IT WAS A magical moment for the chicken farmer, like love only it wasn't between him and people, or even chickens. Oh, there was a chicken. There were people. But this was between the chicken farmer and lasagna. No thanks to Papa Toby, a two-week-long longing for lasagna was about to be fulfilled.

And this wasn't just any lasagna. This was not, for example, vegetarian noovo cuisine lasagna with asparagus tips, beet greens, and things I don't know how to spell in it.... Not that I wouldn't have been the happiest chicken farmer on the erect penis of California anyway, if it were. But it wasn't. It was good old-fashioned meat lasagna! Meat meaning sausage. And what more could a lasagna-craving chicken farmer ask for?

Chicken. Like I said, there was that too. A big fat juicy one just rubbed to death with paprika and stuff and baked to a crispy-skinned perfection. Christ, I wish this had all been going down at a restaurant, because then I could in good conscience go on and on about it forever and ever. But it wasn't. It was Megan's house, a homemade dinner.... So, alas, I'll have to suffer pangs of guilt while I go on and on about it anyway.

There was sausage salad and salad salad, a flaky fluffy filo thing with feta and I think maybe artichokes in it. Broccoli, string beans, asparagus, and great bread. All because Mike DeCapite is moving to New York. Sad news, right? We lose another great writer to the big, wormy apple, like they need him over there. Well, I'll tell you what, if sad news comes with feasts like this, sign me on for a lifetime of misery and heartache.

That's funny. Like I'm not already on board, anyway. Ever since this odd little one-and-a-half-sided romance I was having shit the bed, I've been noticing how awesome all my friends are. I'd been noticing it anyway, ever since I started getting girlie on them, but it's like it kicks into another gear now, one that you didn't know you had, like over-overdrive. And half of them don't even know what's going on in my heart or head, or bed, or panties. They're just sweet, cool people who know how to cook something and love to eat.

Earl Butter's got a pulled-pork thing going on in his oven.

Lenny the Photographer's got a pot of meat chili on the stove with bacon and chocolate in it.

And then there are the ones who aren't even my friends, technically speaking. They're friends of friends. Like Megan. Or my friend Tony gives up his bedroom to me that night, and his roommate Jill, who doesn't know the chicken farmer from Roy Smith (the pig farmer with the big head) ... she makes me a cup of tea before I go to bed. She's in the kitchen, with a friend, asks if I want tea. "No, thanks." And when I come back out of the bathroom she's poured a cup for me anyway, I don't know, just in case?

How cool is that? No idea if I'm tired or sick or heart-hurt, in love with lasagna or what. Just thought I might could use a cup of tea to take to bed with me. You notice these things, and you wonder why the hell you review restaurants instead of people. From now on, I call, I'm a people person, a people writer, and I'm only dating restaurants.

So I been checking out this little Chinese joint in the East Bay, Adeline and Alcatraz, near Josh's house and Andy's house, two places where my band practices, so I've already been on a couple dates with the place. It's called Ming's Kitchen and it's so fucking sad inside, like people can be too, that almost everybody gets it to go. Some people can't even bear to pick it up. They have it delivered.

For some reason I'm drawn to places like this. No Smoking signs for art, tile floor, tile ceiling with one lonely strip of dirty fluorescent flicker down the middle, brown tables, black chairs, ugly-ass wallpaper with a big crack running down one wall of it. A small plant in an empty Folgers container on the counter.

No music.

Food's all right. First date I got the combination chow yuke ($5.79), only because I'd never heard of it. It was all right. Greens, onions, peppers, celery, and stuff in brown gravy with chicken, pork, and shrimp. Second time: Chinese greens with shrimp ($5.79). It was better.

We'll probably go out again, I don't know. It's just so convenient.

Ming's Kitchen. 1761 Alcatraz (at Adeline), Berk. (510) 653-5866. Mon.-Fri., 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Sat., noon-9 p.m. Takeout available. No alcohol. Credit cards not accepted. Wheelchair accessible.

Email Dan Leone

Dan Leone is the author of Eat This, San Francisco (Sasquatch Books), a collection of Cheap Eats restaurant reviews, and The Meaning of Lunch (Mammoth Books).