Thinking a bit wistfully of the faded elegance of certain small cafes and restaurants still found in Europe -- Fabrica di Cioccolata in Florence, where in late afternoon one can sit down to tea and pastry or stand at the bar and savor aperitifs or coffee; cafe Ferrara in Rome; Berlin's original Lutter and Wegner or Einstein Cafe. These places, where even a small morsel is treated like a meal, maintain an unbroken connection to an "old world" idea of food as a ritual of pleasure, social encounter and respite.
One thing they all have in common is a sound. It's the sound of tinkling glass and china. Real glass and real china. Not paper or cardboard or plastic. The sound of cup against saucer, knife and fork against plate. You hear it all over Europe. In theater lobbies at intermission; ice cream and candy shops; in pizzerias; through the open windows of apartments; in train stations at tiny snack bars; even at small eateries at the airport. It is an increasingly rare sound in the United States. I miss it.
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