Hungry Woman in Paris

by Josefina López

  Now we had an audience. We undressed each other and my nipples got even harder when I saw Henry dancing with the man’s lover close to us. He looked at me and then licked the woman’s nipples. I stared at Henry until he looked over to me and I buried my face in my dance partner’s humongous penis. Henry danced her to the floor and now we were all putting on a show. My partner plunged his tongue into my mouth and we slobbered each other with our wet tongues. His tongue made its way back to my erect nipples, then down to my pubic hair. He brushed his mouth on my pubic hair and stuck his tongue in my vagina. He wiggled his tongue inside me and then outlined my vagina with his vibrating tongue. Time stood still and I saw myself running in a field of daisies, like in those douche commercials I hate. This was the most pleasure I had ever felt. I was about to come and I opened my eyes. Henry was licking one nipple and the black man was licking my other nipple, like two babies breast-feeding. I looked down to my vagina and there she was, licking me like a man on a deserted island who had just found a tiny spring and was having water for the first time. It made her so happy to do it that I was about to say something, but the guilt of ruining their fun made me keep quiet.

  Then I couldn’t just lie back and take it. It was too much. I pulled away as she licked her lips and I shook my head. I threw my clothes on and walked out of the club. I could hear Henry staying behind to apologize for my bad manners. I walked to the metro, straightening out my clothes, and I bumped into a woman wearing too much makeup who was making a living on the streets. She gave me a dirty look, but I kept walking. I couldn’t believe how distressed I was. What bothered me so much? It wasn’t that a woman was giving me sexual pleasure… What bothered me was that there were so many people giving me pleasure. I couldn’t receive it. I felt I didn’t deserve it. Oh, my God, my low self-esteem even shows up at a time like this!

  CHAPTER 9

  Casseroles of Fire

  You either get fish or you get meat. There is always one easy one and one difficult one for the practical exam.” Janeira claimed that’s what her friend who had already graduated with her Grand Diplôme in cuisine had told her.

  Françoise passed out the written exams and said that although the written exam was worth only ten percent of our grade, it was very important that we do our best. We were told to sit apart from one another so we wouldn’t be tempted to copy.

  “I heard just a year ago there were no written tests. This is bogus giving us a written test,” said Rick to anyone who would listen.

  I quickly started my test and was immediately stumped when it came to describing the steps to make a soufflé. Nor could I explain all the precise steps to making the stocks. I felt like an idiot—how could I not know all this stuff? I did know that the secret to keeping green vegetables green when you boil them is to take them out and place them in ice water for a few minutes to hold the chlorophyll. At least that was something. I was one of the first students to turn in my test. Everyone assumed I’d aced it since I’d finished it so quickly.

  “No, I just knew I didn’t know most of the answers so I quickly guessed rather than torture myself trying to figure them out,” I confessed to Rick and Bassie.

  Later that day, in practical, Chef Chocon chastised me for running into him. He got in my face and said that I must never do that again. He warned me that it was dangerous. His icy blue eyes pierced my wide pupils as he said in French, “If I were to be holding a pot of hot water and you were to run into me we would both have been scalded.” I apologized and slowly walked away from him, back to my station, where my green beans were already too dark to call “green.”

  The day of the final, the Basic students waited in the courtyard. We sharpened our knives and studied the ten recipes we’d been told to have committed to memory. The chef would choose two recipes from the list and we would be assigned to make them without help from anyone. We would also have to clean two salmon and filet them to demonstrate our technique. Chef Tulipe called us up to the second floor, to the smallest practical room. We waited in the stairway for the assistants to finish distributing the ingredients. When the chef left the room I looked in and Becky, who was the assistant, whispered to me the two recipes we were getting.

  I rushed over to my classmates and told them the recipes were blanquette de veau and filets de daurade, veal stew and fish fillets. I was so anxious with too much adrenaline that I blanked out and could not remember blanquette de veau and Bassie quickly went through the steps with me. I prayed to get the fish; that was the “easy” dish.

