But a small cloud had formed over my experience. My French, which I discovered was extremely literary and terribly impractical, wasn’t improving. I was tongue-tied, and even with the chefs I had to concentrate so hard to catch what they were saying that I would fall way behind in classes. I desperately wanted to translate a cooking demonstration for the English-speaking guests, banter with the chefs and the delivery people, have a conversation with a French person that lasted more than two seconds. As it was, I didn’t really know any French people besides the chefs, since everyone who worked at the school came from an English-speaking country. For a while I traded conversation with a Frenchman who wanted to improve his English. With him I discovered that even though a person is French and speaks English with a sexy French accent he can be a crushing bore. My most childish romantic fantasies about Frenchmen were shattered, and my French didn’t progress either.
The month of August, when all of France goes on vacation, approached. The school would close. Paris was already empty, the weather was stifling, most of the stagiaires had exotic vacations planned. I was scheduled to work through the month, though there was really nothing to do but type up recipes. Then one day, Edith called. Bernard had had a terrible accident and would be laid up for three months in bed, at home. She wanted to paint, and she needed someone to come out for the month of August to cook and help around the house. The children would go to day care. Did I know anyone? Without hesitation I said I’d do it, and we made arrangements. I had to check with the head of the school to see if I could get time off, something I was certain would be granted. To my surprise she refused. I begged. She relented, though not without letting me know that she wasn’t happy. Evidently, the typing was more important than I’d realized. Nonetheless, a week later I was on the train to Normandy.
Edith was friendlier this time when she came to pick me up. She told me right away that she couldn’t believe I had wanted to return after she’d been so rude. She explained to me that she had been completely exhausted and that, frankly, she really didn’t feel like welcoming an American who lived in Paris, and didn’t know why she had said yes when I called. It was several years before I admitted that I had thought it was perfectly normal.
I arrived to find Bernard in a wheelchair surrounded by friends, drinking chilled hard cider and expounding on something. He’d fallen some 45 feet off a ladder while pasting up a campaign poster for a friend. Despite the fact that his back and legs were a mess, his spirits were high, his greeting warm.
I joined the circle around him long enough to drink some cider, then went in to see what I could do for dinner. That evening began one of the most memorable months of my life. Edith turned out to be funny, filled with energy and up for anything. I had already glimpsed Bernard and knew he was easygoing; he turned out to be more than that. Brilliant, always searching to learn, he immediately set up a schedule of daily French and English lessons with me. Edith and I worked it out that I would cook two meals a day for the family, and after my first few dinners she began inviting all of their friends, so that each night there were eight to ten people for dinner. I was in heaven, cooking exactly what I wanted within a vegetarian diet—which was fine with me, since I had been a vegetarian for nearly ten years.
Edith, who was supposed to be painting each day, instead decided it would be more fun to show me around, and we roamed the countryside going to brocantes (combination junk and antique stores) and markets, visiting her friends, nearby Rouen, and pretty villages in the area. She wanted me to see everything, so each day unfolded with a new project.
Throughout the month, which sped by, I got to know Bernard’s parents, who lived on a very modest farm, and two of his three brothers. I met each of Edith’s seven brothers and sisters, all of her friends, many of her numerous other relatives as we traveled here and there, once as far as Amiens in the north to visit her favorite aunt. I kept urging Edith to paint, to take advantage of my being there, but she preferred instead to amuse herself taking me places, proposing long bicycle trips, or sewing. She made all her own and her children’s clothing, and soon I was wearing her vivid, clever creations, too.
