Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

  “Jolie photo,” he said, complimenting my picture. He pronounced my name and asked me where I was from.

  “Los Angeles,” I said.

  “Mais vous êtes méxicaine, n’est-ce pas?” He could tell by my high cheekbones and full lips that I was not really an American —a typical one, that is.

  “Oui, Mexique,” I replied, trying to sound like I knew enough French to handle a conversation with him.

  “Viva México,” he cheered. I looked down, trying not to smile too much, and took myself and my mediocre soup out of his presence.

  As I washed my knives, I discovered a sore spot on my finger. I’d ended up with a little cut and I didn’t know how I’d done it. I hadn’t even felt it. I must have put too much pressure on the knife, so much so that I’d torn my skin. I packed my things and saw Bassie struggling with her soup. Janeira would take occasional breaks because her cut was bothering her. I left with a smile, wondering if all the chefs were as delicious as the two that I had seen so far. “One recipe down, twenty-nine more to go,” I sighed, hopeful that I had found a new profession.

  CHAPTER 6

  Like Water for Canela

  I sat in the front row again and the Korean woman sat next to me. I introduced myself and she said her name. I still couldn’t pronounce it, so she said, “Call me Ale, like ginger ale” and made it easy to remember. The chef’s new assistant in the demonstration worked diligently setting up all the vegetables and ingredients. Chef Chocon, a stocky man with a red nose, perhaps from drinking too much, walked in through the door—one reserved exclusively for the chefs—carrying his metal briefcase. He opened his case, took out his tools, and began sharpening his deboning knife, which looked more like a stiletto heel than a knife. “Bonjour,” he said to the few students already there, in a high, nasal voice.

  He chopped up bones with a cleaver and explained how we would roast the bones in the oven for forty minutes at 450 degrees; add the vegetable mirepoix, with the vegetables cut at half an inch halfway through the roasting; and then add water to deglaze. Janeira turned to another student to ask for the quantity of water, but Chef Chocon raised his voice and told her to ask him, not her fellow student, because she could be getting the wrong information. Janeira apologized in French and explained that she hadn’t wanted to interrupt him. Chef Chocon explained that he was here for his students, and after working at three-star restaurants, he wanted to be of service to aspiring chefs. That was why he taught at the best cooking school in the world.

  Chef Chocon proceeded to cut an onion, first horizontally, then vertically. Got it, I thought. He finely sliced all the onion and put it in a pan with olive oil. We were to make a “tart,” translated Henry, but under his breath he said, “It’s really just a fancy French pizza.” The chef emptied the rest of the oil into the anchovies, throwing the bottle into the garbage.

  “You must put the anchovies in milk to help remove the strong taste,” translated Henry. Henry muttered, barely audibly, to the front row: “Too bad you can’t do the same to women.” I looked up and stared at him, unsure he had actually said that. He was glad he’d caught my attention. He smiled at me and winked. I looked away when I realized he was flirting with me. I looked down at my notes. This is going to be a pizza, I thought; so much for gourmet food.

  In practical, Bassie was the only one concerned about the steps. She studied her notes carefully and took out her tools. I grabbed my onion and paid attention to the way I cut it this time. I couldn’t get fine slices. I looked next to me and instead of Janeira, now the woman from Hong Kong was slicing an onion effortlessly. I’m sure Janeira suspected me and had decided to move to another station rather than risk losing her onion again. I poured olive oil into my pan and warmed up my onions on a slow burner. The smell of onions hit my nostrils and the memory of pulling out onions from the earth massaged my face. The dirt buried itself in my fingernails and the smell of onions on my fingers seemed like it would never, ever go away. I smelled my tiny ten-year-old fingers and asked my mother if the smell would ever fade.

  “When we pick a different vegetable, it will go away. Maybe the next vegetable will not be so smelly. Maybe when we move to the city we won’t smell like vegetables or dirt anymore,” my mother said.

  “When will that be?” I asked.

  “Someday, when we have picked enough vegetables, we will be able to afford an apartment for all of us.” My father came by and told us to stop talking or the rancher might complain and fire us. I shut up and continued pulling out onions.

  The chef assigned to our practical entered with a “Bonjour” that commanded attention. We all turned to acknowledge him and I was immediately disappointed that it was not Chef Frédérique. Chef Tulipe resembled Santa Claus. He walked around inspecting what we were doing and stopped next to Bassie. He looked her up and down as if wondering if she was even eighteen and allowed to be in the kitchen. Bassie turned away from him and sliced her onions. She cut her finger and quietly exclaimed, “Ah, shit!” to herself. Chef Tulipe took her knife and studied it.

  “It’s the dull knives that are the most dangerous,” Chef Tulipe said in French. He ordered her to sharpen her knives before continuing. Bassie went to the first-aid kit and then to the sink. I walked past her to collect my can of anchovies and asked her if she was okay. She looked up at me with a smile, surprised that I’d noticed. She pretended to be tough and said it was nothing.

  I went back to my onions, stirring them and taking in their pungent smell once again. This time I was in my mother’s kitchen, during a party.

