Life From Scratch (14 page)

Day 2 (10 minutes active):
The next afternoon or evening, when the poolish is full of bubbles, knead in the remaining flour, yeast, salt, and water. The dough should be very wet and sticky.

Use the “slap-and-fold method” to form a dough ball: Stretch the mass up with the hands, then slap it with vigor onto a clean counter, and fold over itself. After 20 such folds, I like to wash and dry my hands, then pat the dough. The surface should be tacky and soft, but not leave gunk on the hand. A dusting of flour might be needed if it’s rainy or humid, but I prefer not to add any—wet dough makes bread with bigger air pockets. Cover with plastic wrap. Return to the cool spot for another 16 to 24 hours.

Day 3 (15 minutes active):
The next afternoon or evening, the dough will be full of large air bubbles. Slap and fold the dough a few times. The gluten will have developed quite a bit since the previous day; the dough will be smooth and elastic. Divide in thirds. Gently shape into 2-inch-wide logs taking care not to disturb the air bubbles. Nestle them between the folds of a floured cotton dish towel. Cover and let rest in a warm spot 20 to 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 450°F (with baking stone, if using). Immediately before popping the baguettes into the oven, slash each one three times with a razor (or sharp knife) and spray with water. Cook on a sheet pan or directly on a baking stone until the baguettes are golden brown and the inside is cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Cool a few minutes before slicing to keep the crumb from mashing down. Enjoy, without so much as a trace of butter.

Makes 3 baguettes

CHAPTER 9

The Better Part
of a Min
u
te

T
HE BAGUETTES WERE
the amuse-bouche to Paris’s living banquet. I consumed every morsel of that city, sniffing out the creamiest Camemberts, the fluffiest omelets—even the great citrus squeeze of a bubbling Orangina. I found myself stopping more than once to inhale the Nutella-slathered crepes sizzling on every street corner, filling the air with the scent of chocolate. So much of the food was a teenager’s dream, though much of it challenged me as well.

When I was too afraid to indulge in more exotic dishes, I simply ate with my eyes. I’d watch as fleets of trim women in black pants and colorful scarves carried home their daily parcels, trailing sharp scents in their wake (possibly from an especially stout blue cheese or gamy duck liver pâté). I’d stand agape in front of butchers’ windows, taking in the sight of long, wet cow tongues or embarrassingly elongated sausages. I’d hold my breath while admiring voluptuous rounds of stinky cheese, which unapologetically buttressed thick pâtés and quivering gelatins.

If the food of Paris was heady and salacious, so, too was the noise. Every few minutes the pop and whine of mopeds and scooters challenged car bumpers at every turn. When outside got to be too much, I slipped inside or away, into dark, candlelit cathedrals that had taken half a millennia to build, or onto stately bridges carved with the heads of long-lost kings. This city was both alive and ancient in a way I’d never seen, never touched, never felt before. I was small in her embrace—safe.

I disappeared into Paris’s unquestioning rhythm, lulled by the babble around me, letting the confusion wash over me. I couldn’t communicate with anyone, and I didn’t want to. It was the perfect vacuum.

The week before school began, Patricia and Pierre bought Toni and me bicycles, giving us the freedom to continue exploring Paris in our own way. I clung to Toni—her laughter, her smiles, and the unspoken solace that she’d lost a brother that spring morning, too.

As Paris’s boulangeries and landmarks became our everyday vistas, the urgent call to explore them was quelled. We settled into our neighborhood, pedaling for hours through the farmland that quilted right up to our small town house on the outskirts of Paris, where we’d pluck snacks right off the land: a few leaves of lettuce, a spicy crimson radish, or the aptly named horse carrot. If I was really lucky, I’d forget about Michael for the better part of a minute.

Then school began, and with it the requirement to communicate. I could no longer play the perpetual tourist. French schools are organized around ability. By segregating the students, teachers were better able to target the learning needs of each group without anyone getting bored or restless.

Since I didn’t speak a word of French, I was placed in the bottom tier of eighth grade with the “difficult students”—those who didn’t care, or who simply weren’t capable of earning the highest marks. We were called the “C” students. The only level below ours was the special-needs class and, if I were to believe my classmates, I’d end up there if I didn’t learn the language quickly enough.

On day one, our immersion class chanted “
Bonjour
” in unison. By the end of the week, I could stumble my way through several sentences. The words piled into my brain, faster and faster. Science was in French. Math. Language. Social Studies. Music. While the rest of my classmates took notes with silver-tipped fountain pens, I poured over the photos and charts in the textbooks to decipher the day’s lessons. Sometimes it helped, but usually it didn’t.

For the first time in my life I was failing, not just one subject, but every one. Teachers’ comments were always the same: “
Travail insuffisant
. Poor effort.” My grades were consistent: 0/20, or the even more infuriating 0.5/20. But I
was
trying. It’s just that my grief interrupted my studies, and my studies interrupted my grief. I was a girl divided.

In an attempt to create some sort of cultural familiarity, I’d gravitated toward the handful of Americans at my school. We commiserated about how difficult French immersion was—but I was still doing more poorly than any of them.

After seeing my grades, Patricia and Pierre encouraged me to make friends with some French kids. “They can help you learn the language more quickly,” Pierre said, “Your grades will improve.”