The days followed a certain pattern. I would prepare breakfast, Edith would get her children off to day care, Bernard and I had our English/French lesson, then the day would speed by while we either ran around the countryside or stayed home and she sewed while I cooked. In the evenings Edith put the children to bed and I prepared the evening meal; and she, Bernard, and I, and whoever else had been invited, usually sat down to dinner somewhere around nine o’clock. I made everything from asparagus soufflé to peach and yogurt tarts, from Asian tofu soups to layered vegetable terrines to classic œufs florentine. I discovered that the lady across the street, Madame Dancerne, had a huge herb garden and raised lettuces, rabbits, and chickens. She became my supermarket, and I got plenty of good cooking lessons from her in the bargain. Everyone called me Suzanne and I became something of a novelty.
For the first two weeks at Edith and Bernard’s I was physically present at the dinner table, but the conversation rolled on too rapidly for me to participate, and I would find myself battling sleep halfway through the meal. No one had any mercy, least of all Edith, who spoke like a mitraillette, or machine gun. About the middle of the third week I responded to something someone said. Bernard and Edith looked at me and laughed. “It’s coming Suzanne, it’s coming,” they said.
As the end of my stay approached my spirits drooped. I had come to love the family and this turbulent, fun life. They, too, were loath to see it end and offered me a room and the price of a commuter ticket to Paris if I wanted to stay on. I was tempted, but the train schedule didn’t match my long hours, and besides, I was ready to return to the city.
We said tearful good-byes—I was part of the family by now and couldn’t quite imagine how their life would proceed without me. Bernard was relatively mobile in his wheelchair and was now going to the office, which was in the village center within walking distance. The children would be starting school, so Edith would have some time to work. I would re-enter my five-and-a-half-day- a-week routine. They made me promise to come visit often.
I was delighted to be back in Paris, in yet another chambre de bonne in the seventeenth arrondissement just over the border from the chic eighth arrondissement. It was small but had a tiny balcony. The family who rented it to me were sweet and gave me free use of their shower. School was beginning anew and it was good to see all the stagiaires, each of whom had gone in a separate direction for August.
I stunned everyone with my French. Now the chefs couldn’t indulge in rude teasing because I understood them. I was capable of translating and couldn’t wait to do it. From living with Edith and Bernard I’d picked up a very casual, current French, so that my repartie was rapid, and I felt perfectly comfortable. I knew I could avoid even the worst pitfall. And it came my way during my first translation. One of the students asked about preservatives in food. I turned to the chef to translate, and was just about to ask him about préservatifs, when I caught myself—a préservatif is a condom; produit chimique is the term used to describe food additives, and I remembered it just in time!
That fall a reporter for the New York Times who lived in Paris came to speak at La Varenne. She decided later to do a piece on young Americans who cooked for their living in Paris, and I fell into the category. She arranged to meet with all of us at a café, and we had a wonderful time. Later she called me to see if I would like to work for her. Her name was Patricia Wells, and I became her assistant.
I would race to her apartment after work whenever I had a free evening and do whatever job she’d left for me. My favorite one, and the one she and I still laugh about, was testing a cake called the marjolaine, a stunningly rich confection of layered hazelnut and almond meringue with pastry cream and ganache. I would spend the evening making it in Patricia and her husband Walter’s apartment while they were out to dinner, then leave the finished product on the kitchen counter before goi
ng home to fall into bed. Patricia would taste it, make some comments, and I’d go back to the drawing board. I think I tested it four times over the course of a couple of weeks. Finally one day Patricia called me. “These cakes you leave us are gorgeous—why don’t you ever take a piece for yourself?”
It had never occurred to me to do that. I loved leaving a perfect-looking, perfectly frosted cake in the middle of a clean kitchen. I’d sampled all the elements as I cooked, so I knew the flavors. And I honestly had no appetite. I’d spent almost a year eating more food than most people eat in ten years, and when my workday was done, my appetite was gone.
