World traveler, restaurateur and amateur chef. I’ve been passionate about Chinese food since my first taste, in 1961, when my mother took me to Han’s, in San Francisco. Already intoxicated by the sights, smells and sounds of Chinatown, the elevator to the second floor dining room transported us to an exotic realm, indeed. I remember high ceilings, rosewood dragons, starched 
white shirts, white tablecloths, and a pedestal dish with a silver dome whisked off by a one-armed waiter, revealing a steaming, perfectly formed hemisphere of fried rice (His other arm miraculously re-appeared after his formal serving of our food). The irony of presenting one of China’s most pedestrian dishes in such an elegant manner was lost on me at the time, but the transcendent wonder of that moment would last forever—I had experienced the rapture.
Mother, on the other hand, was brought down to earth by finding two errors on the bill in the restaurant's favor. “A couple of out-of-town rubes,” she said, hustling me into the elevator “They thought we were two first-class pigeons.”
CYNTHIA LINKLETTER, associate degree, assistant editor
Cynthia was born in Nevada, 21 years ago, the daughter of school teacher and a first-rate Flamingo Hotel show dancer; it was her intelligence and attention to detail that landed her the job. Professor Arfers, on his only visit to the office, mistook her for a movie star rather than an assistant, which Cynthia played to the hilt, embarrassing the old soldier no end. As far as Ms. Linkletter’s devotion to
Chinese cuisine, I vaguely recall in her interview that she said she “hated it”—I don’t really remember very much about that interview, except her remarkable tan, and red skirt—but I see signs of her position weakening on this issue, and soon I’ll try some Dim Sum on her. Cynthia is married to a plastic surgeon and works for me out of boredom and because, she says, I make her laugh.
GAYLORD MARION ARFERS, PHD, Lt. Colonel, retired, translator
G.M. Arfers was born in Afganistan in 1915, the only son of British missionaries doing God’s Works just outside Kabul. He proved his intellectual gifts early on, and was fluent in three languages, including Chinese, by the time he enlisted in the RAF. Considered a gifted and difficult eccentric by even his own mother, Arfers was nevertheless rapidly promoted up the ranks until he made Lt. Colonel, and was loaned as a translator to army Lt. General “Vinegar Joe” Stilwell in China. Arfers’ grandfather died after the war, leaving him a fortune, and after a forty year professorship at Boston University, he retired, widowed, to a Boca Grand mansion in Florida, where he is free to indulge his lifelong passion for cooking, fishing, and, we hope, translation. I was lucky to get the professor on board in spite of his antiquity; he’s sharp as a tack, healthy as a horse--and charges nothing for his services. I’m a little concerned, however, remembering the old Chinese proverb: free things come at a heavy price.
