Having never lunched with a Nobel laureate before, I land early and prepared in the parking lot outside Mistral. The sleek Princeton eatery, whose chefs playfully blend local produce and global inspiration and describe themselves as “food activists”, is Angus Deaton’s favourite place to eat in town. Yet things quickly start to go awry when I find myself standing in the cold rain trying to wrestle my credit card out of a parking meter that is not just refusing to recognise it but seems to want to confiscate it. Getting increasingly wet, I am also caught in a logistical bind. The clock is ticking. Do I keep the laureate waiting or risk having to explain a parking ticket to the editor? I finally extract the card and decide to risk the fine. My boss will understand. My guest might not.
By the time I make it inside, I am a few minutes late and Deaton, winner of the Nobel Prize for economics in 2015 and optimistic defender of globalisation, is installed already at a small table on the far side of the room. I shake his hand and offer my apologies.
Deaton is gracious about my bind and offers some advice. It helps that he looks like he has been plucked from central casting for emeritus professors: requisite tweed jacket, jumper and wire-rimmed glasses; white hair just unkempt enough to give a flicker of Ivy League eccentricity. He is also wearing a blue bow tie with vivid red stars that once belonged to one of his mentors, the late Richard Stone, fellow Nobel Prizewinner and the godfather of British national accounts.