My maternal uncle, Robert Albinelli, was a slight, dapper man with a patrician profile. He took me, at age 12, to “grown-up” restaurants, the sun-drenched ones with terraces overlooking the Mediterranean that proliferated in Nice, where he lived. He bought me clothes that my father wouldn’t — I remember a butter-yellow bustier number that he gave me when I barely had a bust to support it. But above all I loved him because he knew and worked with Picasso on the artist’s ceramics. He was the one who fired them in the kilns, responsible for any minor mishaps or major imperfections that might be visible to the Master. Tonton Robert boasted that no vase or plate had ever cracked on his watch.

On one of those cerulean Riviera afternoons, my father ordered: “Get dressed up. We are going to meet a great man.” From the tone of his he-who-must-be-obeyed voice, that definition came with a capital G, capital M. The mystery man was Picasso. We were to meet for lunch at one of the many bistros that blossomed near Nice’s flower market — a riot of parakeet-feather colors — and the vegetable market, so fragrant that the aromas competed with the blooms nearby. The restaurant, which very probably no longer exists, was a typical family-owned place where the tables were bedecked with red-checkered tablecloths covered with embossed rectangles of white paper. When we sat down, I was strategically placed between Monsieur Picasso and my father, across from my uncle. My father would explain later that he thought the mischievous artist would be a perfect foil for a dead-serious kid.

Dad was right about the mischievousness — a trait that gradually emerged as the menu was decided upon. Pissaladière (half onion, half tomato, crisscrossed with anchovy fillets and dotted with tiny Niçoise olives), mounds of moules marinières and a flurry of pommes frites were ordered, to be washed down with multiple bottles of pélure d’oignon, a regional rosé. Oh, and not to forget the brandade de morue, the requisite ratatouille, and aioli to slather on bread, cod and anything else we could spread it on. Aioli, that silken, garlic-licked wonder, was my idea of the perfect mayonnaise. I would have spread it on the floor if I thought I could eat tiles.

Image Picasso, Cannes, 1957. Credit... Franz Hubmann/Imagno/Getty Images

The preliminaries over with, Picasso produced a black Bic from the cavernous depths of his shorts pocket. (The same pocket from which neon-colored bonbons acidulés, usually associated with French moviehouses, appeared, to be distributed to any winsome child who crossed his path.) He began to scribble on the protective paper covering. By this time the meal was served, and the awestruck patrons — generally a pretty gregarious, raucous bunch — held their collective breath. Lunch had entered a state of suspended animation.