Just beyond the windows of Le Buci are cratefuls of delicate almond pastries being sold on the street—pastries such as those of us raised in proximity to Dunkin' Donuts cannot imagine unless they are in front of our eyes. If purchased, they will be individually wrapped in a small pyramid-shaped parcel—a bit like the Imaginary Invalid's nightcap—and bound with a brightly colored ribbon fastened into a loop for dangling from one's wrist. Next to the pastry crates is a butcher selling—I counted—twenty-three different products made from duck: magret de canard, rillettes de canard, pāté de canard, foie gras de canard, pàté; de foie gras de canard. A few steps farther along is a wine salesman pouring samples of dry whites and mellow reds, as his patrons swirl the sparkling fluids while sparkling at one another with smiles of recognition and attraction.

And this daily celebration is not just in St-Germain, admittedly one of the posher parts of town. It is at least as conspicuous in my own borderline-gritty neighborhood between the Place de la République and the Marais, and in the still grittier immigrant neighborhood of Belleville, home to the Tunisian director who made the award-winning Secret of the Grain, a film about—what else?—food. It has taken over every one of Paris's arrondissements—from the Louvre on the Right Bank to the Observatoire on the Left.

I know this because I decided, this past winter, to become a tourist in the city where I've lived for several years. I moved out of my tiny apartment in the outer Marais and into a series of hotels in neighborhoods with which I'm much less familiar—the better to dine in their restaurants, visit their museums, attend their theaters, poke a nose into their churches and synagogues, and observe their inhabitants. The mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, did something of this sort before assuming office. He moved—or so he told his fellow Parisians—into every one of the city's twenty arrondissements in succession. He shopped in their bakeries, talked to their artists and housewives and chefs, and committed to memory their particular savor. If it was good enough for the mayor of Paris, it was good enough for me.

Unlike the mayor of Paris, whose charm, imagination, and wit I like to think I share, I have a seven-month-old daughter—and no regular sitter. So where I go, she goes. Not that I'm complaining. I tend to have a better time when Eurydice is propped up at my side, gazing curiously into the eyes of whatever waiter or actor or restaurateur is in the room with us. She has been nicknamed "Dice" for this reason: Prematurely corrupt, she's a player, a bar hopper, an inveterate flirt. I decide early on that I will use her as a barometer of French hospitality.

Once upon a time, a woman with an infant would have been routinely rejected in the temples of Parisian nightlife. Staff would have thought: big bother, small tip. The French are infamous, as everyone knows, for their intolerance of children. Unfairly so. "Look at that adorable girl!" exclaimed the chef at Les Terrines de Gérard Vié. "Do you have milk for her? May I warm it?" I relinquish the bottle camouflaged in my backpack and turn my attention to the half-dozen terrines perfected in this charismatic—and exceptionally carnivorous—restaurant on the rue du Cherche-Midi.