Love, Laughter And Tears In Paris At The World's Most Famous Cooking School
“Cooking is like love. It should be entered into with abandon, or not at all.” – Harriet Van Horne, Vogue (1956) Pg. 1
“I didn’t start cooking until I was thirty-two. Until then, I just ate.” – Julia Child
“Mike teases me that nothing at Costco comes with its head on; it is usually bagged and boneless. As at most supermarkets, they remove every bit of evidence that the meat came from anything that was ever alive.”
“Dishwashers, or plongeurs in French, play an important role at Le Cordon Bleu. They’re the only ones who can get you a passiore when urgently needed.” Pg. 77
“Est-ce que vois desirez un petite histoire?” Chef Gaillard asks. Do we want a little story?
“Oui, Chef,” we reply.
Chef sets a massive stockpot on one burner, heats up a cloudy veal stock, and adds ground beef, egg white, and tomatoes. For the next hour, he lovingly tends to the consumme, pulling the ingredients as they cook into a floating ring known as a “raft.” The stock gurgles at a languid pace. The beef adds flavor, while the egg whites and tomatoes draw out the impurities in the stock, he explains. The results should be a bright-flavored clear bouillon. As he does all this, he occasionally takes a small taste with a fresh spoon and tells us his theory that soups similar to consommé led to the creation of restaurants.
“Everyone says that the Revolution brought about restaurants,” he says via Anne the translator. “What really happened was that the monarchy made people tired and sick.” So, street vendors began to peddle inexpensive thick bouillons or thin soups – said to restaurer, or “restore,” one’s vigor – to hungry peasants, weary travelers, or tired city workers. More places offering this “restorative” nourishment began to appear in the sixteenth century, until the first establishment known as a “restaurant” opened in France in 1765. Even then, it was operated by a French soup seller, the chef says.
Shortly afterward, elite heads rolled throughout France, and chefs for the upper classes had to find some new customers. That’s when the idea of a “restaurant” expanded well beyond soups, Chef says.
Chef carefully removes the clarifying ingredients and pours that consume through a passoire. He tates again with his spoon. Satisfied, he adds perfectly diced vegetables.
“Goutez, goutez, goutez,” Chef begins. “C’est tres important…”
Anne translates. “Always taste, taste, taste, as you cook. Chef Gaillard believes this is very important. If you wait until a dish is done, then it is too late to fix the seasonings. You must taste everything as you go along, every ingredient.” Pg. 94
Mirepoux- onions, carrots, celery. 2:1:1
“Now, there is one thing that’s true about Julia Child. She said that you should never confess to mistakes that were not witnessed by others.”
‘Remember, you’re alone in the kitchen,” she would say. “You must stand by your convictions and just pretend that was the way it was supposed to turn out.” Pg. 96
“As Chef Bertrand goes through preparation of the rack of lamb and baked Alaska, I can’t focus on any of it, consumed as I am with dread and exhaustion.
We assemble outside the kitchen door at 3:25. Chef Colville doesn’t let us enter until nearly 3:45. He hands each of us a slip of paper with the name of a dish. Damn. I have drawn the horrid hake steaks with hollandaise sauce. The other five students have been assigned the chicken fricassee with tarragon, a straightforward stew.
Amit offers a hug. “Don’t think about yesterday. You’re going to do fine.”
I collect the basket the assistants set up for me. I store the hake and a duo of hazy-eyed whitefish in my fridge. My hands are shaking.
I go through the routine of the court bouillon, clumsily cut up the hake, and then start on the sauce. My hollandaise breaks, and I have to start over. Both test recipes call for turning thirty-six vegetables as garnishes. L.P. asks Chef Colville if we need to present all the vegetables.
“Bien sur,” he replies and waves a warning finger to all of us, and no less.”
Despite all my practice, it takes me a long time just to turn so many vegetables. I start to get anxious.
And then, a final blow.
“Une demi heure, a half hour,” the chef warns, to a wave of protests. That’s 6:00 p.m. But we started late, we argue. We should finish as 6:15 p.m. No discussion, he says.
I steady myself. I am forty minutes away from finishing.
At 5:50 p.m., I plate my hake and cover it with plastic wrap as instructed and pour my sauce -halfway through the duo of whitefish when Chef Colville roars, “Arretez!” Stop!