So against my shyer inclinations, I brought my tray of
steak hache, pommes frites
, and
fromage blanc
to the only open spot at a table of French kids. Their impossibly skinny hips dripped into vintage bell bottoms, baby doll dresses, and tuxedo “tail” shirts that reached the back of their knees. Doc Martens’ fireproof soles and steel toes finished off their grunge ensembles and signaled that we were entering the mid-nineties.

No sooner had I sat down than everyone turned to me. One of the girls finally spoke up. “Can I have your fromage blanc?”

Fromage blanc is a mild form of cultured milk, like yogurt in texture but sweeter. The school typically served it with a dollop of raspberry preserves. Every day I’d scan the cafeteria, hoping to see it on the buffet line. Though it was my favorite dessert, I passed it to her without hesitation.

From that moment on I was one of them. They taught me “argot” (French slang) by the wrought-iron fence after school as quickly as I learned proper French in the classroom. I could rarely distinguish between the two types of speech, and often offered crass comments to my teachers, only realizing my mistake when the class erupted with giggles and the teacher flushed.

At recess my new crowd, the Doc Martens, clamored around me to gawk at the things I’d said. They slapped me on the back and taught me new words with knowing smirks, promising they were clean. Though this didn’t do much for my grades (which had now been eked up to 9/20), I liked being the “funny” friend.

Before Toni left for college, she came in to my room and sat on the rumpled edge of my bed.

“Sasha, I know you miss him. But be careful not to fall into the same trap he did. You can get through this.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“You just remind me so much of him, sometimes.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

I watched her eyes, looking for a telltale wince. But before I could read her, she pulled me into a hug and tickled me until I laughed.

“Of course, Sash.”

In Toni’s absence the house fell silent. Instead of coming together in our grief, Patricia, Pierre, and I drifted apart. Pierre worked longer and longer hours, often not coming home until after 10 p.m. Business trips whisked him away for weeks at a time.

When Pierre
was
home, Patricia would pack picnics and we’d eat in the car, juggling china plates, real silverware, and cloth napkins while rumbling along to some famed site, like Mont Saint-Michel—a good four-hour drive. The contortions of the gargoyles were the only therapy we had.

But when Pierre left again, Patricia drifted through the kitchen, anchoring herself with French recipes. French cooking suited her. I think it’s how she mourned Michael and processed the fact that her youngest had left the nest. The grimmer her mood and the longer Pierre’s trips lasted, the more elaborately she cooked. Soon she was torching oblong ramekins of crème brûlée until their razor-thin sugar crusts all but shattered on sight.

I’d find reasons to walk through the kitchen into the back garden just to catch a glimpse of her artistry. After my fifth appearance, she’d huff, “You’re letting the flies in!” or “Inside or outside, which is it, Sasha?” I’d tiptoe to my room or the fields beyond.

Increasingly unsure of how to connect with the Dumonts, I sought out other ways to feel—something, anything. I took my first drink of whiskey at 13 in the girls’ bathroom with my new friend Monique. Being a little girl was no barrier to buying booze directly from French liquor stores.

It wasn’t long before I was spending afternoons pouring bottles into myself at the local park with the Doc Martens. We’d lie in the grass, make daisy crowns, and watch the clouds spin. We interpreted our world through the lyrics of The Doors, The Cure, and Tom Petty. We called it science class.

For
“quatres-heures,”
French snack time, we stumbled back to Monique’s house where she served up
tartines au chocolat
, her brilliant invention. To make the sweet towers, she toasted thick slices of brioche bread until the golden crumb swirled like henna art. Then she used a fat, paddle-shaped knife to slather them with Nutella.

In those days, the chocolate hazelnut spread was not sold stateside so I goaded her to use more, and then more still, until half the jar was gone and each slice looked like frosted cake. Triple stacked, the heat made the Nutella slump into the crevices and drip over the crisp edges.

Sometimes we ate the oozing morsels standing in Monique’s kitchen, before the toaster had a chance to cool off. Other times we’d carry the tartines to a park bench surrounded by white wildflowers. No matter where we were, we had to lick the hazelnut chocolate spread from the corners of our lips and fingers.

By the end of eighth grade, I’d forged notes for twelve doctor appointments, eight eye doctor appointments, and seven dentist appointments. On weekends I smeared black lipstick across my lips and disappeared into the few thudding, sexy, vapid nightclubs that let minors in. I pressed myself close to the wrong sort of boys, mistaking their lust for love.

Eventually the noise around me was so loud that I actually
felt
something again. I grew addicted to this whisper of emotion as I moved and danced and
lived
. The poet Shane Koyczan once said, “Addiction isn’t so much about pain as it is sanity.” Truer words have never been spoken.

This time in my life will always be best represented by the night I sat on the steps of the Parc du Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Its angular pathways overlook the twinkling city and the even more dazzling Eiffel Tower. The metal structure stretched more than a thousand feet into the sky, lit from head to toe like a Christmas tree.

Though we’d long since lost track of the time, I knew it was after midnight. I was drunk, holding a bottle of tequila, leaning on Monique to stay upright. The stone beneath us was cold. The bitter snap of winter radiated through my corduroys until my teeth chattered.