by Sandra Byrd
“May I speak to you?” I asked.
“Bien,” Maman said. “What is it, Lexi?”
“Well, I had a surprising phone call yesterday,” I started. “My father called to tell me that he would be visiting. Next week. He arrives on Friday. I wondered if I may have a few days off”.
Maman motioned for me to follow her to the break table outside. She sat down and lit a cigarette. “Normalement,” she said, “this would be fine. Everyone should have a few days off now and then. But this week …” She inhaled her cigarette and shrugged her shoulders. “It will be difficult. Someone has quit. We will try to hire someone very quickly, but I may have to move someone to mornings from afternoons till we get a permanent morning bread baker hired. Which leaves me needing you in the afternoons”.
“My dad was a marine,” I said, hoping to appeal to her patriotic side. “He wants to visit Normandy”. As soon as I mentioned Normandy, a thought occurred to me. “I do have one small idea,” I offered, although a little discomfort popped into my mind as soon as the sentence had fled.
“What would that be?”
Too late to take it back now.
“I have a friend at the school. She is an excellent baker and worked at a bakery in Normandy for many years”. I felt a little like I was offering my own head on a platter. “She has a letter of recommendation from her patron at that bakery. Perhaps she could fill in for me for a few days?”
Maman finished her cigarette. “She’s experienced, you say?”
I nodded.
“Bon,” Maman agreed. “Have her come with you on Thursday so she can fill out the paperwork for a temporary employee. And you can return to Rambouillet on Monday next week. Enjoy your papa”.
I thanked her, took off my apron, and walked home. Anne’s breads were better than mine. She made a perfect chouquette—not too eggy. Her tartes were delicious. My petits fours were better, but there was little call for them at the bakery. We had yet to compare cake baking, but Patricia did all the cakes at Rambouillet.
Inside, I felt sick. Anne was French. Anne was experienced. Anne would do better than I, and they’d see her skill up close and personal.
As I walked up the driveway of Maman’s house, I saw Céline running toward me. Philippe was heading toward his car.
“Lexi!” she called. “Why weren’t you at church?”
“I had to work, jeune fille,” I said, teasing her.
“I missed you. We missed you,” she said, looking at her papa. “Gabby didn’t”. She giggled, and so did I.
“Can I stay with you instead of there?” she asked, motioning toward the big house.
Philippe joined us. “Céline, that is impolite. You don’t invite yourself to someone else’s house”.
“Non, non,” I said. “It’s fine. I get lonely sometimes. I plan to make a salade for my dinner. A kind of salade niçoise, only Seattle style”.
“I love salade niçoise,” Céline said.
“You do not,” her father teased. “Every time we’re in Provence and it’s served, you pick at it”.
“I’d like Lexi’s”.
I flushed with unexpected pleasure, something akin to maternal pride, but not quite. Perhaps its next-door neighbor.
“Would you like to come to dinner?” I asked, emboldened by Céline’s insistence and weary of dining alone. “Both of you?”
“Oui, we gladly accept. Thank you,” Céline answered demurely.
“Normally, we eat the family meal on Sunday with my aunt and uncle and my sister. Today, I guess I have no choice. La Patronne, the boss, has spoken”. Philippe winked. “I will bring some wine, some mint water for Céline, and a dessert from the bakery. I must go in for a few hours and make sure everything is okay there”.
“Of course, we’ll be fine, Papa,” Céline said, tugging me toward my door. “See you soon!” She turned to me. “Now, let’s do girl things”.
I looked down at her small head. Her hair, while pretty, needed a woman’s touch. On the way in the door, I noticed the phrase on my board, Hunger savors every dish.
Céline was hungry for girl things because she had no maman. I was hungry for company because I had few friends and no family nearby.
“First, we will cook,” I said. She made a face. “But while I make the dinner, you will make the vase for the flowers”.
She clapped her hands. I got out some tins of beans, peas, and lentils and let her layer them in a glass vase. When she was done, we’d add water and flowers.
I set about preparing the meal, wondering if Philippe would be comparing my offering to others he’d had.
Seattle Niçoise
Ingredients:
¾ pounds chunked (not thin-sliced), Alaska-style smoked salmon
1½ pounds new potatoes, red or yellow, scrubbed
1 cup bottled champagne salad dressing
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
4 ounces pickled green beans, cut in thirds
3 medium tomatoes, stemmed and quartered
5 eggs, hard-cooked and peeled, then quartered
½ cup niçoise, or other small, black, pitted olives
Directions:
Break the salmon into large but still bite-sized chunks and set aside.
Boll the new potatoes for about 15 minutes in salted water, till they are just cooked through (you can run a sharp knife through one) but not falling apart. Drain completely, cut Into quarters or bite-sized chunks. Place in a bowl and pour half the dressing over them. Add the egg wedges, beans, olives, tomato quarters, and salmon chunks. Drizzle vinaigrette to taste, and then sea salt and pepper to taste. Gently stir together; garnish with parsley and serve warm.
After Céline and I had prepared dinner and played with makeup for a while, Philippe returned. I dragged another chair over to my small table. We laughed and drank wine—and mint water—and Céline imitated the man who honked his nose next to me at church. Apparently, his allergies were still in force.
