In a dinner at the home of a rarefied 95-year-old British woman in the elegant Recoleta section of Buenos Aires, I was delighted by the sweet hobbling hostess’ sense of festivity. Every Wednesday evening she whips together a four-course affair for a handful of guests.

As I guided her from sherry in the parlor to soup in the dining room, she exclaimed, “You’ll have to help me walk—not because I am tight, but because I can barely see!” Then, over dessert she surveyed her guests: “I don’t know about you, but my wine is a bit nasty!”

Dinner conversation rambled from mattress shopping, to cattle selling, to breathalyzer tests. In summertime in Argentina the police routinely stop drivers to test their blood alochol levels. But now that it is cold outside, this phenomenon peters out and all returns to semi-drunken normalcy.

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