  Chef Tulipe entered the hallway and explained that our recipe would be left to chance. He held up two poker chips; the red chip represented the fish and the blue chip represented the veal. He then called us into the practical room one by one and we each stuck our hand into a pot to select a chip. Chef Tulipe mispronounced my name, but I rushed in before he had a chance to correct himself. I closed my eyes, stuck my hand in, and picked out the blue chip. I instantly yelled and lowered my head, knowing I was doomed. Chef Tulipe thought I was crazy and pointed me to my station, where a sheet of paper with only the ingredients and quantities waited for me.

  I put down my knives and immediately filled my pot with water and put it on to boil. Then, grabbing my fish scaler, I got my salmon and cleaned them up. I gutted the fish and tried not to look at their eyes as I did it. I was trying to be perfect, but then I remembered that the veal would take an hour to cook, so I quickly removed the filets and stuck them in the cooler. I stared at my ingredient list.

  Blanquette de Veau à l’Ancienne

  Traditional Veal Stew

  1.2kilograms boned veal shoulder

  80grams carrots

  80grams onions

  100grams leeks

  1celery stalk

  2garlic cloves

  1bouquet garni

  salt, peppercorns

  3 cloves

  ANCIENNE GARNISH

  250grams button mushrooms

  200 grams pearl onions (about 20)

  20grams butter

  1 lemon

  salt, pepper

  SAUCE

  White Roux

  30grams butter

  30grams flour

  500 milliliters of the blanquette cooking liquid

  150milliliters whipping cream

  Thickening Agent

  50 milliliters whipping cream

  2 egg yolks

  RICE PILAF

  Half an onion, finely chopped

  30grams butter

  200grams long-grain rice

  1small bouquet garni

  salt

  Cooking liquid: One and a half times the volume of rice (water or chicken stock or a mixture of half of each)

  I swear I had sharpened my knives, but I could barely cut through the veal. It was taking me so long to cut the meat into morsels I wrapped a third of it in paper and threw it into the garbage when no one was looking. Yes, there were people starving in Africa and here I was in Paris wasting meat. I prayed to God for forgiveness and to remove all the guilt. If my mother were to see me she would have reminded me how hard my father worked to put meat on the table. I would have argued with her that the meat was only for the men so what did I care, but there was no time for a feminist debate now. I had only a few seconds to finish preparing the meat before I had to add the carrots, onions, leeks, celery stalk, two garlic cloves, bouquet garni, and salt, peppercorns, and three cloves to the pot of water with the veal chunks. While the meat was cooking I started on the mushrooms and onions. I looked up at the clock, calculating the good hour it would take to cook. There was no room for error. I made the rice with no problem following my notes.

  An hour passed and I took the meat off the burner. I put my feminist pride aside and asked Rick, who was next to me, to please help me with the heavy pot of water so I could remove the chunks and vegetables yet save some of the boiling liquid. I hated asking anyone for help, but I was not strong enough to pick up that hot pot. I thanked him, but he w
as too busy making the fish dish to wait around for compliments on his chivalry. I set aside the cooking liquid for the sauce. I tried to make the roux. I forgot the steps and threw the flour into the cooking liquid with the melted butter and whipping cream. The flour popped into little globs when it hit the liquid and I gasped, holding in a scream.

  Down to only ten minutes. I decided to pass the sauce through the colander to remove the globs. I threw tons of butter and salt into the sauce, hoping to salvage it. It ended up tasting like milky, buttery water. I looked around to see how the others were progressing. Ale was decorating her dish with carrots, a minute away from presenting her entrée platter to the chef. With five minutes left I splattered the veal mixed in the white sauce onto the platter and threw in some carrots. I compared my presentation to Ale’s and realized I had forgotten to include the rice pilaf. I grabbed spoonfuls of rice and tried cupping it into little domes, but because I hadn’t planned ahead the rice fell apart, like a sand castle being stolen away by a wave. I had one minute left when I announced to the chef I was finished, and he covered it up with plastic wrap and wrote my number on it. He announced in French, with Rick translating, that time was up and that whoever was not finished would have points taken away for every minute they were late. Bassie, Janeira, and an older American woman were still ten minutes away from finishing. I cleaned my knives and wiped the sweat off my forehead. Bassie asked me for a hand with her pot, and I did my best to help her. I gave her some of my rice when the chef wasn’t looking and she ended up being only five minutes late.

