As you survey your memory, you will see them there—not doing or saying much, not playing major roles in any dramas of the day, but simply in the background. My family seems to attract a particular type of peripheral character: people who have few intimate attachments or are estranged from the ones they started with. If you are of Italian extraction, like many of my friends and relations, the answer is not just pepperoni but probably several different species of fish: calamari fried in crunchy, lemon-scented rings; sardines layered with red peppers on an antipastos board slick with olive oil; bread dipped in whipped salt cod. If we take the perfect Christmas card photo, if we set the perfect festive tablescape and cook the perfect prime rib (if anyone knows an idiot-proof method for this, please get in touch), if we purchase and receive the perfect gifts, we will be happy and know ourselves to be happy and be seen to be happy and know that we are seen to be happy—with all these layers of refraction never compromising the snowflake purity and refulgence of that immediate, satiating happiness.