I believe, as much as I can, that G was genuinely trying to love me in the only ways he knew how. And because nobody is ever a perfect saint or sinner (neither of us were), our good intentions, love, fears, shortcomings, and desires were just blended together like muddy water, and we could not love each other with the clarity to make it work.
A RECIPE FOR CLARITY
1 cup muddy water
Place a cup of muddy water in a quiet place. Wait for as long as necessary for the silt to settle to the bottom and for the water to become clear. Repeat when clarity is needed.
LES PARISIENS
{2011–2013}
AUCUNE CIRCONSTANCE NE RÉVEILLE EN NOUS UN ÉTRANGER DONT NOUS N’AURIONS RIEN SOUPÇONNÉ. VIVRE, c’est NAÎTRE LENTEMENT.
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
EARLY IN THE SPRING OF 2011, G AND I ARRIVED IN Paris, and I began to teach myself French. I was using books and podcasts but mostly learning from being surrounded by the language. Yet it wasn’t the French that I had nearly failed in high school, where conjugations of subjunctive verbs dominated conversations, rendering them tasteless and practical, like dry bread. No, this French was juicy and warm, and solitary words painted sensuous stories, like the words “peach” or “woollen” do in English.
I would wake before dawn each day, shower, put my wire-framed glasses on, and pull my hair back into a tight bun, neatly set at the nape of my neck and parted precisely to the right side. I gave little attention to a mirror other than to check for anomalies. I put on what my hands could decipher in the dark, not wanting to disturb G’s sleep: socks, jeans, a T-shirt. Then I packed my clean and pressed chef’s uniform into my bag before walking under purple skies to catch the metro to pastry school.
It was among my favorite times of day, sitting on a rustling underground train early in the morning. I would use the reflections in the inky glass to spy discreetly on Parisians, sleepy-eyed with elsewhere thoughts: of previous nights, stressful workdays ahead, or of a budding love or waning marriage. I loved to guess about these while I sat listening to French lessons on my phone and reading the daily subway papers, looking up words I thought looked important or pretty to say aloud. Ensuite, next. Pousser, to grow. Sympa, cool! Interdit, forbidden.
I always arrived early at school to avoid fighting with the boys over the only change room, hoping to bypass the awkward accidental walk-ins that happened frequently. The school always smelled of a mixture of freshly applied French cologne and pastries baking in the oven first thing in the morning. Every day there was something different to taste, left over from classes the day before, and I always hoped it would be pain au chocolat or gateaux aux marrons glacés (I am still partial to them).
Each week we welcomed new students, chefs from around the world at the top of their profession who came to our school to be taught by the teachers who had attained the sacred titles of Champion du Monde or Meilleur Ouvrier de France (or MOF’s as we would call them for short), one of the highest designations for trades professionals in France. We in the longue durée or extended program spent three months seeing chefs come and go, clowning around, feeling a bit like an elite family with the small group of instructors, and developing a sense of pride that I imagined secret societies have.
At thirty-two, I was the oldest and the only native English speaker in our small class. Learning beside me were five other students mostly in their late teens or early twenties: two Parisians; a Spaniard; a Colombian; and, a petite Vietnamese woman, H, with such an air of adolescence that it was hard to know how her two-year-old child had exited from her tiny frame.
Every day at noon, after morning lessons of pâtes and crèmes, we would pull out a makeshift table and chairs and spend an hour and a half eating lunch together. On the first day of class, when they announced our lunch break, I thought to myself, “An hour and a half to eat? What am I supposed to do with the other hour and fifteen?!”
But I fell into the pace, and instead of just eating lunch, I enjoyed eating leisurely with my classmates. I got to practice my French, and over time it improved from broken, caveman-like sentences to ever-so-slightly more elegant lines.
