Hungry Woman in Paris (8 page)

Sélange reminded us that it was now time to sign the agreement to the rules and to hand them to her when we were done. There
was to be no smoking out in front of the school or lounging around and sitting on cars. There was to be no saving seats and
no walking around with knives pointed during cooking sessions. A student could have no more than four absences in order to
receive a diploma, and we were required to wear special shoes with metal tips, in case we dropped a knife on our toes, plus
a complete uniform; otherwise we would not be allowed to enter the kitchen—or, as we would call it from now on, the practical
room. I signed the agreement and for a second my heart jumped out and said, What the hell are you doing in a kitchen? Get
out! I handed in my agreement and there was no turning back. Seconds later the schedules were handed out and it was explained
to us how the color coding worked: Basic Cuisine was red and we had three classes a day, amounting to nine hours every day.
Saturdays would only be two classes, a demonstration followed by a practical. A practical class was the opportunity to experiment,
mess up, and get advice or get yelled at by the chefs.

Françoise passed out a flyer announcing the “Get to know your classmates” gathering Friday night at an English pub. Someone
complained that they wouldn’t go because they were in Group B and had a Saturday morning class at eight-thirty a.m.

When all our paperwork had been turned in we were escorted to the courtyard, where we were each handed a uniform, a lock for
the locker, a professional knife kit, a weight scale, a mesh bag, and plastic containers in which to transport our cooked
food. After we collected all our new belongings the women descended to the basement to the women’s locker room and the men
climbed up to the men’s locker room. I raced down to the basement to be one of the first to get a locker. I blamed the fact
that I had nine siblings for my competitive spirit. When I was growing up, Friday evenings were very stressful, because that’s
when my parents bought groceries for the whole week. That’s when the good food arrived: the fruit, the desserts, the tasty
stuff I assumed rich people had every day. In our house, if you didn’t stuff yourself with the good food or strategically
hide the Twinkies, pan dulce, or apples under the iceberg lettuce, come Monday you were stuck eating Spanish rice and beans
for breakfast, lunch, and dinner the rest of the week.

I rushed over to a corner of the locker room with a nook that allowed for privacy and space. There was even a chair near to
the top locker I chose. The American girl with the ponytail arrived behind me and asked me if the locker next to mine was
taken.

“No, that one is not taken,” I assured her. I quickly changed into my uniform but had trouble putting on my red tie. I was
about to ask the American girl if she knew how, but I saw she was having trouble opening the plastic bag to get her uniform
out. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself.

“Hi. My name is Canela. I’m from Los Angeles.”

“My name is Basil, but you can call me Bassie. I’m from Connecticut,” she said, shaking my hand and half-looking at me. I
tried stuffing my things into the tiny locker and then decided to bring everything with me, just in case I needed it. I struggled
past the aisle filled with half-naked women attempting to make their uniforms look better than white-and-red potato sacks.

I walked into the demonstration room again and sat in the center seat in the front row. If I didn’t sit in the front, my mind
would wander to dimensions unknown to me. Throughout my schooling I would get lost in fantastic adventures until my teachers
called out my name and dragged me back down to my boring reality.

I waited a few minutes, and the thirteen other students in Basic Cuisine entered the room and scattered themselves throughout.
Chef Sauber walked in, and his male assistant brought in a tray with vegetables. The English interpreter sat on a stool to
the left of the chef. He introduced himself as Henry from London, and reminded us that both the Basic and the Intermediate
Cuisine classes would be translated, but the Superior Cuisine course would not be translated.

“Hint, hint: learn French by the time you get to Superior or all this will sound like Greek,” Henry advised us. Henry was
not great-looking, but he had a scruffy, lovable feel to him that made you forget he had suitcases packed for a long holiday
under his eyes. Chef Sauber got in front of a stove with a giant mirror above it, angled so that everyone could see the burners
and counter where he was going to demonstrate his cooking techniques. Chef Sauber welcomed us and told us he was responsible
for the Basic Cuisine class.

