Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

It seemed all around me my girlfriends had betrayed me. It felt like this was going to be yet another big personal deadline I would miss. All my girlfriends had met the societal demand of thirty, when supposedly you stop being a girl and you get engaged and finally become a woman by getting married. I remembered all the ideals Luna, Rosemary, and Margaret had had about what a woman’s life should be: not just “a room of one’s own” but a life of one’s own. But then twenty-nine came and the ideals were thrown out the window, along with the dirty-girl purse with the multiple fiesta-colored condoms and the prewritten “Dear One-night Stand” letters.

  Rosemary asked me to ship her belongings to her parents’ address and told me I could keep the chambre de bonne for as long as I wanted by paying her rent. I told her I was glad for her that she’d found love at such a difficult time.

  “You deserve all the wonderful things in life to happen to you,” I said and began crying.

  “Are you crying?” she asked me.

  “Yes, I’m just so happy for you,” I replied, covering up the fact that I was reminded once again of how wrong Armando and I were for each other. The kind of joy that came out of her was so inspiring that I knew I’d never felt that kind of delight talking about being engaged with Armando.

  Rosemary wished me luck in Paris and gave me a couple of phone numbers of American girlfriends and a French friend or two who were actually open to making new friends. According to Rosemary, the typical French person won’t let you be her friend until after ten years of knowing you.

  “If they didn’t meet you in elementary school, they are not interested in getting to know you now,” Rosemary had once informed me, explaining why French people were more genuine than Americans. “You see, in the U.S., everybody calls you a friend and smiles at you like they have known you forever, but when you really need them they act like they don’t know you. But the French don’t ever smile or call you a friend unless they mean it.” I considered this and realized that, although I loved authenticity and people being direct with me, in these circumstances when I felt so vulnerable and fragile and completely alone, I would prefer people who smiled at me and didn’t like me than people who didn’t like me and therefore didn’t smile. Yeah, okay, call me a hypocrite. Or an American.

  I contemplated the phone numbers long after Rosemary had hung up, and stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling. After a few minutes of following the cracks in the ceiling I looked down and noticed a poster of Anaïs Nin. It had a quote about how your life expands depending on your courage. I stared at this Frenchwoman who’d had an extraordinary life and wondered, If I were Anaïs Nin, what would I do? I would go have sex with a stranger was the answer I got back. Okay, if I were Hemingway, what would I do? I’d kick the shit out of somebody, wrestle a bear, or shoot myself. So if I were me, I asked myself as a joke, what would I do? Go to cooking school was the answer that came back at me, and I had to laugh. I laughed so hard I cried. I cried because I missed my mother. Cooking always reminded me of my mother. Actually, lard reminded me of my mother, but I’m not ready to talk about that yet. She was my first source of food, so my brain automatically referenced her even though I had specifically instructed it to bury all thoughts of her in the back of the closet holding all the painful memories, the ones that only come out when you’re really drunk and you’ve puked everything up and all that is left inside you are the vile, bitter memories.

  I had considered calling my mother, but emotionally I was not ready to answer any of her questions. The first thing she would ask me was “Where are you and what are you doing?” I would respond, “I’m in Paris… having an existential crisis.” That would be my honest answer, but she’d probably reply, “In Paris doing what pendejada?” Pendejada means idiotic or moronic or whatever colorful insult mothers can think up that they assume would help their daughters understand what idiots they are. Women of my mother’s generation were not allowed to have an existential crisis; you had to be rich and childless to afford to have one. She would not be sympathetic, although she could appreciate the fact that she and my father worked so hard to afford me the opportunity to have an existential crisis. If she were not so embarrassed about my breakup with Armando and my nasty fight with my Tía Bonifacia at the wake, I could see her bragging about my existential crisis in Paris to her comadres at the local beauty salon.

  So what was I going to do? Would I keep this room and live in Paris and ditch my apartment in L.A., with all my belongings, or would I go back? I looked around for answers, automatically opening the fridge to get food. I noticed Rosemary’s rotting cheese. Since she wasn’t coming back, I could finally get rid of it. I stared at the cheese; it looked all disfigured, like a dead rat whose insides had imploded. Poor cheese, I thought. I cleaned the sink and washed my dirty dishes and started to laugh at the thought of cooking school. Then I recalled my sisters laughing at me when I tried making a cream-cheese-and-salsa dip that ended up looking like vomit. I’d be the first to admit it was worse-looking than vomit, but I’d felt so tiny in their eyes. The fact that I was a very intelligent, educated, accomplished, and competent woman who could not make a simple dip was just so hilarious to them. This was the sign that although I could compete with men, I failed as a woman because I couldn’t do the most basic thing, like make dip. That was the last time I’d attempted to do anything related to food. As a journalist always on deadline, I considered food simply fuel and not the meaning of life. I saw a movie about a woman chef who had no family, but at the end of the movie she makes a dinner for several passionless people in a tiny village in Denmark and everyone ends up happy and her life has meaning again. I thought how empty her life must have been that making a meal was that important. Just being in Paris for two and a half months had made me see that, for the French, spending more than two hours on a meal and spending another three in the grocery store and in the kitchen gave meaning to their thirty-five-hour workweek. Life is food; food is life was a thought that flowed out of the river of my stream of consciousness.