  “Come here and help me with the food,” my mother ordered me. I was thirteen and braless. My nipples were barely showing, but I always tried to prove my point.

  “No. How come the men aren’t in the kitchen? How come they’re drinking beer and laughing and we are in this hot kitchen doing all the work?” I demanded.

  “That’s the way it is. We cook for the men. Men eat first,” my mother said unapologetically and without concern.

  “We are not in Mexico anymore,” I reminded her.

  “Just because we are in Los Angeles doesn’t mean you are American. Pay attention to the chiles… They are supposed to be roasted, not burnt.”

  I pulled a chile off the fire and burnt my hand. I yelled, “Ouch,” but instead of my mother sympathizing she said, “Ya ves, for not paying attention.” She pushed me aside with the roundness of her body and demonstrated how it should be done. She ended up doing all of them by herself.

  “You have to do it right or it won’t be worth making it. Go peel some garlic.”

  I peeled garlic and ended up with some of it buried in my nails. She chopped up the garlic and threw it in the pan along with an onion and diced tomatoes. She added rice and made me stir the rice back and forth to roast it. My Tía Lucia came in with a recipe and read it out loud to my mother.

  “I got this recipe for mole negro oaxaqueño from my neighbor. We’re going to need to buy the chocolate.” She left the recipe on the counter next to the stove and I read it while they debated what kind of chocolate to add.

  My mother came by and saw that the rice was burning. She slapped my hand so I would pay attention.

  “Mira! You’re burning the rice! You really are good for nothing.” I stirred the rice as if I were slapping her back.

  “Stop that!” she commanded again. I continued throwing the rice back and forth; if I wasn’t going to get to eat that rice, why should I care if it got burnt? She grabbed the stirring spoon and took it away from me. She pushed me aside with her big hips and told me, “If you are not going to do it with love, then don’t do it at all. Get out of my kitchen!” She made a scene and humiliated me in front of all the women at the party. Tía Bonifacia shook her head at me as I grabbed a soda and left the kitchen with my head held high.

  I sat next to the men. My father looked at me but didn’t say anything. None of the men spoke to me, and I didn’t eat mole that day. I had gotten very sick the first time I’d had re
d mole, when I was five. Even though this was supposed to be black mole, it would taste bitter to me. I swore after that experience that I would not go into a kitchen to cook for a man. I swore I would someday marry a man who would love me for my mind and not for how I reminded him of his mother or for the cooking and cleaning services I provided.

  I recall Armando’s mother complaining to him that I might be exciting and fun now, but that he was going to go hungry and so would his children. A man like Armando would never go hungry. If his wife didn’t cook for him, you know his mother would be there, serving up his favorite meal. A man doesn’t get to go hungry the way a woman goes hungry. A woman will give away all the food she needs to nurture her body and her soul to the man she loves and her children before she thinks of herself. I had gone hungry for so many years. I had never had a mother who cooked for me the way she cooked for my brothers. In my home food was not for pleasure; food was the way you told somebody you loved them and that they were worth something. I remember being hungry when I was growing up. My mother said we never lacked for food. There was always beans and rice and, if I was woman enough, I could cook myself something.

  Why do these onions bring back all these memories? Why does it still hurt that my mother never cooked for me? Why does my mother’s kitchen always remind me of hunger? I was hungry for her love and affection and encouragement. I was hungry for a life that was not promised to me the second I was sentenced a girl. I was hungry for an adventure forbidden to me as a Mexican woman. I was hungry for a world where women like me could be seen as creators and not just pieces of meat. I am still hungry for my mother’s acceptance. I am so hungry that it hurts, because I can’t explain how someone as hungry as me can’t keep these twenty pounds from disappearing. I want to disappear, but the hunger I feel and the pain in my gut makes me feel alive. I know hunger; she is my friend. She has been with me on all these journeys where there was never enough to go around. Hunger was there in my college days when I could barely afford tuition and had to live on Cup O’ Noodles and Top Ramen. Hunger has been with me for a long time, even when I called it off with Armando after our fight over the menu.

  Chef Tulipe walked behind me and startled me by barking, “Vous êtes en train de brûler les oignons!” My onions were burning, and I immediately removed the pan from the burner.

  Many more mistakes were to follow. I turned a fish fumet into a green glob when I threw parsley into the butter sauce too early. I overcooked my carrots, ruined the skin on my delicate fish, and tied up my chicken like it was ready for S & M instead of roasting. I kept telling myself that I was glad I’d made those mistakes so I would never make them again. So what if my fish had a few scales left on it? No one died. Yesterday was too much salt; today I reduced improperly; not enough butter, et cetera, et cetera. The big thing I had to remember was to taste, constantly be tasting, tasting, tasting.