“Zis is how you tie it,” he said in his accented English, demonstrating how we were to fold our table napkin–looking thing
and wrap it around our neck like a man’s tie. The students copied him, almost everyone getting it down except for Bassie and
a Japanese woman sitting next to me. Chef Sauber opened his knife kit, which included several knives and small tools. He explained
how every knife had its special use. Our kit included a cleaver, chef’s knife, slicing knife, boning knife, serrated knife,
small paring knife, carving knife, and sharpening steel. Chef Sauber demonstrated which knife was to be used for cutting meat
and which was for the fish. A few tools specific to pastry were also part of the kit. He picked up his sharpening steel, just
like the one in our kits, and told us it wasn’t that great, but it did the job. He confided that if we still had money left
we should get a real knife sharpener. Chef Sauber sharpened his knife and reiterated that we must never walk around with a
knife pointed outward because in a kitchen with lots of people running about it was very dangerous. He advised us to mark
our knives with nail polish or a permanent marker because everyone had the same equipment and it would be easy to misplace
our tools.

Today’s lesson would be simple. He was going to demonstrate which pans and casseroles to use for what purpose; then we would
learn to make stocks and a vegetable soup.

The first stock we would be taught was chicken stock. Stock is the strained liquid that results from cooking bones. It’s the
basis of most sauces and it’s what gives dishes extra flavor and juice. Chicken stock is made up of a pound and a half of
chicken bones, with two cups of mixed vegetables that include onion, celery, and carrots roughly chopped. You boil the vegetables
in six quarts of water and throw in two garlic cloves, six peppercorns, and a bouquet garni.

“The bouquet garni is a French chef’s little secret,” confided Chef Sauber as he lovingly wrapped thyme and bay leaf together
with celery and parsley and put them inside a leek as if it was a miniature taco. He tied up the leek taco with cooking string,
leaving a long, loose end, and turned it into a bouquet. “This is what truly gives the stocks and sauces flavor,” translated
Henry.

Today would be a short and easy day, to give us time to take in all the information. Making rustic soup was an opportunity
to learn to cut vegetables.

Chef Sauber turned on the electric burners and explained that all the stoves in the school were electric for safety reasons.
He warned us against leaving pans on the burners after we had turned them off, because even though they were turned off it
would take an average of ten minutes to cool down—or to heat up to the assigned number. He advised us to set up our system
in a way where the hotter settings on the burner would be in the front and anything left simmering for a while could be placed
farther away from us. But we could do it however we wanted to, as long as we didn’t burn our food. He assured us that almost
anything in cuisine could be corrected except for burning something. He told us, “Cuisine is more of an art, and pastry is
more of a science. In pastry you have to get all the details and steps right or things don’t rise.”

Chef Sauber grabbed a tray of uncut vegetables and picked out a celery stalk. He demonstrated for us how to set up the
planchette
—a plastic cutting board—by getting a paper towel and wetting it and placing it under the
planchette
to secure it to the counter.

“We will be cutting vegetables in four different ways,” translated Henry. “The proper way to cut and the technique we prefer
to teach is one in which you fold your fingertips in and the knife barely touches the back side of the fingers. When the knife
comes down it slides alongside the back of the fingers and the knife is permitted to move forward only by the back side of
the fingers. That’s how I can look away and not cut myself.” Chef Sauber looked up at us and cut quickly, showing off his
technique. Everyone oohed and aahed, like children watching a magician.

“
Mirepoix
is a mixture of vegetables cut into large dice, used mostly for aromatic flavor. For our soup we will be cutting our vegetables
in two ways:
brunoise
and
paysanne
.
Brunoise
is cutting vegetables into two centimeters and
paysanne
is cutting vegetables into sticks or triangles, then thinly slicing them into three-centimeter segments.” Henry translated
effortlessly while checking me out. I looked away, trying to take legible notes. You would think that since I was a journalist
my handwriting and note-taking abilities would be developed, but I was having trouble keeping up and understanding my own
writing.

Chef Sauber toasted slices of baguette and put them on a small platter next to the soup in a large soup bowl.

“Et voilà!”
the chef announced as he finished his demonstration. Everyone applauded. A few of the students got up and took pictures of
the soup. The soup was then taken away by the assistant and distributed into tiny paper cups for everyone to have a
dégustation
—a taste. I drank from the cup and tasted the magnificent soup.