  I flashed back to the past and relived that moment, but this time I had prepared a fancy French appetizer. This time everyone was impressed that I could do such a thing, and they didn’t laugh because they were too busy trying to say foie gras or terrine or some other difficult-to-pronounce dish. Hmm, how would my life have been different? I wondered. Then I flashed to the future and imagined myself, having already graduated from the most famous cooking school, as that woman in that food movie making a feast for my repressed and passionless family. Of course a repressed and passionless Mexican-American family will look like a very passionate and enthusiastic WASP family… so I prepare this amazing meal and not only am I an amazing journalist, but I can also cook. Now I am complete. I am competent and capable like a man, and sensual and creative like a woman.

  Yes, it was a silly fantasy, but it was the best thing I could think of for now. Maybe if I learned how to cook I could transform my relationship to food. I could look at food as food and eat for pleasure and, like Frenchwomen, not get fat. Maybe I could finally lose these twenty pounds I keep losing and gaining. It would be easier to tell people back home that I went to Paris to study cuisine than to tell them the truth: that I left to get away from my neurotic mother and kill time until I could figure out what to do with my life… or end my life.

  Yeah, I could go to cooking school, get my carte de séjour, and hang out in France for a year cooking, becoming a food connoisseur, and learning French. At the very least I could become a food critic to make a living. “Okay, I have a plan!” I celebrated. Though I still couldn’t call my mother and share my plan because her laughter would crush me.

  CHAPTER 5

  Le Coq Rouge

  I got off the metro and couldn’t find the Le Coq Rouge building. I studied my map and, after a few tries, I broke down and asked for directions. I’m like a guy when it comes to directions: I can do it on my own! But I didn’t want to be late for my appointment. Finally, a retired man with a beret was nice enough to
pay attention to me and point. I found the building and realized that I had passed it many times, but the big red rooster on the window had made me think it was a rotisserie instead of the cooking school. Then, like a big ol’ dummy, I went, Oh—le coq rouge means the red rooster, the national symbol of France. Somebody please kick me. I went to the front counter and waited as the receptionist spoke to a short American girl with a ponytail who looked like she had just graduated from high school.

  “You must fuckus,” said the receptionist with a thick French accent. The American girl’s ponytail practically stood up, but she stared at the receptionist, not sure what she meant.

  “What do you mean?” she inquired delicately.

  “Fuckus, fuckus—you know: pay more attention.” The receptionist said it louder in her best English and leaned forward to make her point.

  “You mean fo-cus.” The short American girl overpronounced the word to help the receptionist avoid making Americans blush. “Yes, I have trouble with that. I have a doctor’s note explaining why I can’t focus,” she continued, expecting some sympathy, but the receptionist turned her attention away from the girl and asked me if I had an appointment. I nodded and she pointed me to a hallway. I walked past an opened door of a demonstration room with a chef chopping up vegetables before a class of about fifty students, all watching in awe. I continued down the hallway to a tiny courtyard where other foreigners like me waited for their tour. After a few minutes, a representative in a stylish red suit welcomed us in several languages. The woman looked like a Latina and spoke English with a Latin American accent I could not place. She told us how Le Coq Rouge was one of the oldest and most prestigious cooking schools in the world. She pointed at a bronze emblem that stated the date of establishment, in case we didn’t believe her.

  “Graduating from this school is an accomplishment that automatically tells your future employer you are serious about being a chef,” she bragged. She also emphasized the fact that enrolling in cooking school in Paris was the dream of so many people around the world, but only a few special people got to accomplish that dream. Would we be one of those lucky people? Although this was supposed to be the Harvard of cooking schools, the building was tiny and I noticed a few paint cracks in the courtyard, covered up by small palms that needed to be tended to. She took us quickly to the demonstration rooms and the kitchens. There were kitchens with up to fourteen students per class, divided into three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Superior. She explained how it was possible to get your diploma in both pastry and cuisine or in just one.

  I raised my hand. “Are the classes only in French?” I asked.

  “They are all in French, but there is an English translator for Basic and Intermediate Cuisine. If you take Superior you must be able to understand French to graduate from this school. But if you start taking French now you will be able to understand by the time you take Superior Cuisine.” She smiled after her canned reply.

  After the tour we were all handed fancy red folders with the prices and dates. She ended the tour by inviting us to a buffet of food the students in catering had just made. I approached her and told her I was interested in enrolling. She walked me over to the admissions agent, who gave me several forms to fill out.