  “Cuisine is sensual,” translated Henry for Chef Sauber during one of his many demonstrations. “You must always be touching and tasting and smelling and having all of your senses completely open. You can follow a recipe, yes, but you must also feel your way through it.” He added, “You have to be like an Italian; you have to touch everything. To truly be a great chef you must love to give pleasure to people.” The second he said this, I swear I could feel the hearts of the female students jump. Chef Sauber was old enough to be my father, but in front of the burners he was the chef, the sexiest man alive; the man who could take dead materials and give them life with his beautiful hands, holding the meat and carving out our fantasies. He was an alchemist, turning simple food items into golden delicacies that melted in our mouths, leaving us wanting more . . . Oh, my God, I’m starting to sound like a cheesy romance novel.

  In Paris, chefs are revered the same way rock stars or auteur filmmakers are in Hollywood. The cuisine chefs were sexy, but the pastry chefs were the ones with the Adonis bodies. There were a few with doughboy bodies too, but the head pastry chef was charismatic and had muscular arms. He spent all day slapping and punching dough. One day, when I arrived too early for my Basic Cuisine class, the pastry demonstration was finishing up. I snuck a peek and saw that Chef Guillaume had several female pastry students around him. Maybe they were just really impressed by his pies, but they were like little birds flocking to him and eating out of his loving and muscular hand. He grabbed the dough and shaped it like a big breast.

  “Now, you must caress it like a beautiful woman’s breast,” he said. The women blushed. “This dough needs to be like love—the more you beat it, the more it loves you back,” Chef Guillaume advised. He slapped the dough with such intensity it was hard not to imagine him slapping you on the ass as he penetrated you doggy-style. Even some of the heterosexual men had to look away. I had considered taking a pastry class, but Luna dying of diabetes, having several uncles and tías who had also lost out to the disease, and knowing how Mexicans in general are prone to getting it had killed that idea.

  CHAPTER 7

  I’ll Always Have Butter

  At every demonstration we got a new chef. Some tried to be funny and keep it lively, and others didn’t care whether you liked them; they just wanted us to go back to our home countries knowing their techniques and pronouncing French words correctly.

  Chef Plat had no personality, but despite being so young he was the most talented. He showed us how he turned a regular mushroom into a work of art. With the paring knife, he gently scraped the mushroom as he pivoted his knife with his fingertips, creating a spiraling design like the inside of a sea conch. We were so amazed. If we could master that technique, we too could be amazing chefs like him. It reminded me of the student in kung fu being told he would be ready when he could take the pebble from his master’s hand.

  “The soufflé is one of the most difficult dishes,” translated Henry for Chef Plat, “because there are certain steps you must follow or it may not rise.” After Chef Plat was done whisking air into his egg whites, he added the egg-yolk batter and, in a scooping and cutting motion, folded them together while keeping in the whisked air. He took the prebuttered and floured soufflé bowl and scraped off a fingertip’s worth of butter from the center of the bottom of the bowl.

  “This little scrape is my little secret. If you do this to the bowl it ensures that the soufflé will not rise lopsided,” translated Henry for Chef Plat. When his soufflé was in the oven he was careful not to disturb it. He saw it rising and bragged about how his techniques always worked. Ten minutes later, when the soufflé refused to rise past the bowl, he was forced to admit that his techniques worked most of the time. The great chef was humbled by a cheese soufflé.

  At the end of the demonstration we were told to get ready for our class photo. I ran to brush my hair and put some makeup on. What a hypocrite I am! I complain about how Latinas and women spend more money on makeup than on a college education, but the minute they say “photo” I scramble for the foundation and lipstick. Okay, I could have gone without makeup, but I wanted my proof that I did attend and complete a culinary program from the most prestigious cooking school in the world to show to the nonbelievers, like my family, and I wanted to look “puuurty.”

  I sat down at a table with Bassie and a blonde who was putting on makeup and pearl earrings.

  “He got an American girl pregnant,” said Becky, a tall blonde from New York City.

  “Which chef?” I interjected.

  “Chef Sauber,” she replied.

  “But isn’t he married?” asked Bassie.

  “Like that ever matters in this country. That’s how the women here stay thin,” scoffed Becky.

  “What do you mean?” asked Bassie.

  “A husband cheats on his wife. The pain causes her to not want to eat or to go on a diet so she can be thinner than the mistress. I read that somewhere.”

  I added my two centimes: “I thought it was the cigarette smoking.” It’s amazing to me that in a country with the best restaurants in the world, Frenchwomen prefer to eat cigarett
es for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I knew it was being an apple-shaped woman in a country full of pear-shaped women, or no-shape women, that made me say that bitter line. Or could it have been that the secondhand smoke was affecting my brain?

  “So did she keep the baby?” asked Bassie.

  “I don’t know—ask him,” Becky replied. “They flirt with all the blondes, they think we’re all easy, but I like pussy.” I missed being around Americans; our potty mouths always distinguished us.

  A pastry student who’d finished his practical dropped off a cake at the table closest to the coat racks at the entrance of the courtyard. My “munchies” radar got activated and I turned to Becky, who knew more about the protocols of the school, and asked, “Is that cake for everyone?”

  “Yeah, the pastry students leave behind all kinds of failed experiments and sometimes great stuff that they have no one to share with,” she explained. I was about to rush over to get the cake when Sélange came into the courtyard and arranged the chairs for our photograph. She clapped her hands and made an announcement.