It was now lunchtime, and we were allowed one hour to eat. I wandered around the neighborhood. I didn’t know the Fifteenth
Arrondissement very well, so I walked for a while, until I came across a tiny boutique shop that looked like a café. I was
about to go in but I saw no customers. I was also not confident that my signs and gestures would get me a nice lunch. There
were shelves all along the walls, but instead of books there were wine bottles. On a few of the walls were paintings of green
and red grapes and maps of all the wine regions in France. At the very far end sat a man reading
Le Monde
and drinking a glass of wine. Later I would come to know the owner as Jérôme, a former businessman who got burnt out and
started this wine bar, called C’est Ma Vie, to bring knowledge of wine and joy to his customers. I decided that on another
day, when I was brave or had a friend who could speak French, I would return.

After lunch I went to my locker to put away my purse. I put on my little red cap, which had a tip higher on one side and made
us look like roosters. Perhaps a bit more sophisticated than that, but you get the idea.

I looked at my schedule and tried to make sense of where our practical class was supposed to take place. I went to the large
practical room and recognized no one from my class. An American woman with auburn hair told me our class was across the hall.
The big practical room was only for the fourteen pastry students in the Intensive course.

“What group are you in?” she asked, being friendly. I looked at my schedule and I still could not figure it out. It was either
Group A or B, so I lied and said, “A” until I could confirm which group I was really in.

I walked across the hall and saw two students in what I believed was my group. I was the third student to arrive. Punctuality
was so important that you had to arrive at least twenty minutes before the chef got there to look like you knew what the hell
you were doing. The other two students had already settled themselves in, picking the ideal spaces of the tiny kitchen: next
to the two tiny sinks at each end of the room. I settled myself next to the guy closest to the door. We opened our tool kits
and took out our knives and stirring spoon. A Korean woman with a name too complicated for me to pronounce set up across from
me. I could tell this wasn’t her first time cooking because she took out her knives and everything she needed quickly and
without hesitation. I smiled at her and knew if I got lost she would be the woman to trail behind. Six more students arrived
soon after, and Bassie stationed herself next to the Korean woman and looked at her tools as though she were about to have
a philosophical discussion with Sartre.

Sartre could have written
No Exit
about the tiny kitchen in Le Coq Rouge with fourteen students all about to make one another’s life hell for the next five
weeks. But why jump ahead of the story?

A Brazilian woman named Janeira with large Chanel eyeglasses set up camp next to me. She wasn’t late, but she complained about
how the waiter at the restaurant had taken forever to bring her the bill and caused her to almost be late. We all pretended
to listen, but no one cared. I looked around to see who was smiling out of nervousness and who really knew what they were
about to jump into. It’s just soup, how hard can it be? I thought.

Just then the chef entered. He was not Chef Sauber. He was Chef Frédérique—in his thirties, tall, slim, juicy, just the way
I like my fish. He introduced himself with a simple
“Bonjour”
and asked,
“Qui sont les assistants?”
Everyone looked at one another, not sure what he meant. We looked around for the translator and quickly realized the practical
classes would not be translated. He made a comment in French and then asked a question. I couldn’t tell what he was saying,
but when he raised his voice at the end of his sentence I could tell he was asking a question. Only the real French speakers
responded. The Brazilian woman said she had not been told anything. A tall and athletic American guy with red hair named Rick
responded that they had not been informed, but he would volunteer to get the supplies for our practice. Chef Frédérique said
the assistants are usually in alphabetical order. The Brazilian woman sighed and went down to the basement, where the kitchen
of the school was located, along with the freezers and the stockroom. Rick informed us that assistants were chosen in alphabetical
order, so we all announced our last names; I said, “Guerrero.” It was soon discovered that Bassie was the assistant this week
along with Janeira. Chef Frédérique, who spoke hardly any English, advised us to get all our pans ready and sharpen our knives
while we waited for the supplies. Rick automatically became the translator for Chef Frédérique. Chef Frédérique commended
him for his near-perfect French pronunciation and Rick explained that he’d gone to a French school back in New York City.
His mother was a Francophile who wanted her children to also have her love of French culture.