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Does a citizen of any country, not just the good ole U.S. of A., have an obligation to support its national teams? For goodness sake, it's just a game, not Horatius at the Bridge standing between us and national defeat.

The fact is, too, that because the U.S. is so powerful, our team is usually the favorite, and, hey, it's natural to root for the underdog. Somehow I don't think it makes you a traitor if, say, you take a liking to somebody like itsy-bitsy Lithuania when it battles our juggernaut of NBA all-stars in international basketball competition. After all it's not the Nationalism Broadcasting Company that brings us the Olympics.

Click on the audio link above to hear Deford's take on this issue.

For decades, Charlie Trotter's name was synonymous with cutting-edge cuisine. His Chicago restaurant was regarded as one of the finest in the world — a stellar accomplishment for the self-taught chef, who died Tuesday at age 54.

Trotter earned a college degree in political science, but as he told NPR last year, he decided cooking was his calling, so he studied cookbooks, visited fine restaurants abroad, catered small parties at home and started working for prominent chefs.

"My motive was nothing more [than] to learn how to cook and explore the interesting components of the food and wine world," Trotter told Talk of the Nation's John Donvan. "I never had an agenda."

But Trotter said he did want to elevate American cooking. And in 1987, with the help of his father, he opened his own restaurant. He took the novel step of putting a table for guests in the kitchen.

He went on to write several cookbooks and host a PBS television series, The Kitchen Sessions with Charlie Trotter. His restaurant won Michelin stars, and Trotter won a James Beard Foundation award for outstanding chef in 1999.

Susan Ungaro, the president of the foundation, says Trotter told her that chefs are like musicians: "That every ingredient is like a musician's note, and he laughed and said, 'My father must have known I must have wanted to be a chef after he named me Charlie after Charlie Parker, the great jazz musician.' He was somebody who really took the artistry of cuisine to another level."

Food

Leftover Turkey: Bright Ideas From Pro Cooks

Vice President Joe Biden's name didn't appear on any ballots Tuesday, but he still had a busy election night.

Prominent politicians often call members of their own party to congratulate them on a successful campaign. But it appears Biden is an especially diligent practitioner, making 10 phone calls to winning candidates in state and local races across the country Tuesday, according to USA Today.

The call that got the most attention was the one the vice president made went to John Lundell, the winner of the Coralville, Iowa, mayoral election.

In political terms, the congratulatory call was a two-fer. Iowa, of course, holds the first caucuses of the presidential election cycle and Biden is a prospective 2016 candidate.

But Lundell's win also represented a setback for Americans for Prosperity, a national conservative organization funded in part by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, which made an effort to defeat Lundell and three city council members.

"He indicated that he was very proud of our city, that we took on the Koch brothers and successfully beat them by such a huge margin," Lundell said of Biden. "That was another aspect of this election that was unanticipated, that after the polls closed that I'd be speaking to the vice president of the United States."

Biden also made sure to remember his roots Tuesday.

An alumnus of Syracuse University's law school, Biden reached out to Syracuse Mayor Stephanie Miner just minutes after the polls closed. According to Miner, who also serves as the New York State Democratic Committee's chair, he said that he couldn't actually find the results online, but that he knew she would win re-election.

"He said I'm very proud of you. You're doing great work there. I love you. Congratulations," Miner said. "He called me kiddo."

Biden also personally congratulated Ed Pawloski, the mayor of Allentown, Pa., which is about 75 miles south of Biden's birthplace of Scranton.

The vice president's night wasn't without its hiccups, however. Biden tried to place a call to Boston Mayor-elect Marty Walsh, but instead he got the wrong Marty Walsh.

"You son of a gun, Marty!" You did it!" he told the Marty Walsh who is not going to be Boston's mayor, but was a staffer for the late Sen. Ted Kennedy. Democratic National Committee chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak made the same mistake.

In addition, Biden phoned former Democratic National Committee chair Terry McAuliffe, who he stumped for the day before the election, to congratulate him on his win in the Virginia governor's race. The list of other victors who received Biden calls Tuesday included Chapel Hill, N.C., Mayor Mark Kleinschmidt and Hoboken, N.J., Mayor Dawn Zimmer.

As for President Obama, he made congratulatory calls to McAuliffe, Walsh and New York City Mayor-Elect Bill de Blasio Tuesday night and Republican Gov. Chris Christie Wednesday.

Since childhood, Rami Aizic knew he "needed and wanted to be a dad." He assumed he would one day meet the girl of his dreams and it would all just happen.

Then he realized he was gay.

Robin Share also wanted kids, but had no partner. So when a mutual friend told Rami about Robin, he called her up and left a message: "Hi, Robin. I'm a friend of Scott's and he said you might be interested in having a baby with me. So give me a call back."

The two hit it off and began making plans — and then Robin met someone. It almost derailed the process, but a few weeks later, Robin knew he "wasn't Mr. Right."

Rami, Robin and their daughter, now 14, consider themselves a family. They don't live under one roof, but spend holidays and other important events together as much as possible.

"Do you ever have any regrets?" Rami asks Robin.

"Never," Robin says. "Couldn't be more perfect."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Katie Simon.