Learning Curves 1 - French Cooking 101

by Rigal, Olivia

  - One tablespoon of Dijon mustard

  - One tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, or better yet, cream of vinegar

  - Two tablespoons of olive oil

  - Salt and pepper to taste

  This mixture can be prepared in advance and kept refrigerated.

  The herbs and/or the garlic should be thrown in just before serving.

  It works well with chives, scallions, cilantro, and paper-thin slivers of garlic.

  Olive oil can be substituted by one tablespoon of hazelnut oil.

  Sweeter variation:

  - One tablespoon of seeded Meaux mustard

  - One tablespoon of granulated sugar

  - One tablespoon of cider vinegar

  - Two tablespoons of flaxseed oil

  - Salt and pepper to taste.

  Chapter I of Learning Curves 2

  STAYING IN BED LATE ON Saturday morning was such a treat, thought Ariane as she stretched lazily in her large bed. A fabulous top-of-the-line king-size bed had been her present to herself for her twenty-fifth birthday. Every single morning when she rolled onto the fresh side of the bed to sleep another half hour before getting up, she thanked herself for it.

  Daylight streamed through the heavy curtains of her bedroom overlooking the cobblestone courtyard of the building. The rays reflected off the mirrored sliding doors of the wall-to-wall closet she had built next to her bed. It made the room look larger. A bird chirped. Hers was an incredibly quiet place to live in Paris.

  On the other side of the main building one could hear the hustle of the rue Saint Dominique, the sounds of families going about their weekend shopping, the hum of the engines of the delivery trucks blocking the street, and the yells of the drivers of the other vehicles frustrated by the slow pace forced upon them. The noise was at a peak around eleven thirty a.m., when the traffic was slowed down further by kids coming out of their Saturday morning classes. They scattered on the streets screaming with delight, celebrating the arrival of the weekend.

  That side was the one Madame Caroline, the owner of the building, had picked to live on. “There’ll be enough quiet for me when I’m at the cemetery,” she always said.

  The woman, who would be a century old in a few months, sat by her windows most of the day and enjoyed her view of the street. “This is what life is all about,” she would explain to whomever would listen, and lately Ariane felt she was the last one still listening. “I’ve buried a few husbands, all of my childhood friends, and most of my contemporaries. I have no one left to reminisce with, so instead of crying, I decided to live in the present and imagine the future. I watch the kids going in and out from school, I watch them play in the courtyard, and I know what type of adults they will turn into. You can always tell because no one ever changes. We just get more set in our ways when we change playgrounds.”

  Ariane adored the old lady. She was as sharp as a tack and funny. Everybody had warned her that she was very moody and could be quite nasty, but so far, she had never lashed out at Ariane. On the contrary, she had been wonderful to her from day one.

  They had met when Ariane was hunting for a place to open her own cooking school. Ariane had fallen in love with the building. From the street it was the usual, white stone, early-19th-century construction with a porte-cochère—the typical Parisian high entrance large enough for a horse and carriage to go through. Opening that door was like travelling back in time. In the cobblestone courtyard stood a smaller two-story structure. The ground floor had been the stable and carriage house, the second floor the servants’ quarters.

  The architectural firm that had initially rented the place from Madame Caroline had kept the original sliding wooden doors. Carving out the central parts of the doors to replace them with glass panels, they had created a quaint open working space, large enough for the kitchen workshop Ariane had imagined. There was even enough space to put in a wall and create a small dining room. The second floor was an unfinished work in progress. Dividing walls had been torn out and a new tiled floor put in, but that was it.

  To bid for it, Ariane had presented her project and business plan to Madame Caroline. Two months’ security, one month’s rent in advance, and the basic kitchen set-up she needed would absorb all of her savings. Aside from those savings, Ariane could also boast a modest line of credit with her bank. That and her culinary talents had summed up her assets. If Madame Caroline said yes, Ariane would give notice to her present landlord and move into the living quarters of the second floor so she would only have one rent to pay.

  The old lady had reserved her answer.

  Before making her decision, she’d wanted to speak to Ariane’s references and taste her cooking. That very day, Ariane had known she had a serious chance at getting the deal.

  The following Friday, Ariane had served as Madame Caroline’s private chef for a party of three old ladies, not one of whom was a day younger than ninety.

  Having bribed Jean-Michel, the young apprentice of the next-door butcher shop, to find out what Madame Caroline favored, Ariane had served a very moist roasted duck with steamed green beans tied together in pretty little bundles by a string of chives. There had been salad, a well-picked assortment of cheese, and a crème caramel. The crème caramel was the crown jewel of the meal.