I always had with me a salad of mesclun, lamb’s lettuce, or frisée from the farmers’ market, topped with slices of ripe, ready beets, plump carrots, new varietals of apple, and other foreign and exciting things, like black radishes or tomate coeur de boeuf. I took my time appreciating each bite, marveling at how my salads tasted so intriguing with all these new textures and flavors. Afterward, we would lay out an array of pastries that other teachers had made that week, bisecting each to inspect their profiles, and evaluating them, aspiring to an air of knowledge and scrutiny that we had not yet developed.
I
IT FELT LIKE A BURST OUT OF NOWHERE, BUT I KNOW IT was just another word my body had been learning. It started with a handful of letters slowly collected over time, which then formed sentences that spoke of falling in love.
We were learning the complex language of chocolate that week in class. Our instructor, J, in his mid-twenties, was particularly well known for his incredible palate, and had been awarded prestigious titles for his talent. With a decisive hand and innately delicate movements, he created the most awe-inspiring showpieces and sumptuous bonbons, possessing the artistry of balancing beauty and flavor that few do.
As we gathered around to watch our first lesson, my throat suddenly became hot, and I felt the temperature of my fingers rise in contrast to the cool, hard marble slab they rested on. For a split second I puzzled at these unexpected symptoms, scanning my body in search for illness, but stopped when I realized that my eyes had been locked on J as he demonstrated how to temper dark chocolate. In its final stage, it needed to be precisely thirty-one to thirty-two degrees Celsius, just shy of body temperature. He slid and swept the melted chocolate over the table, then dipped a thin palette knife into the shiny pool and touched it gently to his lower lip, pausing for a moment in contemplation to feel the warm chocolate on him and then licking it off when he had successfully gotten a gauge.
I remember my lips growing slightly numb in desire before I pulled my gaze away nonchalantly for composure, with an ache in my body.
II
I SACRIFICED A LOT TO GO TO PASTRY SCHOOL. BECAUSE this was my one opportunity, I was a voracious student, letting every question spill out of me, ignoring my insecurities, and devouring the answers. All of my senses engaged, I held snowy tant pour tant in the palm of my hand and rubbed sticky pâte à choux, raw, between my fingers. I documented everything in copious notes and drawings, creating my own shorthand language for common kitchen words like congélateur, frigo, or douille. The smells and sounds of the kitchen sunk into me, and I squealed, oooo’ed, and laughed freely when pastries puffed, crisped, bubbled, or jiggled.
At the end of the week, all the components of the dishes were assembled, and we created a display with each pastry laid out in neat little rows to present to the school with a dégustation to follow.
Dégustation: nom féminin. 1. [par un convive] tasting
This new word settled in my belly. I learned that there was a difference between the act of eating (manger) and this act of tasting. In French, the two are rarely used interchangeably.
Of all the pastries we had created, I couldn’t have imagined that the baba au rhum would be my favorite. It looked like a bloated, bready doughnut with a curl of crème Chantilly placed on top as its only attempt at beauty. We were told to keep one aside for F, our school director, as it was his favorite. That fact was enough for me to try the baba au rhum first amongst the dozens of more appealing and elegant-looking choices. I forced my spoon into its tan skin. It relented slightly, moisture releasing from the pressure, and I dipped the morsel into the cream before placing it in my mouth. The syrup-drenched cake flowed with juices of vanilla, rum, and passion fruit from its tender crumb, and the creaminess held the entire experience on my tongue for a moment longer.
III
MY CLASSMATES WOUL
D LAY A HAND AT THE SMALL OF my back and lean into me, and I, completely unprepared for the French bisou (or bise), would step away, assuming they needed to get past me. Their faces would turn red in embarrassment and confusion. J witnessed this and explained with an amused chuckle that they were trying to greet me “good morning” with a kiss on my cheeks. Sincerely flustered and not understanding how the two connected, I replied, “But kissing is reserved for my husband.”
The teachers began to tease me, pretending it was their birthday and insisting that it would have been insulting in the French culture not to have a kiss from me.