All of us are seemingly midtask. We put down our knives. It’s over. Pg. 109
tabac- smoke shop
C’est la vie, c’est la guerre- that’s live, that’s war
“Returning to Paris, my grades from Basic bring me back to reality. I scored high on my midterm and two other tests, above average on my daily work, and passed the final, but barely.
“You must let is go,” L.P. advises, as we change in the locker room. “You have much work to do until you get your diploma. If you cannot let go of the past, then you cannot focus on the present.”
With just thirty-four students, Intermediate Cuisine is roughly half the size of Basic. Culinary Darwinism at work, Basic tends to weed out the recreational cooks and those who want something else in a culinary program. Intermediate’s curriculum differs from the rest of the Le Cordon Bleu training in focusing on regional cuisines. We begin our culinary tour in Normandy. Pg. 118
Mike and I invite Nigel and Theo from the rental website to dinner to thank them for their kindness to us. Theo took Mike all around Paris a few days earlier on the back of his moped to faire les courses, running errands. Nigel continues to help us navigate the complications of French life. We serve small cups of the bouillabaisse as an appetizer, followed by grilled lamb, On the side, there’s potatoes Bercy, Mike’s favorite dish from Basic Cuisine – essentially a cup of egg-fortifed potatoes filled with cream sauce and topped with gratineed cheese. We finish with chocolate macaroons scored from a pastry student.
As we sip Calvados after dinner, we watch the nightlife out of our kitchen window. Our window directly overlooks the Etienne Marcel Metro stop, and it’s a busy one; people stream in and out constantly. An elderly man in a wheelchair pulls up to the edge of the steps and waits. With few exceptions, the Metros in Paris are not equipped with ramps. Without comment, two younger men grab each side and carry the man down the steps. Mike and I have seen this before, down on the platforms, when strangers will pick up the wheelchair by the arm handles and pull someone into a Metro car. Different strangers help them get off the train. They all go on about their business. No fuss. No pity. We ask our guests about it.
“That is just part of the French culture,” Theo says. The national motto for France is liberte, egalite, fraternite (brotherhood). As part of fraternite, one must be a Good Samaritan. “From the time we are young children, it’s taught that such things are expected.”
I tell him about the man who helped me up the stairs with my groceries. “Of course. This surprised you?” Pp. 129 – 130
The next day, we make pot-au-feu, a name that literally translates into “pot on fire” and refers to meats and vegetables cooked slowly in water. Traditionally, the broth is served as a first course; the meat is reserved for the main course with the vegetables. It’s a staple of French comfort food. In Paris supermarkets, the herbs and vegetables for pot-au-feu- potatoes, turnips, carrots, celery, thyme, and bay leaves- can be bought in one plastic-wrapped package. Traditionally, it’s made with beef. For ours, we’ll use duck legs, hand-made sausages, and poached marrow bones. Pg. 130
“Where do you find these kinds of bones?” a student asks.
John translates. Chef has an easy answer: “Make friends with your butcher.”
“You have to use plenty of salt, and make sure the bones are very hot,” says the handsome chef, “or it’s disgusting.” Pg. 131
On the way home, I stop at rue Montorgueil, about three streets from our flat. It’s a historic pedestrian market street with various stores and stalls. Rue Montorgueil is tick with people, as it always is this time of day. I’ve read that in France at least one member of every household shops daily. Seemingly they’re all buying bread.
Chef Bertrand told us that the government regulates bakers’ vacations. In some remote towns, the local authorities subsidize bakeries. “You can’t have all the bakers go on holiday at once, and you can’t let the only bakery shut down,” he said. “People need their bread.” I pass the snaking line at the first bakery. Down the street, a boulangerie sets up a veritable baguette express station in the late afternoon that’s worked by a competent, affable blond woman. I’ve been coming here four times a week.
“Vous desirez, mademoiselle?” she asks.
I’ve done this so often, I can respond perfectly. “Deux baguettes, s’il voud plait.”
“Chef says that in France fish are served with their heads to the left,” translated John. “It’s tradition, and customers here expect that.” Pg. 135
Every time I see the photo of Julia, I think of the two times I met her. The first eas in the mid-1990s during a food writers’ workshop at a swanky West Virginia resort. On the second day of the workshop, I arrived late. Just as I sat down, I heard a familiar warble ask, “Is this seat taken?”
Julia squeezed her giant frame into the seat next to me. It was as if God almighty had saddled up on my left.
