Hungry Woman in Paris (16 page)

“Yves is such a good teacher. He is one of the best sommeliers in France,’’ the administrator in charge of registration assured
me.

I got to my first Intermediate Cuisine demonstration early, but most of the front seats were already occupied by young Korean
women gossiping. I managed to squeeze in and sat next to a square pole. The class filled—there were almost sixty students
in Intermediate. Most of them were continuing together from the last class and had been on break while the crash courses were
happening. I turned around and saw the United Nations behind me. Students from all over the world were represented. More Americans
and Japanese students were present, but to my surprise six Mexicans were also there.

Chef Chocon, the chef who’d reprimanded me for bumping into him in the practical room, welcomed us. He said he was the chef
in charge of our class. He was very happy about overseeing the Intermediate course because he personally felt this was the
most important one.

“Intermediate Cuisine is a culinary tour of France,” translated Henry, who didn’t make eye contact with me. I had considered
moving to a row in the back to avoid Henry, but I needn’t have bothered. He had already erased me from his radar.

“We will cook specialty dishes from the many wonderful regions of France. We are so lucky to have such an amazing country
because we are able to produce the best products in the world. We are blessed there is no other place like this on earth,”
he said with a smile as if Saint Peter were giving him passage through heaven’s gates.

A student raised his hand. Henry pointed to a tall blond guy with a nice tan.

“What about California? Aside from the cheeses, California is an agricultural capital with the most variety—”

Chef Chocon, who did not speak English, but could understand “California,” cut him off with a shake of the head. He wagged
his index finger to the sides and said, via Henry, “No, no, no. It does not compare. What you take pride in saying is ‘organic’
is just natural food for us. Everything here is cultivated with respect for the animals and land and with the best methods.”
Chef Chocon did not care for a rebuttal and quickly moved on with his lesson.

“Today we will be cooking three dishes from Normandy: fish stew with dry cider, pan-roasted guinea fowl with Calvados sauce,
and an apple tart with honey butter,” translated Henry. The chef explained the importance of apples and cider and Calvados
to cuisine from Normandy. He reminded us that before we left France we should visit Mont-St.-Michel in Normandy and go to
a restaurant that makes
l’omelette à la crème de la Mère Poulard,
omelettes the size of cakes. “Do you want to hear a story?” he asked, knowing that we would. We answered yes and via Henry
he explained how he’d learned cooking and gained an appreciation of food from his grandmother.

“My grandmother sewed me a cooking apron that said, ‘I’m the chef and what I say goes in my kitchen.’ She assured me that
if I ever pursued cuisine I would be a great chef,” translated Henry. Chef Chocon wiped a tiny teardrop from the edge of his
eye when he recalled that, on her deathbed, he’d made her a soup that was so delicious she’d told him after she ate it, “Now
I can die.” We all practically cried too. He quickly cheered up and recalled more memories of his exciting culinary career.

“When I was sixteen, I studied cooking and won many prizes for my aspic decorations. I have pictures,” he said. A large photo
album circulated with pictures of Chef Chocon’s prize-winning buffet presentations. Looking at the pictures I realized that
all the decorations had been created with vegetable peels and clear gelatin. I appreciated seeing him in the photos as a thin,
handsome young man who’d once had joy and hope on his face. Wow, he was actually young and happy once. He wasn’t always an
abrasive know-it-all jerk, I thought to myself.

The chef poured the cider into the sauce and asked us, “What is the difference between champagne and cider?” Everyone threw
out responses and then he said, “The price.” He got caught up in his joke and a story and burnt the tart. His face turned
red and he made excuses. I secretly smiled inside, knowing that even a chef who has worked at the best restaurants for over
twenty years burns the occasional tart.

