread." "Brown bread and white sourdough. We bring both." "You bring both as a default." "Yeah." "The household decides nothing for the guest. The guest is given both options simultaneously." "Yeah, hon." "Then the household has won the war of generosity before the first volley is fired." "I'm gonna tell Marco you said that." She left. A family in the next booth was celebrating a birthday. Six adults, two children, perhaps seven and nine. The candles arrived on a slice of cheesecake. The waitstaff, eight of them, formed a half-circle around the booth. They clapped in unison. A bell rang. They sang. I stood. The waitstaff did not stop singing. The family stopped looking at the cheesecake. The family looked at me. I bowed to the older child. "Mom." "Yes, baby." "The samurai bowed at me." "He did." "Why." "Honey, I don't know." I straightened. "A year of life is the most expensive provision in any nation. To survive another year is to win a small campaign. You have survived another. Long may you continue." "I'm seven." "Long may you reign for the next." "Reign of what." "The next year." "Okay." "You may proceed with your candles." The child looked at his mother. The mother looked at the father. The father looked at the cheesecake. The waitstaff resumed singing, having paused only for the length of a samurai's blessing. I sat. The bread arrived in a wicker basket. Two loaves. Brown bread sweet and dense. White sourdough. Butter in a small dish. I ate one slice of each. The soup arrived. The soup was the size of a soup that a Tennessee grandmother would call a serving for three. The chicken Madeira arrived. The plate was the size of a small shield. The chicken was covered in melted mozzarella the way a hillside is covered in snow. The mashed potatoes were in a perfect quenelle. The asparagus stood at attention in a row, like four young retainers waiting to be reviewed. I bowed to the chicken. "In my country, the platter from which an entire family eats is this size. I have been given the household platter and asked to eat it alone." Tiffany passed by with another table's drinks. "Want a box now or after, hon?" "After. The retreat must always carry provisions." "Smart, hon." I ate the chicken Madeira. Marco of San Salvador had labored honestly. The mozzarella was salty and elastic. The Madeira sauce was deep and faintly sweet. The mashed potatoes were a foundation. The asparagus held its rank. I ate half. The rest, with the asparagus retainers still standing, would travel east. Tiffany returned with a box. "Dessert?" "The book of the rotating case." "You mean the cheesecake menu." "Thirty kinds of one dessert." "Thirty-four." "Thirty-four." "Yeah." "This is a library of cheesecake." "That's a good way to put it." "I will have the original. A man returning from his first campaign should not begin with the rare." "Smart, hon." The cheesecake arrived. A small dense triangle. Thick graham crust. A pour of strawberry sauce on the plate around it. I ate one bite. "The book has a final page." "That's the last page, hon." "I have read it." I finished the cheesecake. I did not box it. A man does not box the final page. The check arrived in a small leather folder, the same lineage of binding as the menu but smaller. The household had even bound the bill. I left a tip large enough that Tiffany, two days later, would still remember the man who called the menu a book. I bowed to Tiffany. I bowed to the rotating cheesecake case. I bowed, last, to the booth in the corner, because the booth had been generous with its space. I walked to the door, the box of chicken Madeira in my hand, the asparagus retainers riding east with me. In my country, a commander hands a man a book of stratagems and the man memorizes it in a single night. Here, the book is left at every table and the man is allowed to study it indefinitely while the household waits with the patience of an old country. It is the same ceremony. I have read the book. I have learned one of two hundred and fifty. I will come again, on a different night, and learn another.