When we went to the beach club we were served another astounding combination, tiny grape-size tomatoes mixed with tiny black Niçoise olives. Who knew that tomatoes and olives could be like that, the saltiness better than Cheese-Its. And so it went, every day a revelation. We went to see Giacomettis and Chagalls, in museums small and large. When it came time for me to leave for Paris, Chester told me he had arranged a hotel room for me rather than my staying in his apartment. I was a little uncomfortable with that and couldn’t figure out why the plans had changed. It was years later that I found out he was living with a good friend of mine from San Francisco, Judy, and didn’t want me to see her picture and things in his apartment. (He always was a charming cad, as you will see.)
I arrived in Paris midday, in June 1966, tanned and happy after a week in Juan-les-Pins, sunning, eating, and learning to make my first omelet. My hotel was a shock. Its tiny entrance was manned by an aging woman behind a scarred wooden counter. The hallway was darkened. There was no one to help me lug my suitcases up the narrow twisting stairs with faded fleur-de-lis patterns on the wallpaper. I was sure I had wound up in a dump.
When I opened the door to my room I gave myself over to Paris, as if to a new lover. It was large and airy, the view, of a park with a few beautiful old homes overlooking it, enhanced by the geraniums on the balcony.
The wallpaper, too, was faded, but of flowers and birds. When the window was opened, the light curtains ruffled. I hardly spent any time in that room, but it was, and is, part of Paris to me. Charming, old, graceful, clean, tastefully furnished, and mine. Looking back, I wonder if I had ever stayed in a hotel room by myself before, in any country, before that trip.
There was a giant bathtub and a bidet in the bathroom. The only time I’d heard about bidets was from a friend who had soaked his socks in one, stopped up the bidet, and the resulting water on the floor had caused such a problem his parents had wound up paying a huge bill to the hotel. I hadn’t quite understood what the use of the bidet was, but I gathered French women were fastidious about their parts and it made good sense to me.
I called a girl I knew who was now working for the American embassy, and we made plans to meet when her workday was done. I was tremulous as I went up to the guards, who instead nodded me in with no concern. My friend was waiting for me and took me down to a dining room with softly padded furniture, muted lighting, and a bar. We settled in a sitting area of our own to catch up on our lives.
Within a few minutes, two glasses of champagne showed up on the waiter’s tray, and with a flourish he said, “The gentlemen over there were concerned that you were only drinking Coke, and sent these to you.” Of course, then, as now, Coke is infinitely more expensive in France than wine. One of the men came over to my friend and spoke to her. He worked in the embassy, too, and they knew each other by sight. With that introduction, we became an ever-expanding party of Americans in Paris. A six-foot-tall American was particularly charming, slightly older than I, perhaps in his mid-thirties to my late twenties. He was trim but not skinny, fair-haired, blue-eyed, well dressed, and articulate. Neil Kirkpatrick frequently did business in Paris.
I can only wish for every young woman that she meet a lover with a huge expense account her first day in Paris and be taken to a three-star restaurant for lunch. My first lunch in Paris, the next day, was with Neil, at Laurent off the Champs-Élysées. It was bright and sunny inside and Neil spoke French well enough to be treated with deference by the maître d’. Of course it might have helped that price was no object those days with Neil, who was a vice president of Max Factor and had a generous expense account.
For dessert we had a soufflé omelet. Since I had just had my first omelet a week before, I hardly knew what to expect. I certainly had no idea what wild strawberries were. This omelet soufflé was a creation of beaten eggs and their whites, nestling red berries smaller than raspberries inside. The soufflé was a puff of delight. It was the first time I had met wild strawberries, whose fleeting season cannot be forced or extended. Ripened in the sun, tenderly picked, worshipfully prepared, they were as akin to the strawberries of my life as sugar is to rock salt. They were these God-given packages of taste, delicate to swallow, exquisite to savor.
Soufflé Omelet with Fraises des Bois
Serves 2
Roughly translated into berries of the forest, these grow wild in many European places. I first met them in the book Heidi when I was a young girl. Heidi went strawberry picking with some other young people. Grandfather sat home waiting and dreaming about these incredible berries, with their deep red and full flavor, both sweet and rich. They are unlike any modern strawberry in the US. When the young people had filled their containers with the wild berries, they sold them rather than bring them home. Grandfather, furious, made Heidi taste a coin and bemoaned the berries it replaced. Which was better, he demanded? When I met those berries again at Laurent, I knew they were better than any berry I had ever met. I remember them still. Cosseted in a soufflé as light as air this dish is my favorite way of serving them.