After the demonstration, I put away my things in my locker in the corner and sat down on the chair next to it to put my socks
on. Bassie expressed her disappointment at having been put in a group where she knew no one. I could sympathize; I also didn’t
know anyone in my group and didn’t look forward to being the odd man out. I went upstairs and was the first to arrive in the
practical room. I quickly stationed myself closest to one of the sinks and the service elevator. I would have the advantage
of being close to all the ingredients and the sink, where the mixers and Robot Coupes (high-priced blenders) were kept. I
immediately placed my plastic
planchette
on the counter to reserve my cooking station. More students arrived and no one said “hello” or
“bonjour”
to me; they just got their
planchettes
and placed them at their stations. I recognized a young Japanese man named Yoshi from the demo and we exchanged a quick smile.
He placed his
planchette
next to mine and I explained that I was at the end. He moved to my other side and settled in.

Everyone had arrived and it was a room full of men and three women: me, a Turkish girl, and another American woman, whom I
would later know as Sage, who entered casually. She had lots of hair and a pointy nose. Sage asked around to see what cooking
station was left and I could tell from her accent she was from the Midwest. She informed me that in the Basic Cuisine class
most of this group had previously been in, they’d had a certain agreed-upon setup. Since this group had fourteen people, the
extreme capacity of the practical room, I had to move down and work on the stove next to the other sink. I looked at the station
I was going to be relegated to and was about to move when I said, “No. I’m not moving. I want this work station.” She stared
at me with wide eyes, as if unable to believe I wasn’t automatically doing as she’d instructed.

Stuttering, she explained further that the group already had their groove. I explained to her that since there were two new
students and I’d gotten there early, things were going to be different. Her expression shifted from disbelief to anger, and
I thought we were going to have it out right there, but then Yoshi said he would move to the stove next to the sink; he didn’t
care.

I finished the first practical in Intermediate and was exhausted, regretting having signed up for the basic wine class. I
ate my guinea fowl and studied the next recipes on my tour of France. The African custodian finished cleaning up the small
reception room on the second floor and then he brought in bottles of water and platters of cheeses. I followed him in and
sat at the very front. I liked getting to my classes early because as a journalist I was always late. A story would happen
and by the time I arrived on the scene it was all about catching up and getting neighbors and witnesses to tell me what they’d
seen.

The introduction to wine students arrived at their leisure and this time I made an effort to say hi to people. Yves, the instructor
the registration woman has raved about, arrived a minute before class started. He was a middle-aged man with charm and presence.
A representative of Le Coq Rouge gave him a glowing introduction that made us feel grateful we were in his presence. I was
lucky to be so close to him that I could smell his subtle yet expensive cologne. I sat in the front and my inquisitive mind
kept wondering, if a sommelier became an alcoholic, would he have to change professions or would he just qualify for disability
in France?

“Bonjour,”
Yves boomed, the Le Coq Rouge representative translating for him, “I love to teach this class. On one end I can teach you
that wine is a gastronomic Kodak of a day in the life of the earth, the land. With one taste we experience
la terre;
wine is the blood of the earth. At the other end, at its simplest, wine is just fermented grape juice. For me wine is science
and poetry coming together and exploding in my mouth.” As Yves’s spicy scent filled my nose and his silky voice filled my
ears, I wondered what it would be like for me to explode in his mouth.

“
Homard à l’Américaine
, lobster American style, comes from Marseilles and is one of the dishes of Provence. It was created on a cruise ship going
from Marseilles to the U.S.; hence the name,” translated Henry for Chef Chocon. To avoid causing the lobsters too much pain,
Chef Chocon would work faster.

“The best method to kill lobsters without causing them too much pain is to stick their heads in the boiling water,” translated
Henry. The chef grabbed the lobster and forced the head down. The lobster kicked up its tail and, even after the lobster was
technically dead, the muscles still stretched and moved as the tail and legs were cut off. Most of the women around me flinched.
“C’est ça la cuisine,”
Chef Chocon explained via Henry. Cuisine is this way. “I watch television shows about doctors performing surgery and cutting
up people in all sorts of places and there is blood and guts everywhere… you suffer just watching it. Well, in cuisine
there is a little bit of suffering and blood, but at the end you get great sauce,” translated Henry.