  Indeed, when she had quizzed the local merchants to get information about Madame Caroline, Patrick, the owner of the local bakery, had given her precious information. He had told her that crème caramel was Madame Caroline’s favorite dessert. The old lady regularly scolded him for not having some always readily available for her.

  Ariane had served the meal and watched over her judge’s expressions as she ate. Afterwards, she’d lingered on in the kitchen waiting for Madame Caroline’s friends to go. When they did, Madame Caroline came to speak to her. After making sure the kitchen was clean and inspecting the oven and the pots drying on the countertop, Madame Caroline had said, “I’ve spoken to the head of the school where you taught these past years. She speaks very highly of you. She said you managed to tame classes of rowdy teenagers and convinced even the biggest ‘hard-asses’—her term, not mine—that cooking is cool.”

  She’d paused as if puzzled. “One day, you’ll have to tell me what you said to butter them up like that, because as far as I’m concerned, cooking is the most boring occupation there is.”

  Ariane had resisted the urge to jump up and down in excitement. Yes, she was going to open her own school in that fabulous location. Keeping a poker face, she’d waited for Madame Caroline to speak again.

  “Here’s my proposal for you. I will rent the carriage house to you for the advertised rent, and I will pay for the renovation of the second floor—nothing fancy mind you. I’ll only put in a bathroom. All this in exchange for three meals a week, one of them being Sunday lunch, for the duration of the lease.”

  Ariane had shaken Madame Caroline’s extended hand, and the agreement had been sealed.

  During the following years, Ariane and Madame Caroline had become friends—at least, that was the way Ariane felt. They had shared almost every single one of the Sunday lunches, and, more often than not, they also shared the two evening meals Ariane brought to the ancient lady’s apartment. Even when she did not stay for dinner with Madame Caroline, Ariane often sat with her while she ate and told her about her days, her students, or some new recipe she was working on. Madame Caroline reported on the interesting events of the street she watched over.

  Ariane’s only concern with their deal was the lack of written agreement. As Madame Caroline impatiently pointed out every single time someone dared to keep her waiting, she was not getting any younger and could kick the bucket any minute. Without a written lease, Ariane wasn’t sure what kind of rights she would have the day Madame Caroline was called to face her maker.

  But every single time Ariane tried to bring up the subject, using as much tact as she could muster, Madame Caroline chased the question away by waving her hands as if it had been an annoying insect buzzing a
round her.

  Her answer was always the same: “Pas de cela entre amies.”

  Her “No such thing between friends” had also been the answer when Ariane had asked about a rent increase at the end of the first year. The low rent had made Ariane’s life much easier when she started out, but she knew it wasn’t right.

  Somehow, Ariane found a way to make her peace with her pleasant but unsettling situation. At the end of the second year she decided to put aside every month an amount equal to the difference between the rent she was really paying and what she would have needed to pay if her rent had been adjusted to fair value as provided by French law. Thanks to that decision and her strict discipline, Ariane hoped that her savings account would become fat enough to allow her to fall back on her feet and set up a new shop elsewhere if she ever had to leave on short notice.

  The coming weekend Ariane would be doing a double feature at Madame Caroline’s. They would have lunch Saturday and Sunday to catch up on the Sunday lunch she had skipped the previous week, when she had organized her first intensive weekend workshop.

  Ariane went through her checklist in her mind. Everything was ready in the kitchen downstairs. The only thing missing was fresh bread. She would have to go to the bakery… or not. Ariane dreaded going there so much she hadn’t had bread in a week, and, come to think of it, with what she had prepared, Madame Caroline wouldn’t need bread that day either.

  Nevertheless, she would have to speak to Patrick sometime… soon.

  Last Sunday morning, when his teenaged daughter, Martine, had come to drop a bread basket at Ariane’s place, she had walked in on Ariane while she was kissing another man.

  He had had her pinned against the wall, her skirt rolled up to her hips. And she’d probably been moaning like a mad woman. Just thinking about that moment with Peter was enough to create a pool of heat between her legs. Martine’s arrival had been the perfect cold shower Ariane needed to get a grip on herself and not give in to the advances of a man who was flying off to a different continent the next day. She was thankful to Martine for that, but she feared the young girl was upset. She wondered if Martine had spoken about it with her dad.

  But her Saturday-morning lie-in wasn’t for worrying about things like that. She had another half an hour of sleep before the alarm would ring. Ariane rolled over to the fresh side of the bed and closed her eyes.

  ❦