“The salade was fantastique,” Philippe said, and Céline nodded her enthusiastic approval.
I’d been so lonely for company that I was reluctant to call the night to a close. We sat at the table chatting for another hour, and then Philippe announced it was time to get Céline home. “School tomorrow for you,” he said, and then looked at me. “You too!”
I laughed. “Both school and work for me,” I said. I’d be at the village bakery for most of the week. “Will Patricia be back tomorrow? I know she’s enjoying her time with Xavier. Maybe she’ll stay in Provence”. I smiled.
“She’ll never leave Rambouillet,” Philippe said. “She likes running the pastry room too much”.
I looked at him, and he seemed genuine. He really didn’t know why Patricia stayed in Rambouillet even though she longed to move back—to care for him and for Céline.
Seven
I will not eat oysters. I want my food dead.
Not sick. Not wounded. Dead.
Woody Allen
I wasn’t scheduled at the bakery in Rambouillet for the whole week, so it made it easier to put thoughts about Céline and Philippe aside for now. Plus, my dad arrived in three days and I needed to get ready for that.
At school, Anne, Désirée, Juju, and I chatted easily, but we did more independent baking work as the days went by. There was so much to focus on and little time to talk. Juju was truly independent after school hours. I think she had a lot of friends to hang out with already. Désirée was harder to read. Anne and I grew closer, neither of us having anyone else.
Hunger savors friendship too.
“So why do you think Monsieur Desfreres doesn’t like me?” I asked her on Tuesday.
She looked at me, wide-eyed like the bass we’d seen at the market. I turned around and saw Chef directly behind me.
I said nothing, operating on my mother’s famous principle that the less said, the sooner something is mended. After a minute or two observing my granita—a slightly grainy, sweet coffee slush—Ch
ef Desfreres moved on.
“Ooh la la,” Anne said. “He heard”.
I nodded. “But now that he’s gone, what do you think? I think we have a personality conflict. I have a personality, and he has a conflict”.
Anne laughed. “You are closer than you guess, I think. I had heard from one of the security guards that Monsieur Desfreres’s wife left him for a Canadian and his milk has been curdled ever since”.
“Oh, I’m sorry for him,” I said, “but I’m not Canadian”.
“No, worse,” Anne teased. “You’re American”.
I grinned back at her. “And since when are you on close terms with the school security guards?”
“One of them lives in my apartment complex. He is working here part-time until his school permit comes through. He’s from Germany, and will start graduate school in January”.
I grinned at the nonchalant way she talked about him and winked at her. She blushed and turned back to making ice cream.
The entire week was dedicated to ice cream, sorbet, and granitas. Pastry chefs must be not only proficient but creative at ice creams. It’s a staple on every menu.
To make ice cream, first you made a perfectly divine custard base, because that’s what ice cream really is. It’s thick with butterfat, which gives it that silky feel on your tongue. There was a sign on the wall in the baking school that read, “If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly”. I think that summed up French food philosophy.
Monsieur Desfreres allowed us to play with flavors. Now that the first month of the course was behind us, he let us have more autonomy in choosing what to create. With my new freedom, I really experimented. We all did, and for a few days we had a sense of camaraderie instead of competition.
First, I brainstormed, what have other people done? What can I do different? What flavors will work together? What colors? I ate nothing but ice cream all week, excited to find something that made me nearly as happy as cake. I laughed at myself. What an American I was—the cake and ice cream girl. But how French I was becoming. Monsieur Desfreres had been correct. The French train the palate.
I spent the week tasting, smelling, feeling, and judging the responses of my classmates, along with the cooking students at lunch. I made a tart but lush strawberry crème fraîche, gingerbread with candy Red Hots swirled in, white chocolate-ginger, chocolate-orange with candied peels, and almond sour cream.
Then I experimented with cool, sophisticated sorbets. Green apple horseradish, cucumber melon, strawberry basil, pink grapefruit rosemary.
Monsieur Desfreres came around with a spoon and sampled our works all week. His eyebrows raised at the pink grapefruit rosemary. “Different, Mademoiselle,” he said before marking it down and moving on. But he didn’t frown, and I took it as a compliment.
Anne was good at ice creams too, but stuck to typical French flavors. Crème brûlée ice cream, Grand Marnier granita. Juju brought in flavors of the island like coconut-cream cheese and rum-raisin.
Désirée also stuck with more traditional flavors, but her mini sorbet bombes were not bombs at all. Layered in champagne glasses, they looked absolutely elegant. She had a touch. But as much as we complimented her, I noticed, she had very little complimentary to say in return. Or maybe she was just too busy flirting with one of the guys in class and buttering up the chefs.
On Wednesday, as I was leaving school to head toward the bakery, Chef Desfreres called me into his office. “Mademoiselle?”
“Yes, Chef?” I hurried into his office.
“Are you working at the Delacroix bakery this afternoon?”
“Oui,” I answered.
He handed me an envelope. “Can you bring this to Madame?”