3 large eggs, separated
1–3 tablespoons granulated sugar
⅓ teaspoon vanilla extract
2–3 tablespoons butter
Confectioners’ sugar as needed
Crème fraîche (optional)
1½ cup fraises des bois
Beat the egg yolks with a tablespoon of the granulated sugar and the vanilla extract in a medium bowl until well combined and slightly thickened.
Using an electric mixer, beat the egg whites until they form soft peaks.
Fold the egg whites into the egg yolk mixture, using a rubber spatula until most of the egg white can’t be seen.
Heat a heavy nonstick or omelet pan with the butter until it is foaming.
Meanwhile taste the strawberries and add any of the extra granulated sugar if needed.
Quickly add the egg mixture to the heavy pan and spread out evenly in the pan. Cover pan and reduce the heat to low. Cook 3 to 4 minutes or until the egg is lightly set on top and the bottom is golden brown. If necessary run the spatula around the pan to release the eggs.
Slide the omelet onto a serving dish. Spread the strawberries down the center of the omelet. Fold the omelet in half over the filling. Dust the top with confectioners’ sugar.
Divide into two plates if desired. Serve with crème fraîche or other heavy cream, sweetened.
It was not long before I found myself sharing Neil’s hotel room, with the approval of the French hotel staff who had been concerned about such a handsome man being alone for so long. When Neil invited me to stay with him at his hotel, I was concerned about what the hotel staff would think about my having a key, coming and going. I imagined that like American motels and hotels, the management were disapproving. He laughed. “They have been worried that I have been here several weeks, alone, and will be delighted. They are French, after all.”
It was the first time I saw terry-cloth robes made available to each guest and understood the French love of lovers, cosseting and encouraging them. My time in Paris was glorious, and I left reluctantly. It was a good time for Neil and me to meet. I was already planning to move to New York as soon as I returned from my trip. My annulment was final, my settlement was the money I was traveling on, but I was still wounded from all that had gone before. Neil’s divorce was pending and had been equally acrimonious. We were both ready for someone that liked us, if not love. Maybe we didn’t even want love from each other. What we had was sufficient.
We cried on each other’s shoulders about lost loves, bad marriages, mistakes we had made. We relished our meals in Paris, as well as a good sex life without tensions and complications.
Shortly after I returned to the States, I moved to New York City and a new job and new roommates. I cooked a few days a week at Neil’s, simple suppers we both enjoyed, and on occasion cooked for his mother Corrine and stepfather Sol. One day Neil asked me to cook a birthday dinner for Corrine. I dearly loved her, with her perf
ectly made-up plump face, long acrylic painted nails (the first I’d ever seen), and tastefully chic clothes. Like my mother, she was a Christian Scientist, in large part responsible for my return to Christian Science at that time. We went to church together every Wednesday and Saturday, so we were very close. It was easier to accept her love than Neil’s.
His mother had a favorite dish she hadn’t been able to get in New York—mountain oysters. As I told Neil, I had a real appreciation for oysters and other seafood, and presumed that mountain oysters were, like mountain trout, a fresh-water variant of some sort. There were a lot of foods I’d never eaten. After all, I had just had my first fresh omelet and first loose leaf lettuce in France the previous summer. Neil picked me up the morning of Corrine’s birthday and said we were heading downtown, I assumed to the fish market. But no, we wound up in the slaughterhouse district. That’s when I found out we were—I was—cooking not oysters at all, but an oddly oyster-shaped meat, also called lamb fries, which was—were—testicles. I was a bit stunned, but game. I was also a bit stunned to find out that so many animals had testicles. How could I forget the blue balls of my youth, I wondered, where the boys ran around the outside of the car so I could protect and preserve my virtue? Well, I mean I knew all mammals had testicles, I suppose, or something like testicles, but who knew that ducks had them? And veal? And pigs, large and small? And who knew they were so cheap? They were about twenty-five cents a pair, no matter the size. We figured a pair per person would do, but we couldn’t figure out what kind Corrine liked, or which were the best, or even what size. I also felt that we needed some for me to practice on.
The butchers, who found it humorous, no doubt, to tell me how to cook them, told me I could slice them in half and sauté them like scaloppini, or batter and deep fry, or roll in crumbs and pan fry, and on and on. They could hardly contain themselves with the debates—whether to peel them or not to peel them, and which kind were best. I soaked it all in and wound up thoroughly confused. We left with nearly thirty dollars’ worth of testicles, each carrying two bags full.
Walking down the street, we passed a Chinese man selling snails. They were in tin cans that were about two cups in size. Their price? One dollar. Having previously spent up to ten dollars for the kind that came in the tiny can with the shells piled in a plastic sleeve on top, I was thrilled! What a bargain! We got them wholesale. We purchased two cans and happily set off for Neil’s high-rise on East Eighty-Sixth Street.