Even though I eventually understood the gesture, I secretly dreaded the day it would be genuinely asked of me again. “How do I get so close to someone’s face and move to the other cheek without accidentally grazing them on the lips? And how do we know which cheek to start with first? And where do I put my hands?” I anxiously wondered. I fabricated nightmares about all the disastrous situations that could happen with my repressed awkwardness manipulating my movements like a clumsy marionette.
IV
I REMOVED MY TUBE SOCKS, BAGGY JEANS, AND T-SHIRT and replaced them with even baggier pajamas, thicker socks, Birkenstock sandals, an old fleece sweatshirt, and a hoodie stained with neglect. I settled in next to G to eat dinner on the uncomfortable European-sized couch.
“What do you want to watch tonight?” he asked, as though in a well-rehearsed skit.
“I don’t know, maybe Grey’s Anatomy…or a movie?”
“Which one haven’t we seen?”
G and I were continuing our usual dance, only now in France, I would try to improvise the steps a little, feeling adventurous and asking him if we could go out to explore a covered market, new restaurants, or a pastry shop some nights.
He spent his time alone in Paris, often meditating the entire day and not leaving the flat until it was time to meet me at the train station each afternoon after pastry school. On weekends, he would sleep in and continue meditating, which gave me as much time as I wanted to explore the city alone on foot. I traveled to all areas of Paris, seeking to confirm rumors of the best croissant or pastry. Eventually, I found my own dances and created private rituals for myself: coffee and pastry at Carette in the Place des Vosges on Sundays and roaming around the bustling Le Marais neighborhood, exploring its quaint shops and street performers. I would wander, getting lost, and delight in the different street names, like Rue des Blancs Manteaux (Street of the White Coats) and Rue des Mauvais Garçons (Street of the Bad Boys). I would walk into the stores and run my hands along the beautiful clothes, admiring how effortlessly and seductively French women wore their fashion.
In the evenings, after long days of studying the city, G and I would find ourselves in our usual bedtime procedures. Teeth brushed, faces washed, lying in our separate beds, turning off the lights with a customary “good night.” And I would lie there, playing over all the new words I had learned that day and feeling incredibly scared and guilty about all the dreams that I believed were plainly “unsafe” for a married woman to have.
V
“LA FEMME VIENT!” SOMEONE WOULD SHOUT—THE WOMAN is coming.
I didn’t catch the words, but then a few of my instructors would casually stroll to the front door as I walked past, and I would look around me, seeing nothing and wondering what the fuss was about. So I continued walking as their eyes followed me.
Spring had arrived and, in admiration of the enigmatic beauty of the French, I began attempting to mimic their ways. I left my long hair tousled in curls, hanging down by my waist, left my glasses off, and picked my dresses for their casual elegance, ones that clung slightly more to the sloping curves of my body. Since it was all so new, the thought never crossed my mind that the instructors had come to admire me.
After three long months, school was coming to an end, and I felt different. I was outgoing and friendly, chatting with new students, cracking jokes, and taking playful jabs at my teachers and classmates. A few of the teachers, men still much younger than me, would playfully ask about G and jokingly suggest a rendezvous. I laughed at the preposterousness of the idea, never once taking them seriously and assuming they were trying to be funny. When they told me I looked beautiful, I automatically believed that they were joking.
A few days before school ended, J told me he had an important secret to tell me. I laughed, and when he said he would tell me on the last day of school, I joked back, “If I have to wait, it better be a good one because I don’t like being disappointed.”
On the final day, I had a sharp, bittersweet feeling in me. I hated the thought of leaving school and my new friends, but I wanted what came next, my stage (internship) and my upcoming travels around Italy and France. I’d had so much fun, learned so much, been so immersed in my passion, and opened up as a person. I felt like I was leaving a precious period of my life behind.
J seemed to be extra gregarious that day, and as everyone gathered together after our graduation ceremony, I teasingly asked him in front of everyone what his secret was, not thinking he really had one. He went quiet and replied in French without looking at me, “Just that all the girls look beautiful today.”
“Évidemment!” I said smiling, thinking it was another joke, stopping only to detect his crestfallen face. Although I registered that he looked embarrassed and walked away, I didn’t understand and didn’t think much more of it.
