As airport meals go, the one I had recently in Air France's first-class lounge at Charles de Gaulle — which comes complete with its own Alain Ducasse restaurant —was one for the ages. On the sleek red-leather ottoman before me, a server in a white suit placed a pretty tableau: a peppery rabbit terrine, house-cured gravlax, and poached baby winter vegetables with an unctuous Greek-olive-oil dip. Next came a bowl of tiny elbow pastas in a silky comte-cream sauce with black truffle shavings on top — a Ducassian mac-and-cheese — and then a plate of seared sea scallops in a truffled veal reduction served with a 2008 chablis that tasted of cool stone and lemongrass. For dessert: a chocolate-praline dacquoise with the glossiest ganache I'd ever seen, accompanied by a glass of port and a few wafers in the colors of the French flag. True, I was merely an impostor, visiting with Air France's permission to research a story about airline food, but it sure was nice to get a taste of the good life.—David McAninch