French Fried

by Nancy Fairbanks

  “And did you enjoy the traboules today?” Catherine asked, perhaps feeling it only polite to bring up something I could talk about.

  “They were fascinating,” I said. “Sylvie told me that you are from an old Florentine family and that you live in that district.”

  “Yes, I own an apartment in a tower. When it came on the market, I bought it immediately because family papers indicate that my ancestors once lived there. I am myself from Avignon and have a flat there as well, but it is not so charming as my home here in Lyon.”

  “How lucky you are to live where your ancestors once lived,” I said enviously.

  Catherine smiled. “Would you like to see it?”

  “Goodness, yes, if it wouldn’t inconvenience you.”

  “Unfortunately, I cannot show you through. I know you are going to see the churches with Gabrielle tomorrow, which will no doubt take you into the afternoon, while I must drive to Avignon tomorrow. However, I can leave a key for you with Madam Ravelier, who lives on the first floor. Simply knock on her door and then climb the stairs. You can let yourself in and look around, then return the key to my neighbor.”

  “That’s so kind of you, Catherine, but I couldn’t let you—”

  “Not at all. Just be sure to lock up afterward. I’ll write down directions. Madam Ravelier will be home after three in the afternoon.” She wrote directions in English on a piece of paper that showed me how to get from Charlemagne Cour to her apartment by public transportation and on foot. I was quite excited at the prospect of seeing a tower apartment, and thanked her with all my heart. What a generous woman, although I’d initially thought her rather reserved.

  Bernard interrupted us by launching into a description of Antonin Careme, a nineteenth-century chef who created pureed sauces from sugar and fruit or nuts and then turned them into beautiful, if ephemeral, designs on dessert plates by using the a knife blade.

  “This is a talent still practiced here in Lyon, especially in this restaurant,” Nicole added. Then the chef himself came out with six waiters, each carrying a plate that featured a different design highlighting small balls of colorful sorbets. Mine was a scene with purple mountains, green grass, a tree, and bushes. It was so beautiful that I couldn’t bear to eat it, but the chef, after my comment was translated, said that I must. Still, I insisted on being allowed to photograph each creation before anyone ate. The result was that the sorbet began to melt into the decorations, so I didn’t feel as bad about eating mine. Then the chef kissed me on both cheeks and presented me with an autographed menu.

  Catherine warned me to take care in her neighborhood, which contained public as well as private housing. “You’ll be safe,” she said. “I’ve never been accosted, but do keep your eyes open, and be sure to turn on the light on the stairs. It gets rather dark before you reach my door. The switch is to your left as you enter the tower.”

  I assured her that I would be careful, lock the door, and return the key. It was only after we said good night that I realized that I’d forgotten to ask her the color of her car and whether she liked Japanese food. However, I saw that the car in which she and Martin left was not black, so I didn’t worry about my failure to pursue my investigation.

  I did worry when the Fourniers announced that they would now take us to see the festival of lights. Goodness knows when we’d get home after such a long dinner, and I had to get up early to meet Gabrielle and Sylvie at the university.

  I have to admit that I forgot about bedtime once we began to drive by beautiful buildings spotlighted in gold, blue, and green, their reflections shining in the waters of both rivers. We saw the hospital, Hotel-Dieu, with its cross-topped capitol dome reflected in the Rhône, several old stone forts, the beautiful St.-Georges footbridge over a river with a floodlighted church spire behind it, a mansard-roofed university, and perhaps best of all, the basilica on the hill, aglow in blue light. It was magical. I almost regretted the fact that we would be leaving soon for Avignon.

  Jason was regretting the size of the dinner bill. “That meal cost us a fortune,” he said as we walked into the hotel.

  “But wasn’t it delicious?” I replied.

  Gratin Dauphinois

  • Set oven at 325° F.

  • Peel 2 pounds Bintie (if you can get them) or baking potatoes, wash, and slice very thin.

  • Peel and halve a clove of garlic and rub it on a 9x6½-inch baking dish. Layer the potatoes, overlapping; season layers with salt, pepper, and grated Gruyère cheese (½ cup in all).

