Another advantage to French cafés besides the boiled egg is all the shiny stuff they set down on your little café table. Water carafes, water glasses, ashtrays (like it or not), silvery spoons, trays, milk jugs, your cup and saucer, sugar cubes, jam jars (confiture) etc. These contrasting textures play off each other. On la terrasse the sunlight has a field day.
Jonathan Miller has written an excellent book on how the eye perceives reflected light called, ON REFLECTION.
Miller says, "Another factor which influences the visibility of lustre or sheen is the curvature of the surface from which it is reflected. Highlights which are thrown off from sharply angled surfaces come and go with captivating abruptness, should either the object or observer shift. This is why diamonds glitter or scintillate..."
And he says here, "Another characteristic of lustre is the fact that it seems to hover somewhere below the surface in which it appears."
This quality of light is what all painters and photographers are seeking. The magical light that glows from within. French painter Georges De La Tour was the master of this inner glow.
My suggestion to American cafes is, please get some inner glow on that table!
And if you want to bring home some shiny café things, the Café de Flore Boutique is just around the corner at 26, rue Saint-Benoit.
Just don't try to shop before noon.