Just before I left, I found J in the classroom by the door. When I went up to him, he leaned in, gave me a bisou on the cheeks and quietly said goodbye to me.
“How do you feel about what happened with J?” my classmate, H, asked me after we had found a place to stand on the busy metro home.
“What do you mean? What happened with J?” I tried to recall anything out of the ordinary.
H looked up at me through her arched eyebrows. “Don’t you know that J has feelings for you?” she asked.
“What? What do you mean by that?” I thought I had misunderstood H, with her Vietnamese accent.
“J likes you. It has been a while now. It’s obvious; he talks about you all the time when you are not in the room.” My brow furrowed from trying to piece together the story. “Haven’t you noticed?” she added in the silent space.
“It’s not possible,” I said quietly. But deep down I knew she was right. I took a moment to wrap my mind around how enormous it felt to be desired.
That night, and for a week afterward, I couldn’t sleep. My heart throbbed and pumped as I continued to put the story together. The regret—how could I have not known? God! If only I knew! My blood boiled with desire to go back to that moment with J, to have said something different. I was angry at myself for not seeing it sooner. And each time I thought of it, my insides crawled with lust for him.
VI
WE RETURNED HOME FROM EUROPE, AND LIFE RESUMED as it was before, but I still felt changed. I felt surer of myself, my own beauty. My time in France was a little like cleaning a dusty mirror. Each time I indulged a passion or curiosity with all my senses engaged, when I was touched by all the beauty that I saw in the architecture, food, language, and people, and when someone said that maybe I was beautiful too, there in the mirror I could see my own clear reflection and I believed it.
When the holiday season came, I decided to test a far-fetched theory, that maybe I wasn’t as thoroughly to blame for the fact that G and I rarely had sex in the past eight years of our relationship, that perhaps I wasn’t as damaged as I was made out to seem…and in part, I didn’t have much to lose anymore. So I came up with an idea. Instead of some piece of kitchen equipment and a food magazine subscription, this year I would ask G for lingerie—red, lacy, and as hot as they made them. He seemed confused by my boldness, offering me a simple “sure” and nothing else. I’m not sure what he thought of it. I didn’t care.
So Christmas came. I opened my gift, and I picked an evening when he would be home. I walked around the house with nothing on but a see-through lace bra the color of
holiday gifts and a matching lace thong. And then I walked past him in the hallway on his way to the kitchen. Stunned, he stared for a slight moment longer, and then proceeded to ignore me for the rest of the evening.
VII
AFTER THE BAKERY OPENED IN 2012, I WAS EXHAUSTED and, on a whim, went back to Paris. It was the only place I knew that could revive me. I decided to take a week-long course at my old pastry school, much like the professionals I had met so many years earlier. I walked through the front doors, and J was sitting at the desk. He looked up, smiling, and said, “Ça va, Jackie?” I don’t remember what came next, but he described me with a word that I had to look up later: Épanouir, to bloom.
PASSION FRUIT BABA AU RHUM
There is a very long history of savarins and baba au rhums, and the difference between the two is still debated. Some say they should be made with two different doughs, some say the baba is distinguished by the inclusion of raisins, some assert that it is simply the shape that distinguishes them—the baba traditionally having a cork shape and the savarin a crown shape. Today in Paris, you often see this smaller crown-shaped savarin sold as a baba au rhum in pâtisseries.
FOR THE BABAS
83 g all-purpose flour
167 g pastry flour
10 g granulated sugar
5 g fine sea salt
15 g fresh yeast
50 g water, warm
150 g eggs, room temperature
80 g unsalted butter, melted
Place the flours, sugar, salt, and yeast into the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a dough hook, being sure to keep the salt and yeast separated in the bowl. (Salt kills fresh yeast when they are in contact with each other, so it is best to keep them separated until you are ready to mix.) Whisk the water and eggs together in a pitcher and set aside.
The Measure of My Powers: A Memoir of Food, Misery, and Paris Page 10