“That salmon at breakfast was so good, I had to finish it,” she whispered in a conspiratorial tone. She took copious notes of the morning’s session. As we broke for lunch, she closed her notebook with a satisfied smile. “I always love to come to this workshop. You learn so much,” she said.
This amazed me. After all, she was Julia freakin’ Child. I assumed she knew everything there was to know about food and cooking. I politely told her so.
She laughed. “Oh no, you can never know everything about anything, especially something you love,” she said, patting me on the knee. Pg. 136
From the feasts, the term was first applied in the realm of cuisine. By the eighteenth century, the term “cordon bleu” had evolved into shorthand for a craftsman who hit the pinnacle of his or her profession or developed impeccable skill. Pg. 138
It turns out Sharon is a corporate refugee, too. “I wanted to cook for as long as I can remember, even as a small child,” she says. She got a degree in hotel management that she never used. She somehow landed in high tech, starting as a production manager and later shifting to overseeing Internet projects.
“I liked it, but I always felt like something was missing,” she says. “I would get bored really fast and change jobs all the time. Then I turned thirty. I found myself with no job, no real motivation to look for another one in high-tech.” Her fiancé, Amir, asked why she didn’t consider cooking as a career. “The idea had honestly never occurred to me,” Sharon says. She persuaded the owner of a well-known French restaurant in Tel Aviv to apprentice her in his kitchen for three months. That chef had graduated from Le Cordon Bleu in London, so after the apprenticeship she decided to follow his path. She speaks French, so she opted for Paris. “It was almost a spur-of-the-moment- decision,” she says. “Suddenly, I was here.”
Sharon and Lely’s stories remind me of the passages. All of us have made the decision to enter into this experience with abandon, unsure of where we’ll come out on the other side. Sometimes, the places that life takes us can be so unexpected.” Pp. 140-141
Crazy that you are
why do you promise yourself to live a long time,
you who cannot count on a single day?
Life seems so linear, a constant march toward the end. But in reality, the general flow is more cyclical. The brutal truth of nature is that it often takes the death of one thing to feed another. A chef never mourns an empty plate. Pg. 147
I learned from Julia Child that is something foes awry in the kitchen, just pretend that was how it was meant to turn out in the first place. The pumpkin cheesecakes seemed like a disaster, but with a bit of inspiration they were transformed into successful tarts. Pg. 169
“They used every bit of the duck. Nothing was wasted,” she says.
Cassoulet derives its name from the use of the casole, an earthenware pout typical of Castelnaudry, where the dish is thought to have originated in the fifteenth century. “In France, there are strict rules about what can go into cassoulet,” Chef warns. Use anything other than white beans, haricots, and it’s no longer as cassoulet. A gastronomical text of the 1960s decreed that the dish must contain at least 30 percent pork, lamb, goose, or duck; the addition of chicken or fish disqualified it as a cassoulet. Pp. 177-178
“Today the government struggles to cope with the offspring of the people they conquered, not in some faraway land but as a marginalized populace in their own country.” Pp. 192-193
(19th, 20th, 10th, and 11th arrondissements)
Belleville- My commute to Le Cordon Bleu from here is a different experience; coming in from the working-class neighborhoods on the city’s outskirts this early in the morning offers a more intimate glimpse of Parisian humanity. Not all the women are thin, the men are not all well dressed, and they share a universal expression of fatigue. As we dip farther into the city, toward the more fashionable neighborhoods, the clothes improve; the women get thinner, with more stylish haircuts and impressive shoes. Pp. 195-196
I wake up the next morning thinking in French. I decide to keep on speaking it, regardless of whether someone asks me something in English. I want to stay in this immersion, as if I’m on the precipice of speaking French and won’t be able to come back if I stop. It’s like being a child. You understand, but you can’t speak much beyond simple phrases. But one day you know you will because everyone else can. Pg. 217
Today, the sous-sol has been generous; I have about six portions of fish. I call the Italian landlords to see if they want some for dinner. I look for the world’s smartest homeless man, but I’ve not seen him since my return. So I head home on the Metro. At the Montparnasse station, I see a heavily disfigured young woman. She sits quietly, jean jacket buttoned up, a hand-lettered sign in front of her. “J’ai faim,” it begins. I’m hungry. Anything, please.