  I sat in the courtyard and took a few minutes to breathe. When I was doing investigative reporting, I had been chased by gang members, shot at, harassed by drug dealers, and threatened by men from every ethnic group, but this was the best adrenaline rush of my life.

  “So how did you do?” asked Henry, undoing the red tie of his translator’s uniform.

  “Awful, but I finished on time,” I admitted.

  “Hey, it’s just Basic. Once you get the fundamentals, it gets easier,” he reassured me. “What dish did you get?”

  “The blanquette de veau—”

  “You don’t need to know how to make that dish, it’s not all that great. Stupid dish,” he said arrogantly.

  “Have you ever cooked it?” I asked.

  “All the time. I worked as a sous-chef here for many years before I told those frogs to go fuck themselves. They wouldn’t promote me to chef because I’m not French and I hadn’t studied to be one.”

  “Why is it that English food has such a bad reputation?”

  “Have you ever tried English food?”

  “Hmmm, no, not really…” I said honestly, trying to remember the last time I’d gone to an English restaurant.

  “It’s hard to get respect from French chefs when you’re British.”

  “Do all chefs go to cooking school here in France? How come there are no French people at this cooking school if it’s supposed to be the best one in the world?”

  “Yeah, that’s what the marketing people wanted you to believe… French chefs either work their way up, inherit the restaurant from a family member, or go to real cooking schools just outside of Paris. This school is for foreigners.”

  I nodded and instinctively reached for my imaginary journalist’s notebook to write a mental note: Don’t ever again believe what you read in a beautifully designed brochure.

  There was a minute of silence as Henry looked at me with his puppy dog eyes.

  “I’m sorry about the other night. I thought you were enjoying yourself and then I guess you freaked out—”

  “No, I’m sorry… That was pretty immature of me to run out like that… I guess I got shy…” I lied.

  “You? Impossible, not you… I think you liked it too much and don’t want to admit it,” Henry smirked, putting his arm around me. “Let me be your guide to your erotic zones. I’ll help you find your G-spot and anywhere else you didn’t find with your ex-fiancé,” he boasted.

  “I don’t need you to be my guide,” I interjected. I was too proud to admit I could learn a thing or two from Henry.

  “Your mind may be saying no, but your erect nipples are saying yes,” he whispered into my ear.

  I got up and grabbed my knife kit. Henry’s perceptiveness disturbed me and I wanted to get away.

  “So what are you doing next week, since you’re off?” Henry asked.

  “I have no money,” I confessed, “so I guess I’ll stay home and—”

  “Maybe you can come with me to London. I can take you to a decent English restaurant.”

  I looked at him, wondering if I’d have to have sex with him in exchange.

  “Yes, you’ll have to have sex with me, but only if you want to… ” he said with a wicked smile.

  I debated whether to get dressed up and make a big deal about completing Basic Cuisine. I couldn’t imagine any chef finding pleasure in having to taste my cooking final. I pictured an old retired chef making the face of a baby who’s just eaten spinach when he tasted my dish to score it. Shaking the image from my head, I slipped into a dress and swore I’d be happy for the winners.

