Last night, like many nights before, I ate alone. In public. On purpose. And it was glorious.

A palachinka is pure simplicity: flour, sugar, salt, eggs, milk. It has the sweetness of a pancake but behaves more like a crepe. And I can now picture my grandmother making them, though she never once made them for me.

After decades of enjoying Californian renditions of classic Burmese salads and curried soups, I was finally in Myanmar.