I walk past her, caught in the throng of Parisians anxious to get home. On the platform, a train stops. The hake weighs heavily in my hand.
I turn around and walk against the tide of people.
She looks up expectantly, surprised to see someone coming the wrong way. “Vous desirez du poisson?” I ask, bending down to her.
I can see a map of deep scars around her bald head. Burns, I think, horrible to experience and maybe worse to live with. Her green eyes glow against her purple, discolored skin. She adds something about her “petit garcon,” her little boy.
I’m a culinary student, I tell her. I often have food, and I’ll look for her. I walk way but turn to see her looking through various zipbags, the fish for once served with a generous side of vegetables. Happy and almost hugging herself, she looks at me. She smiles and, like Chef Bouveret, gives me a thumbs-up.
Maybe Esteban is right, I think, as I waslk back down to the platform. In the kitchen, I might be a slave to the chefs. But now, feeding this woman made me something remarkable. At first, it feels godlike. [Which is good, because that indicated your purpose, what you should be doing with your life.] Pp. 217-218
Dinner begins with an amuse-bouche, “something to entertain the palate” Pg. 222
Rebels always seem to make great poets. My favorite comment is this one from Esteban: “How easily a dinner can be a feast of friends, those pleasures you enjoy breath by breath.” Pg. 223
I think of the chef from Le Doyen, trying to find a balance with everything, even things that would not seem to work together. As a girl, I studied ballet. I remember the times that learning all those techniques seemed like just repetitive, boring work. But the point of it all was that in the end, the work should appear effortless. It takes time and patience to make la danse work. But when it does, it is marvelous. Pg. 229
I got lucky. While I was on vacation, I was laid-off, fired, or whatever they want to call it. Thank God. I don’t know if I had it in me to quit. A gilded cage is still a cage, just the same, but I might still be there, putting up with it.
“The constant desire to win is a very American kind of trouble,” writes William Zinsser in hs book On Writing Well. “Less glamorous gains made along the way- learning, wisdom, growth, and confidence, dealing with failure- aren’t given the same respect because they can’t be given a grade.” Pg. 246
We must prepare a main dish- in this case, using a fillet of veal. There’s a list of other items we must use: endives, mousse de foie gras, salsify, cauliflower, and chanterelle mushrooms. We have another list of optional ingredients, all of which will be available in our baskets, that includes standards such as garlic, shallots, onions, flour, yeast, wines, oils, and so on. We must come up with three side dishes.
A good plate demonstrates multiple techniques, Chef says. One item should be simple- say, sautéed vegetables. The others should be complex. Also, we must provide our recipes to the chef- written out in French- before we begin. Pg. 246
On this spot, I first chopped mirepoix and filleted a fish. Here, Anna-Clare watched in horror as I dropped our shared duck. I almost expect L.P. or LizKat to walk in. Those days feel like yesterday and a hundred years ago all at once. I pull out my knives, and I start to hum.
“J’espere que je fais bien, pour vous,” I say to Chef Gaillard. I hope I do well, for you.
Chef Gaillard assures me that I’ll do fine. He wags a finger and says, “Goutez, goutez, goutez,” taste, taste, taste, as if I need to be reminded to taste my food as I cook. “Bonne chance, mon amie,” And he waves goodbye. I can’t believe that I was once afraid of him.
I set out my recipes and my time line on the marble counter. I pull my filet de veau from the ingredient basket assembled by the sous-sol, trimming and shaping it until I end up with an eight-inch by four-inch oblong piece of tenderloin. As if by habit, I sear the trimmings in hot oil until they’re dark brown. To make the mirepoix once took me twenty minutes; it now takes me under five. I saute the vegetables, taste the veal stock, and then add it to the saucepan. I taste again, and I know that this sauce will be fine. Pg. 260
Students do fail final exams at Le Cordon Bleu, and they do not get diplomas. We’re reminded of this at the beginning of the test, when we verify our phone numbers. If we fail, the school promises to call within twenty-four hours to let us know. If you don’t hear anything, then you can assume you have passed.
“Souvenir” means “to remember” in French.
“C’est bien, Kathleen. Merci pour votre travail aujourd’hui,” Chef DuPont says, a gentle smile on his face. You did well. Thank you for your work today. Pg. 264
Margo, the consummate competitor, finished five minutes late. Still, she was smiling and happy.