  • Pour a mixture of 1 cup heavy cream, ½ cup milk, and a little muscat wine over the potatoes. Sprinkle remaining cheese on top. If top becomes too brown, cover with foil.

  • Bake 60 minutes. Let rest 10 minutes. Serve.

  Carolyn Blue,

  “Have Fork, Will Travel,”

  Des Moines Ledger

  19

  A Pious Tour

  Carolyn

  On our way to the university, surrounded on the tram by students, Jason tried to talk me out of visiting Catherine’s apartment, but I refused on grounds of rudeness.

  “But she said the neighborhood is dangerous.”

  “No, she said to keep my eyes open, but that she’d never had a problem.”

  “She’s an Amazon. What criminal would bother her? At least take Sylvie with you.”

  “Absolutely not. If I take Sylvie, I’ll get stuck with holding the dog’s leash while she takes pictures. For once I want to take my own.”

  Jason gave up, and I stared out the window at the modern university buildings, all named after famous scientists. “Don’t they have the liberal arts here?” I asked.

  “How should I know?” Jason muttered. “I only see chemists and eat in expensive restaurants.”

  To cheer him up I pointed out a building named for Ampère and told the story of his statue, one of many snatched from their pedestals in Lyon because of a 1941 law requisitioning bronze statues to be melted down to make chemicals for French grape vines and soldering pipes. “Ampère’s statue wasn’t pulled down until 1944, but after Lyon was liberated by the Allies, they discovered the statue in the Perrache Station. It never was sent away to the foundry.”

  “Where do you find these stories?” Jason grumbled.

  “In a booklet I sent for from the tourist bureau.”

  With that we left the tram, and I headed for the parking lot where Winston Churchill, Sylvie, and Gabrielle awaited me. Sylvie was carrying a large basket and informed me that we would have a machon picnic after seeing the basilica, our last stop. Gabrielle protested that a machon was a breakfast. “But eaten in the vineyard,” Sylvie retorted.

  “What’s in it?” I asked.

  “Beaujolais, of course.” She lifted the napkin. “Good farm bread with fromage fort to spread on it, bacon, sausage—but the sausage has nothing nasty in it, Carolyn—and pâté.”

  “Pâté?” I echoed. Was it Sylvie who had tried to poison us? Why would she? And her car was not black, but maybe Raymond’s was. And how was I to explain my refusal to eat her pâté? While she popped the basket into the trunk with her tools and ordered Gabrielle into the backseat with the cameras, I decided that I would eat no pâté that Sylvie did not first eat herself. If she served me first, I could politely pass my portion to Gabrielle. Surely Sylvie would not allow Gabrielle to eat poisoned pâté. Satisfied with my plan, I climbed into the front seat. Winston Churchill then jumped into my lap and went into his I’m-starving-where’s-my-sausage routine. I turned my head.

  “Where to, Gabrielle?” Sylvie cried gaily, as she started her car and went into a flurry of shifting. “Let’s go to St. Bonaventure.”

  Gabrielle said that church was not on her itinerary.

  “But the altarpiece in the Sacre-Coeur Chapel is gorgeous, and that’s where the Canuts, who hadn’t already been killed for wanting a living wage and rioting, were massacred.”

  “Since you have planned a picnic and both Carolyn and I have afternoon appointments, we must l
imit ourselves to the cathedral and the basilica. Please take us to Saint-Jean first. Carolyn, the cathedral was built between the twelfth and the fourteenth centuries with additions at later times, so you will notice a mixture of architectural styles. However, the outside is definitely Gothic and quite lovely with three hundred or more medallions carved into the stone—biblical stories and depictions of medieval life, such as tasks performed during particular months and domestic scenes.”

  “My favorite is the man beating his wife,” said Sylvie. “The church quite approved of wife beating back then. Maybe it still does.”

  “Unfortunately,” said Gabrielle grimly, “the Huguenots tore off all the statues in the sixteenth century. Southern France had a history of heresy that required stamping out.”

  “Yes, some poor fellow here in Lyon wanted to go back to the original Christian poverty. He left his family, gave away all his money, and started preaching,” said Sylvie. “Of course, the church disapproved. He and his followers were taken for Cathars and driven out, and then the king in Paris and the pope got together and launched a crusade against the whole region. Lots of land grabbing and heretic burning came out of that.”