The year at La Varenne came smoothly to a close. I passed my final exam—preparing consommé with a garnish of brunoise (vegetables cut in tiny dice), roast beef with watercress and freshly made pasta, and mille-feuille for dessert, all made under the piercingly critical gaze of head chef Fernand Chambrette—and earned my grand diplôme. I was ready to move on, but hated the thought of leaving France. By now, I was a regular visitor at Edith and Bernard’s; I’d gotten to know Paris well; I had my favorite markets, bakers, restaurants, and pastry shops, where I would do day-long stages, or visits, whenever I could. I couldn’t quite imagine returning to the United States, but I couldn’t simply stay on, either. Most of the other stagiaires were leaving, so my base of acquaintances would soon disperse.
I got a call from a woman who was looking for someone to open and cook for a salon de thé in the sixth arrondissement. It was to be part of an English-language bookstore, and she wanted the food to be American. I went to be interviewed and landed the job. Whew! I could stay on for at least another year. I had a month before the job would begin so I went back to the United States to visit my family. While there I met my future husband, Michael Loomis.
Tall, lean, and achingly handsome, he had been invited to a party to meet my older sister, and I knew that so I stayed clear. But circumstances were such that we couldn’t seem to avoid each other. Before our first date I checked in with my sister who waved her hand and said go for it. Within a month, Michael and I were engaged.
I returned to Paris to begin my job. My bosses—two Parisiennes, each of whom had lived in the United States for extended periods—showed me the café bookstore, very much a raw space, a piece of which was destined to become a kitchen. One of my employers, Odile, turned to me and said, “It’s yours, do what you want with it.”
That started a month of hunting out the best appliances and fixtures I could find. It was July and burning hot; my memories of that time are infused with soaring temperatures, exacerbated by the heat generated by arguing to get everything I needed as I learned the French rules of commerce.
Buying an electric mixer stands out as one of my most memorable lessons. I walked into a kitchen supply store and saw the mixer I wanted, which at that time was hard to find in Paris, high upon a shelf. I asked the vendeuse for it by name, and she said they didn’t carry them. I told her they did and pointed to it on the shelf. Without turning to look, she said, “Ça n’existe pas ici,” “This doesn’t exist here.” I was dumbfounded. I pointed to the shelf again, but she wouldn’t look. I wanted to grab her head and swivel it around, but instead, feeling my face get very hot, I raised my voice and said, “Madame, j’insiste. Je veux cette machine, vous l’avez, donnez-la moi.” “I insist. I want that machine, you have it, give it to me.”
Startled, she turned, climbed up a ladder, got the machine, and hefted it onto the counter. I examined it, paid for it, and walked out with it under my arm. “Au revoir, madame,” said the vendeuse with her musical accent. “Not likely,” I thought, but went on my way, hot, drenched, and still angry. But victorious. Or at least I felt victorious. I’d gotten what I wanted. She undoubtedly felt victorious, too. After all, she’d made me suffer. It took me awhile to cool off. But when I plugged in my mixer back at the salon de thé and made my first batch of brownies, I forgot it all and put the lesson I’d learned to good use. I wasn’t brought up to argue, raise my voice, or object. Doing business in France taught me to do all three.
After choosing ovens and mixers, cook tops and sinks, I was ready. I tested my recipes and fed them to my employers and their families. Finally, in early September we were ready to open. Le tout Paris had been invited. I had prepared pans of my mother’s sticky brownies, chocolate chip cookies, spice breads, molasses cookies, and other traditional American foods which, at that time, were novelties in Paris.
Opening night was a stunning success, and it began an intensely busy year, as my weeks sped away in a flurry of early morning shopping at the nearby Marché-St-Germain, where I became friends with the chicken lady and her pâté-making husband. She delivered chickens—heads, pinfeathers, and feet attached—whenever I had chicken salad or stew on the menu, and she was always giving and asking for recipes. I took my work seriously and put in long hours, trying to live up to the tradition of what I’d learned. The customers loved the food, from the hearty chili to the green-flecked zucchini bread (which I called spice cake, or no one would have eaten it). My saucer-sized chocolate chip cookies were the biggest hit. One day I stuck my head into the dining room and saw a properly dressed woman eating one with a knife and fork!