“I’ve been taking it all too seriously, I think,” she says. Yesterday, she practiced her wine-reduction sauce three times. She burned it twice. “I was so upset. I mean, I never burn my sauce. But something in me clicked. When I came in today, I decided to forget the burned sauces. I would just do my best because really, that’s all I can do.” She took a sip of champagne.
This was a shocking statement from the woman who once spent seventy euros on food-styling magazines to try to impress the chefs, and she knew it.
“Everyone learns something different at Le Cordon Bleu, and maybe this is my lesson,” she says. “Sometimes, I can’t be the best. Like today. My sauce was fine. It wasn’t the greatest sauce the judges saw, but it was what I could do today. I have to be happy with that.” Pg. 265
“Maybe you should write about going to school here, don’t you think? If you need anything, old documents, schedules, or interviews with anyone, just let me know. It’s an interesting story, Le Cordon Bleu, a lot of history here, many lessons.”
I might have to take her up on that. As I push open the door of 8 rue Leon Delhomme, I put on my Audrey Hepburn sunglasses, pull my sack of knives around my shoulders, and head out into the bright November day. Pg. 266
Suki “plans to return to Japan to start a cooking school for children, an oddly popular plan for the female Japanese graduates.” Pg. 267
“You are entering a new life, and for many of you a life that will be greatly enriched by the fact that you are following your passions.”
“Every culture has its own approach and thought about food. The chefs hope you will take the discipline from French cuisine, the techniques and the ideas behind them, back to your own culture and country. I encourage you to mix what you’ve learned with the cuisine of your own region. Experiment, be bold, create.” Pg. 267
I’ve taken the chefs’ advice and befriended a butcher, one who saved this bird just for me.
“Je sais, vous les Americains, vous aimez votre Thanksgiving,” he said when he handed over the awkward bundle. I know you Americans love your Thanksgiving.
Now I slide my eyes over to our Euro-sized oven. The bird will never fit. About to panic, I explain the dilemma to Mike.
“Do what you learned at school: bone it and stuff it with something,” he says. So, I bone the whole turkey, hacking the carcass down to make stock to use for the sauces today and gumbo later. I make a farce of sautéed wild mushrooms fresh from the markets. I roll it up and, using my trussing needle, sew a seam down one side; it looks as if it’s wearing a complicated Victorian corset. The legs I treat like a jambonette- keeping a bit of bone at the end and then filling the cavity with stuffing until it appears the leg is intact. I use a version of my stuffing from my final exam, blending diced apples, celery, and onion with a slather of mousse de foie gras. Bound up with the caul fat, the legs hold their shape beautifully. Pp. 271-272
Alone, I take a deep breath. The counter is strewn with pots, pans, wine bottles, stacks of produce everywhere.
I can only do my best, and today that will have to be good enough. Pp. 272-273
This is truly a time for thanks.
This is a meal that I could not have made before I attended Le Cordon Bleu. More than half the people here are friends that I made in Paris.
My grandmother had a saying” “Every woman should get herself two things: A good husband and a good set of knives.”
I amassed a great set of knives attending Le Cordon Bleu. I married the man who encouraged me to follow my dream to come here, even when it meant putting his own life on hold. We never completely filled in the map of Paris, but on my journey here I’ve found places within myself where I’d never been. From my romance with Mike, I’ve come to realize I’d never explored the streets of my emotions enough to learn the geography of my own heart.
From the chefs, I learned lessons that extend well beyond the kitchen.
As in cooking, living requires that you taste, taste, taste as you go along- you can’t wait until the dish of life is done. In may career, I always looked ahead to the place I wanted to go, the next rung on the ladder. It reminds me of the “The Station” by Robert Hastings, a parable read at our wedding. The message is that while on a journey, we are sure the answer lies at the destination. But in reality, there is no station, no “place to arrive at once and for all. The joy of life is the trip, and the station is a dream that constantly outdistances us.”
How many tears did I cry because I didn’t know what I wanted? “The sharper your knife,” as Chef Savard had said, “the less you cry.” For me, it also means to cut those things that get in the way of your passion and of living your life the way it’s meant to be lived.
Of course, I also learned to make a mean reduction sauce and to bone an entire chicken without removing the skin, which is nice, too. Pp. 273-274
Bon travail
Flinn, Kathleen. (2007). The Sharper Your Knife, The Less You Cry. Penguin Books: New York, NY.