  “Sylvie,” said Gabrielle sternly, as our driver parked, “I hope that once we are inside the cathedral, you will show some respect, no matter what your own heretical views may be. I shall certainly pray for your soul at one of the altars.”

  “Actually,” said Sylvie, “I’ll have to stay outside with Winston Churchill. I doubt that they’ll let an Anglican dog into a Catholic cathedral.”

  So Gabrielle and I went inside to look at the thirteenth-century stained glass, the Romanesque apse, the old vaults and choir, and some gorgeous lacework stone carving in a Bourbon chapel. Then Gabrielle knelt at a side altar to pray for Sylvie, and I watched the famous astronomic clock in order to hear the chimes and see the figures that come out on the hour, but it didn’t happen. Gabrielle explained that appearances started at noon.

  She was very pleased that I had enjoyed the visit. Sylvie was very irritated when Gabrielle refused her suggestion that we walk up the Fourviere Hill so that we could see the Roman sites. “Don’t you want her to see the place where the nuns found the teeth of the lions that ate St. Blandine and the other martyrs?” Sylvie asked.

  Gabrielle didn’t. We took the funicular, I’m happy to say. I didn’t want to walk up a huge hill, and Gabrielle insisted that there wouldn’t be time to see all the sights of the basilica and eat a picnic lunch on the esplanade if we walked and looked at remains of the heathen Roman era. To tell the truth, I almost liked the basilica better at night bathed in blue light than in daylight when it was a glaring white, bedecked with crenellated towers, carving, statues, stairs, a porch with red granite columns, all symbolic of something, the whole having been built with the donations from Lyonnais Catholics in the nineteenth century. “Like Gaudi’s Sagrada Familia in Barcelona,” I said.

  “Absolutely not,” said Gabrielle. “I’ve seen pictures of that church. It’s bizarre. Our basilica is beautiful, and it’s dedicated to the Blessed Virgin.” On which note we went inside to see the sights. My favorites were the Saint Thomas Becket chapel, which contained part of the original shrine from the fifteenth century. Evidently Becket had fled to Lyon before returning to his martyrdom in England.

  Other interesting embellishments were the six historical mosaics, three of which related to proclamations about the Virgin, one to the battle of Lepanto when the Turks were defeated, one to Sainte Joan of Arc and another to Saint Pothin’s arrival in Lugdunum. I supposed he was one of the martyrs thrown to the lions or founded the first Christian church or something.

  Sylvie was particularly amused at the depiction of Louis XIII giving France to the Virgin Mary in 1638. “If she didn’t give it back then, I’m sure Louis XIV took it back during his reign,” said Sylvie, giggling. Gabrielle was not amused and retorted that the burning of Ste. Joan was all the fault of the English.

  “I didn’t realize that Mary wasn’t considered the mother of God until the fifth century,” I said to change the subject.

  “Of course, she was,” snapped Gabrielle. “It was just made official by St. Cyril at the council in Ephesus.”

  “I’ve never understood about the Immaculate Conception,” said Sylvie.

  “I’m sure you haven’t,” retorted Gabrielle.

  “I mean, they didn’t decide on that until the nineteenth century.”

  “Well,” I interrupted, “it must be time for lunch.” Not that I was looking forward to it. I’d have to do some fancy footwork to get out of eating the pâté.

  20

  A Perilous Picnic

  Carolyn

  “You shouldn’t make fun of other people’s religions,” I whispered to Sylvie as we left the basilica.

  “Tell that to Gabrielle. You should hear her on the Church of England and Henry VIII. A couple of years ago I mentioned how much I liked the BBC series about his wives, and she called Henry a nasty, lecherous heretic.”

  I sighed, not having expected that my tour of churches would turn into a religious war. At least the esplanade beside the basilica had a wonderful view of the city. Sylvie unpacked her basket, which contained food, wine, goblets, plates, silverware, and pretty napkins. The sun was warm, the sky blue, the breeze cool, and the combatants willing to call a truce.