“Bien sûr,” I answered. “Of course”. I turned to go.
“Mademoiselle, I have not dismissed you,” he said.
My face flushed. “I’m sorry”.
He indicated for me to take a seat. “You realize you are the only American in our program, non?”
“Yes,” I said.
“I have had other Americans come through the program. One or two were satisfactory. Do you know that I am not anti-American, Mademoiselle Stuart?”
“You’ve been most professional toward me,” I said, giving a standard nonanswer.
“Of course”. He shrugged. “I am a professional. France, Mademoiselle, is a small country compared to your own. However, we have a long and noble history. Unfortunately, French ways are being nibbled away, bit by bit, to where we are in danger of becoming typical. Indistinct. My job, Mademoiselle, is to be a soldier guarding the French way of life from being eaten alive by America and homogenized into the European Union. So you understand, there is nothing personal in my dislike”.
“I am here because I admire France, sir,” I answered. “I hope to become not just proficient, but to excel at French pastry making. I hope to contribute to the field and remain working here for quite some time”.
“If you can secure a permanent position with the Delacroix, that will be something. Monsieur Delacroix has contacted me about finding an experienced graduate to work at the new pâtisserie in Versailles. In a few years, that may be you”.
I guessed that to be a compliment. He dismissed me, politely but professionally, and I left, envelope in hand for Maman.
Someone experienced was already being hired for Versailles. How would I fit into the flagship bakery? What was I thinking? Things looked bleak on the employment front, and I had fewer than three months left.
On Thursday morning Anne and I were jotting notes in our recipe books when she leaned across the table toward me. “Are you sure you want me to come to the bakery with you?”
I wasn’t sure. I had a feeling deep down in the pit of my stomach that this would lead to something I couldn’t anticipate. But she was a good baker and a good friend.
“Yes,” I said. “You’ll enjoy it”.
I swallowed the little nub of insecurity and got back to work.
At the end of the day, Monsieur Desfreres called for our attention. He handed out small, soft leather notebooks, one to each student.
“As you know,” he said, “at the end of our course there will be an exhibition. This exhibition is where you will showcase the things you have learned in this course. Achieving your diplôme will consist of two parts. First, you will continue to take written examinations throughout the course, and at the end of the course, there will be a week of written finals. You will also perform and prepare recipes as I or my staff request that week. You must pass these examinations with ninety percent or better in order to earn your diplôme”.
I recalled the test anxiety I’d had in junior high. And high school. Oh yeah, and college. Here, I hadn’t felt it because I was in my element—not academic, but baking. However, I knew I was being tested by an instructor just as happy to let me fail as to see me pass.
Chef cleared his throat and continued. “Second, during the last week of class, all students will prepare for their exhibition. You must prepare several items: a bread, a tarte, a cake, ice cream, plated desserts, etcetera, that will be placed on your table as a final offering of your work. Your fellow students will comment aloud on your work, and you may invite your patron and any other pastry or baking colleagues to attend. Many of them will choose to do so and listen to the others’ comments. This notebook is for you to jot down ideas for your final exhibition. Keep it private, please. Individuality, in addition to taste and presentation, will count”.
I fingered my notebook and looked around the room. A soft hush had fallen, like sifted flour.
After school, Anne and I took the train to my little cottage.
“Très belle!” she exclaimed. “This is such a cute little place. How lucky you are to live here!”
“Yes, I am,” I agreed. “It’s mine until Dominique comes home”.
“When will that be?” Anne asked, sitting in one of the mustard yellow chairs.
“I overheard Maman talking with Dominique on the phone yesterday,” I admitted. “Dominique said she is bored in Seattle and wants to come home. I don’t know how she could be bored!”
“Maybe it’s something else,” Anne said, looking around the kitchen. “Maybe she wants to come back to her little cottage and her maman and papa”.
I nodded. “Maybe. But more likely she wants to come home to her boyfriend. I heard Maman say, ‘Of course he will wait a few more months.’ I think she’s encouraging Dominique to come home anyway, because she wants her nearby”.
“Can’t blame her,” Anne said as she took the glass of lemonade I offered.
“No,” I admitted. “But that means I’ll have an eviction notice in three months”.
“Where will you live, then?” Anne asked. “Will you go back to the United States?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. No job there now. Nowhere to live there, either. And I like France”.
Anne nodded. “I’m in the same position. Once I find a good job, I’ll be settled”. She looked at her watch. “Should we go? I don’t want to be late”.
I agreed and went to change into my uniform. When I came back, Anne was looking at my chalkboard. “What is this?” She pointed to the listing for Jean 9.
“My Bible reading”.
“On the menu board?”
“I told you the Bible is for bakers and cooks,” I teased. She grinned and we left, walking rapidly toward the village bakery.
We arrived just when I’d told Maman yesterday. I’d handed her the letter from Monsieur Desfreres, then too. I’d been dying of curiosity to know what it said, but of course, she shared nothing.
“Bonjour, Madame,” Anne said upon introduction. “I am glad to be of help”. She took a neat piece of paper out of an envelope and handed it to Maman. As Maman stood next to me, she held it out so I could read it too.
