Our attention is drawn to an older woman at a neighboring table; she's been in a terrific mood all afternoon. We find out that she is being feted by her daughter on the occasion of her eightieth birthday. With her rabbit's-head cane and her white gloves, she's clearly out to have a good time.

" ‘Do you see that man at the table to your left?’ she says, lowering her voice and returning her gaze to her soup. ‘He has been getting happier and happier.’ A Frenchman in his sixties, and a woman who appears to be his wife, are in a booth with a younger couple... I study the older man; he is leaning into the table, flushed and animated, telling a story. They are well into their main course; a bottle of Bordeaux stands nearly empty on the table. I feel a sudden, filial fondness for this older gentleman, this red-faced, white-haired stranger. I can feel the same contentment awakening and moving through my veins, expanding from my torso, into my face and limbs. Alive, I think. Good God, I know how he feels."

- A Meal Observed, p. 70