  I situated myself so that when the pâté was passed, I could intercept Gabrielle’s or pass mine to her. It worked perfectly, except that a fly landed on my pâté when I passed it to Gabrielle, and Sylvie promptly replaced it with another slice. Then she fixed mine, which had perhaps been meant for me in the first place. I couldn’t really insist on switching with either of them. I might well be stuck with the tetrodotoxin, I’d simply devour everything else on my plate and declare that I couldn’t eat another bite.

  Ignoring all my resolutions to gain no weight on this trip, I had two glasses of wine and even enjoyed the dried sausage. The farm bread was lovely and crusty and all the more delicious for being slathered with fromage fort. Sylvie said it was made from grated Gruyère, leftover bits of cow and goat cheese, and then mixed with sour cheese and a sauce of leeks and white wine. I ate three slices and everything else on my plate except the pâté, while Winston Churchill sat next to me looking hopeful. I ought to give him the pâté, I thought maliciously, but of course, I wouldn’t. It wasn’t his fault Sylvie might be trying to poison me.

  “What a shame about Albertine’s mother,” said Gabrielle. “I hear the poor woman is in terrible pain. And all from a—what would you say?—a fowl pox?”

  I tried to keep the astonishment off my face. A foul pox? The English called it the French pox and the French, the English pox. Either way it was syphilis. “Poor woman,” I stammered.

  “Yes,” Sylvie agreed. “And to think it was lurking in her system all these years.”

  “Really?” Did they mean she’d caught it as a young woman or even as a child? Perhaps it was congenital. Poor Albertine. This sort of gossip must be terribly embarrassing for her if she was aware of it. To change the subject, I said, “Sylvie, that was absolutely delicious. I’m embarrassed to say I can’t eat another bite, and here I never got to the pâté.”

  “It’s really excellent,” said Gabrielle. “You must try a taste.”

  Sylvie hacked off another slice of bread and slathered my pâté onto it. “Eat,” she said. “I made it last night, and I am not letting an American food critic escape without tasting my pâté.” She grinned at me and actually held the bread to my lips. What could I do? Terrified, I took a bite and assured her that it was very tasty. In fact, it was wonderful, and if I hadn’t been afraid of meeting Robert’s fate, I’d have gobbled up the rest. “But truly, Sylvie, I can’t eat any more. I’ll get a stomachache. I have a—a hiatal hernia.” Which was a big fat lie.

  “My aunt had that,” said Gabrielle.

  “She just doesn’t like my pâté. Or she thinks goose liver is nasty.”

&nb
sp; “Not true,” I protested. “In fact, if you’ll give me your recipe, Sylvie, I’ll put it in my column and send you a copy.” If I live that long.

  On the downhill funicular I detected a tingling in my lips, one of the symptoms of tetrodotoxin poisoning. By the time we settled ourselves in the car, my tongue was going numb. The drive home brought on tingling in my hands and feet. It’s probably too late for me already, I thought as I made my way into the hotel and got my key. Am I going to die on a Charlemagne bed just as Robert Levasseur did?

  Strangely my symptoms had disappeared by the time I reached my room. Perhaps I had suspected Sylvie unfairly, or the fact that I had had only one bite of pâté might have saved me. Was the poison only in the first slice, which was thrown away with the fly, or in another section of the pâté on my bread?

  Whatever the answer, I now felt fine and anxious to see Catherine’s apartment. Even if I got lost, the lady with the key would be there the rest of the afternoon. I was so relieved to be alive and symptom-free that I managed to get to Old Lyon by train, bus, and foot at three-fifteen. I knocked on the right door, received the key from a grumpy lady, and went in search of the light switch.

  It didn’t work. Still, I could see to the first turn by the light from the courtyard. I’d just feel my way that far, and perhaps the bulb on the next stretch would be lit. Once I closed the door to the courtyard, it was very dark, and I had to move slowly, hands brushing the rough stone on both sides and feet feeling for the steps. After twelve steps my toe reached for the back of the next and moved too far. It must be the landing, but there was still no light. I’d have another flight to climb before I bumped into Catherine’s door, and then I’d have to fumble around for the keyhole, which—