  Since this was a crash course, there were fewer students than usual and the graduation took place in the courtyard. The pastry students were the first to be given their diplomas and awarded first through fifth place. I was convinced Ale would win first place for our class. Chef Sauber presented our diplomas in alphabetical order. To my great dismay Ale got fourth place and Paolo, the Portuguese guy in Group A, was awarded first place. Rick came in fifth. I was happy for him, but wondered how he could have come in fifth when he’d been absent for one class. As bad as I was, I was never late or absent. Judy, a perky blonde from Seattle who came in second, had also been absent from a class. It didn’t make sense that they were awarded a place if they’d been absent. When Paolo went to accept his diploma, pin, and first-place certificate, Becky whispered to Bassie and me that he’d had a couple years of restaurant experience. After I received my diploma and tried to look at the photographer with a smile, I read my scores and felt worse. Then I remembered my promise and tried to be happy for those who really wanted to be chefs. Getting a place meant that a serious student could end up getting a nice internship. If I’d have gotten first place it would have been a nice ego trip, but I wasn’t planning to do a stage—internship—at some fancy restaurant with three Michelin stars that would be the springboard to a fabulous and exciting career as a chef.

  At the end of the graduation ceremony our tiny class of fourteen students took a photo and drank champagne. I pigged out on the dessert trays and tiny appetizers. Henry stopped by to congratulate us and flirted with anyone who would flirt back. Chef Frédérique also stopped by between his classes and thanked me for the bottle of tequila I’d left on his desk earlier that morning. I had debated whether I should do that, but I’d said in the thank-you card that I was giving it to him so he could experiment with it and try making sauces with the tequila; I’d written that just in case my letter was opened by anyone in the administration. I thanked Chef Frédérique for his kindness and he said he was very “touched” in French and let his hand linger on my shoulder, caressing me slightly. He looked at me with longing in his twinkling eyes. I started turning red and made the excuse that I had to go to the ladies’ room. He said it was nice having me as a student but he was leaving the school to work full-time at a three-star restaurant. I took his phone number and he said he would save the tequila and maybe I could call him and we could drink it together. I shyly agreed and ran away before anybody could hear us conspiring to meet. Bassie was already in the bathroom and started talking about Chef Frédérique.

  “He was always flirting with me,” complained Bassie. My jaw dropped and I tried to nonchalantly say, “He was? I never saw him flirting with you” without revealing how jealous I was.

  “Oh, yeah, I considered telling the administration,” she said, making a big deal out of it. “He has a Peruvian girlfriend and her
e he is flirting with me!” Oh, great, he has a girlfriend, I thought to myself. I felt like such an idiot. Man, he had me. Okay, give it up to the French: they know how to seduce and they do it so well. I guess I won’t be drinking tequila with him after all. I liked Bassie, but that minute I hated her for ruining my little fantasy. I tore up the piece of paper with Chef Frédérique’s phone number and flushed it down the toilet.

  When I returned to the graduation party, people were already leaving. I exchanged addresses with Ale and Rick and I was about to tell Janeira about the onion, but she was too busy complaining about her stove, saying that it didn’t work properly and that was why her veal didn’t get cooked all the way. Janeira was not returning for Intermediate, so I would never have to see her again or hear her complain, ever. Bassie, Paolo, Roger, Becky, and me were the only ones coming back for Intermediate and, hopefully, Superior, with the hopes of getting our grand diploma before Christmas.

  Later that night some of us gathered to celebrate together one last time. Bassie was drunk and hitting on Rick. He was a gentleman about it, but when she went to the bathroom he flirted with me. Becky came and sat next to us.

  “Rick, is your girlfriend coming to join us?” she asked with a big smile. Rick smiled back at her, knowing she was just trying to cock-block him. My throat was hurting and, as much as I wanted to see what Rick’s girlfriend looked like, I decided to go home and rest. Bassie decided to go home too and was threatening to walk. Although St.-Germain-des-Prés seemed pretty safe, I walked with her to the taxi stand while she rambled on about how Rick really wanted her—too bad he was returning to the States tomorrow. I borrowed money from Bassie for the taxi. I was grateful to have her as a friend. I was probably as drunk as she was, but even in this state I could sympathize with her delusions and still kick some ass if I had to. Not that growing up in Boyle Heights, a barrio that people thought was rough, had prepared me for that. I just knew I could look pissed and intimidate people. Plenty of men had told me so, but the brave ones with substance usually made it past the stare.