Michael, a sculptor in the mood for an adventure, had decided to join me in Paris. Before he’d met me he had been making plans to take a year off, live in Europe, and work on his drawing, so moving to Paris fit in with his plans. Four months after I returned he arrived. He was eager to study French, since he spoke not a word, and he couldn’t wait to strike up an intimate relationship with the museums of Paris. While I was at work he would spend the day in museums or sitting in a park drawing, or attending French classes. In the evenings we would go to movies, or walk along the river eating Berthillon ice cream, the best in Paris, or simply wander the city streets. We were living on practically nothing and loving it.
I loved my schedule—early mornings at the market, cooking for hours in a music-filled kitchen, filling baskets with buttery cookies and slices of cake, stirring pots of spicy soups, and rolling out pounds and pounds of pastry dough. The bookstore became a destination for Parisian literati. The salon de thé was successful. The duo who had begun the enterprise began having problems, however, which made the working atmosphere unpleasant, and after a year I was ready to move on. I missed writing, too, and needed time to do it. I had already given my notice and Michael and I had decided that we would go back to the States when Patricia Wells came in for lunch one day. In the course of the meal she offered me a job as assistant on her first book, which was to be called the Food Lover’s Guide to Paris. I refused. I knew how much Michael wanted to go back to the United States and his sculpture studio. Patricia persisted, however, pointing out the advantages of working with her.
I was tempted, and when I told Michael about the job he insisted I take it. He would manage for another year and a half, he said. I was thrilled, and grateful to Michael. I knew it was a sacrifice for him. He loved Paris, but needed more room than our tiny studio allowed. And he had discovered something he had already known about himself, but forgotten. Drawing was all right, but manipulating large pieces of wood, metal, plastic, and stone were lifeblood for him.
At about the same time I accepted the job, a friend of mine wanted to know if Michael would be available to help shore up disintegrating buildings at her cousin’s farm in the Dordogne. He jumped at the opportunity. He didn’t care that it was five hours south of Paris. It didn’t faze him that the farm family spoke no English and that he himself spoke virtually no French. He didn’t mind that the job would begin immediately. He wanted out of Paris, and he wanted to work with his hands. I saw him off at the Gare d’Austerlitz a few days later, not sure when I’d see him again—either he would return to Paris, or I would go down to visit.
Meantime, I started working with Patricia. Ours was a good match, and we spent an intense, concentrated, happy year walking the streets of Paris, sampling every bit of food the city offered. We develope
d a rhythm. Patricia would choose addresses to visit during the day, and I would plot them on a map at night. We would meet at a café that we wanted to test in the morning, and go from there. Our addresses included boulangeries, pâtisseries, kitchen stores, brocantes (many of these secondhand stores carry food wares), or anything at all to do with food. We would go until about 1 P.M., then stop for lunch and start out again when the shops reopened, around 3 P.M. Our day ended around 7 P.M., when we would separate for the night to prepare for the following day.
I was in heaven. I was also planning Michael’s and my wedding and couldn’t imagine being happier. We were married in a very simple ceremony in Le Vaudreuil, presided over by Bernard, in his role as vice-mayor. Patricia and her husband, Walter, brought the champagne, and Michael and I prepared the lunch we served to our twelve guests. One of our friends supplied the flowers, another loaned me a silk petticoat, and Madame Dancerne, Edith and Bernard’s neighbor, contributed her homemade cider and calvados. It was a gorgeous misty Saturday. Bernard gave a short speech about the appropriateness of the wedding and how it continued the tradition of the Anglo-Saxon communion with France, so prevalent throughout the ages in Normandy. Our lunch of cream of watercress soup, cannelloni à la crème, salad, and Camembert was rich and satisfying. Our wedding cake was a marjolaine that I had made the day before in Paris, and which was transported to the wedding on Patricia’s special silver marjolaine tray.
On Rue Tatin Page 2