Consider how the sixth paragraph on p. 24 acts as an example of how the small pleasures in life and the little things we take for granted can be so powerful. What kinds of things in the description of the meal demonstrate to the reader about the experience Marcus and his friends have just had?
The simple pleasures of the familiar are really what stick with us, even form our personalities. Marcus clearly points this out:
I knew this part of town well. My parents' favorite Italian restaurant was here and they liked to take me here for big plates of linguine and huge Italian ice-cream mountains with candied figs and lethal little espressos afterward.Now it was a different place, a place where I was tasting freedom for the first time in what seemed like an eternity.ch 5