  “Congratulations on your decision,” Marie-Hélène, the admissions agent, assured me in her French-accented English.

  I asked her to calculate the price for me in dollars and my eyes went blind for a few seconds. My God, I thought, I could be going to Harvard for a year for the price I’m paying at this school. Yeah, but you really can’t brag about going to Harvard for just one year, like you can about going to Paris and studying cuisine and getting a diploma in a year. So I’m paying for bragging rights. I can live with that. I asked her if I could pay with a credit card and she said only half of it could be paid that way. I asked her if they would take foreign checks and she said only wire transfers. I filled out all the paperwork; as soon as my wire transfer came in, I would be officially enrolled. She asked me if I wanted to start right away or wait the eight weeks until the next class.

  “I can’t wait eight weeks; by then I’ll have been here for over three months. I need a carte de séjour,” I confided in her.

  “Then you have to start next week so we can start the process for your carte de séjour. You’re very lucky there is an opening. We just had an American student drop out this morning from the Intensive Basic Cuisine.”

  “The Intensive?”

  “The class I’m enrolling you in is the Intensive Basic Cuisine. It’s not the normal class; it’s a fast-paced class. You do in five weeks what you would normally do in ten.” I stared at her for a few seconds, clutching my application.

  “Are you ready to begin your exciting culinary career?” Marie-Hélène asked, trying to reassure me that I was making the right decision. I stared blankly up at her, not believing what I was about to do. I handed over my application, and she quickly snatched it before I had a chance to change my mind.

  My little sister Rosie was the only person I trusted to help me with the wire transfer. I would tell her it was money to pay for a journalism course or whatever, and she would send it without asking more questions. My mother must be psychic, because she just happened to be visiting Rosie and was next to the phone when I called.

  “So where are you and what are you doing?” she fired at me before I had a chance to disguise my voice and ask for my little sister.

  “I’m in Paris… and I’m going to be here working until the end of the year,” I blurted out.

  “¿Estas loca? This is crazy. You will regret passing up Armando. He loves you and he’s a doctor. I know you couldn’t care less about your future, thinking you’ll always be beautiful and young, pero m’ija, life happens to everyone and you’re not going to have your health and your good looks forever.”

  “I know—” I started to defend myself, but she cut me off.

  “No, you don’t know. If you finally get married, I won’t have to worry about you anymore. Now I’ll be stressed out even more with you in another country. Come back now!” she demanded, and like a little kid I hung up the phone. I called my little sister on her cell and saved myself the guilt trip.

  On the first day of class I arrived at Le Coq Rouge forty-five minutes early by miscalculation and was embarrassed to let anybody see me being so anxious. I walked up to reception, where the welcoming committee was already present, taking names and passing out large folders. A short woman with red hair named Sélange handed me a folder. “Welcome to Le Coq Rouge. These are your recipes,” she said, pointing me to the demonstration room on the first floor. I went in and observed all the Japanese students already there, going over the rules and filling out their paperwork. I sat down at the front and looked at all the incoming students. The roster had the names of the fourteen students taking the course and their countries of origin: Holland, Brazil, Korea, Hong Kong, Mexico, Portugal, and of course the United States.

  I opened my book and saw there were over ninety recipes. Each lesson was one appetizer or salad, a main dish, and a dessert. All the names of the dishes were in French, but also translated into English. As I went through the recipes I heard Armando telling me he was happy with the menu for our wedding reception. I had told him it wasn’t so exotic and interesting. He’d begged me to tame my choices for the sake of his family. I’d gotten him to admit that his mother thought I was too wild to make a good mother. We were opposites and that was great for a while, but after we argued over the menu I knew it was over. Armando was a MAP, a Mexican-American Prince—educated, accomplished, polished, cultured, and loved his mother; but that was the problem. He was a trophy husband, and I needed something meatier. He looked good on the menu, but he wasn’t a dish I wanted to order for life. Yeah, it was the menu. His culinary choices were limited to beef and potatoes and I needed something colorful and delicious. I desired one marriage and he wanted another. After the argument I began to go through the motions of a relationship, but ev
entually I just had to be the courageous one to put a stop to the whole thing. My mother thought it was her fault that I wasn’t married; she complained to me about my father too much and knew she ruined my picture of men for the rest of my life. That’s partly true, though if I were a man and afraid of commitment, nobody would hassle me about it. But because I have a vagina and healthy eggs, I was constantly put on the fryer for all my choices about the men I dated.

  Sélange walked in, along with all the female administrative staff, and welcomed us once again. All the women introduced themselves, including the receptionist, who introduced herself as Françoise, at our service. The fifty-something students from mostly First World countries, or from rich families of poor countries, applauded. Finally the head chef of the school introduced himself as Renault Sauber, a white-haired Robin Williams without all the body hair. He welcomed us in every language he knew and told us that although there was a lot of work ahead we would have fun; he would make sure of it.

  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.