Stringhoppers

In 1956, my father was thirty-nine years old. He didn't even know how to boil an egg. But within two years he was creating the kookiest dinners in Washington and had the World Bank eating out of his hand. When he got back, everybody wanted to know how he had done it. 'Easy,' he would say, shrugging his big, round shoulders. 'Stringhoppers. I fed them stringhoppers.' His friends were mystified.