Who knew the guts of a lobster would make great sauce? But they do. The chef fried the aromatic vegetables and threw in the
lobster’s shell. After the pieces of shell were red, he added cognac and struck his lighter. In a split second the casserole
was on fire and he looked like a magician instead of a chef. The whole class gasped, “Wow.” He then confessed that you do
that cooking trick only for the cameras, because the alcohol in the cognac would evaporate on its own as it proceeded to get
cooked; but this was the thing audiences wanted to see celebrity chefs do. He went on, complaining about celebrity chefs preparing
designer dishes that were more chemistry than cuisine. He criticized the very famous Chef Bocuse and called him “Chef Beaucoup”
for the
beaucoup
—lots of—money he made off his frozen meals and his private cooking school.

The lobster ended up finger-licking good. I hated seeing that poor lobster die before my eyes but, damn, did it taste delicious.
I was always one of the last students in the demonstration room because I waited until the food paparazzi finished taking
their pictures of the food and then I took mine. I also made sure to get my demonstration
dégustation,
and then seconds and thirds if possible. There is a word that describes someone like me:
gourmand.

In practical I looked at my knives and then at the lobster. I am a hypocrite. I will not kill my lobster, but I will gladly
eat it. I felt bad about the time I’d sat in the courtyard during lunchtime next to a woman from California studying here
who proudly claimed to be a vegetarian; I’d made her think twice about her choices.

“You know plants scream when you cut them,” I informed her with a serious tone in my voice.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“Ask any psychic and they will tell you they can hear the trees crying after they have been chopped down.”

“I don’t believe in psychics,” she said, dismissively.

“They’ve conducted scientific experiments where they had someone cut up part of a plant and abuse it. A week later the same
person came back and this time they were measuring the electrical responses of the plant and found that when that person came
close to the plant the plant remembered that person and was scared.” I delivered the line as a matter of fact.

“Really?” she said, finally believing me.

“Yeah, I think if you really want to be sensitive you shouldn’t eat plants either… but then you would have to starve
and die… I know, it’s a difficult decision… That’s why I accept that I am a hypocrite and I really enjoy my food.”
I confessed all this to her and then left, like the Lone Ranger. She probably looked at her food and wondered, Who was that
bitch who ruined my appetite?

Chef Lucas stared at me, wondering why I hadn’t killed my lobster yet. I handed it to him and asked him if he could kill it
for me. He looked at me and smirked.

“You women want equality in the kitchen, but you don’t want to do the dirty work or have the strength to get the job done,”
Chef Lucas said, shaking his head.

“The day you can pop out a bun from your oven I will bow to you,” I responded in my horrible French. He wiped the smirk off
his face and tore the lobster in half. I was so shocked I had to turn away. He handed the still-moving lobster back to me,
but I just pointed for him to put the pieces on the counter. He had no patience for a girl like me. I said,
“Merci”
and he continued inspecting everyone’s work without turning back.

I poured the cognac on my lobster shells and aromatic vegetables and stuck in my long fancy lighter and
boom,
it was a beautiful fire. Sage asked Benino, her friend working at the station next to hers, to lend her his lighter but he’d
forgotten it in his locker.

“Do you need a lighter?” I asked Sage. She turned to me and paused for a bit before uttering, “Yes” and snatching the lighter
from my hand. Sage poured the cognac and flicked the lighter, but the casserole did not catch on fire. She tried a couple
more times before she gave up and handed me the lighter back. She took too long and the cognac had probably evaporated.

“I need a beer,” she announced.

“Do you want to get one after class?” I offered. I hated beer, but I wanted to buy her one and somehow make it up to her for
not being so nice on our first day of Intermediate.

She paused again to consider my offer. Eventually the doubt left her eyes. “Sure. I don’t have much time, but we can get a
quick one.”

After class we ended up going to C’est Ma Vie. As usual, there were not that many customers during the day.