The Iberia flight from Chicago to Madrid is nothing if not a clear line of demarcation from the United States:

• A substantial airline meal, with substantial flavor, and without a robber-baron collecting extra for it. Service and humanity before profit.
• An inky tempernillo whose compliment to beef feels as ancient as agriculture itself.
• Real metal flatware to parse that beef, beef that hasn’t traded rich flavor away for flaccid, corn-fed texture marketed as tenderness.
• And José Mercé singing a martinete, a lament too powerful to need guitar. What American station would let the human voice stand alone?

Over an ocean,

Chris