Neil dropped me, the snails, and the mountain oysters off. I read one of the cookbooks I had brought with me—which one I cannot remember—and it said to soak the snails in a barrel of water sprinkled with oatmeal, the barrel covered with a cement block. I was on the eighteenth floor of an apartment on East Eighty-Sixth Street, and there was no barrel and no cement block. I put the snails, still in their shells, in the sink with the oatmeal and water.
Neil’s apartment was a typical New York one-bedroom apartment. The dining room table was immediately inside the entrance, to be pulled out during dining. The kitchen was adjacent. The living room formed an L with a balcony just outside the sliding glass doors. I covered the table with newspapers and then plates to hold the various types and sizes of mountain oysters. Neil’s large butcher’s knife in hand, I practiced on the mountain oysters. I peeled some. I cut some in half. I fried some. I marinated some. Testicles piled high on the table, divided by size, I went to the balcony with the cookbooks, sat in the sun and mulled over the dinner.
I dozed, perhaps, in the warm sun. As I stood and walked back to the kitchen, I thought I heard a sound. A little clicking. Standing at the kitchen door, I realized it was the snails, clicking around the kitchen as they hauled their shells.
These were very tiny snails, not French snails at all. They were no bigger than my fingernail. And there were hundreds of them, roaming around Neil’s immaculate kitchen, having been rejuvenated by their snack of oatmeal and water, and eager to explore their surroundings. They were between the stove and the refrigerator. On the walls. On the ceilings. On the floor. On the cabinets. And they were alive. All of them. Leaving a trail of snail residue behind them.
I suppose it had been self-evident that they were alive when I put them to soak in the water. But it wasn’t, not to me. Now I realized that they were alive, I became squeamish at the idea of picking them up.
I ran next door. There were two men living there together. I hadn’t really met them, but I had seen them when I came and went to Neil’s. I knocked frantically on the door, and when they came to the door I was too speechless to articulate the problem. They came rushing back into the apartment with me, responding to an unknown emergency.
There, some peeled, some not, some sliced, some not, piled high, all sizes and shapes, were the mountain oysters, testicles with the knife resting on the cutting board. The men took one look at me and turned on their heels. This was a long time before Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer of young men who kept some of his victim’s parts in a freezer, but it was clear they had an instantaneous impression of a mass murderer or at least a mass castrator. “No,” I said, “you don’t understand.” They kept running, to the elevator. I ran after them.
When I caught up with them, sans knife, I must have looked easy to overcome by force, so they listened. They started laughing in disbelief and followed me to the apartment. Bless their hearts, they helped get all those snails up while I put the mountain oysters in the refrigerator.
Neil returned with the rest of the food when the job was half done, and helped with the rest, laughing as hard as the rest of us. I proceeded to boil the snails in their shells, then remove them from the shells and bake the shells to sterilize them, like the book said. And then it hit me. These were New York City snails. They had been roaming around, God knew where, eating whatever. The oatmeal was to clean out their digestive tract, and I didn’t believe it had been cleaned in the short time it had taken them to pep up and jump out of the sink.
I threw them all away and sent Neil out for more snails. The kind that came with a sleeve of shells. And the mountain oysters? The best kinds are duck and veal, fried. But Corrine wanted the lamb ones, and of those we had plenty. I’m a specialist in them now.
I have long given up remembering Neil as I lie in bed some nights, but I often remember my first Parisian dessert and the wild strawberries. I was not prepared for their exquisiteness, the sumptuousness of the cream enveloping them, or the weightlessness of the omelet soufflé into which they were tucked. I frequently make soufflé omelets at home, usually limited to using raspberries or strawberries, but these days we can find crème fraîche or mascarpone to accompany this soufflé. And I’ve been known to wake up laughing about testicles, large and small. I even have some quail ones, the size of small pearls, in my freezer, sent by the owner of South Carolina’s quail farm. She doesn’t expect me to reorder them, she said, as no one thinks they are delicious, but she wanted me to know their size.
Majorcan Snails
When I was thirty I found myself chef of a restaurant in rural Majorca—one hour’s drive from the major city, Palma. I neither spoke the language nor had worked in a restaurant (except a coffee shop in Cambridge) before. I could hardly believe I had been hired.
My then-husband, David, whom I had married after Neil and I had broken up, was the bookkeeper. I was chef. Neither of us spoke Catalan—the patois of French and Spanish that is spoken in Majorca. I had barely scraped by college Spanish, confident I would never need it. Wrong again. The maître d’ and one of the waiters spoke English, but the maids who doubled as prep cooks did not. The restaurant was in an old finca, or farmhouse, built around an olive press with an extensive garden. There was a massive olive tree just outside of the door of our bedroom and I could pick figs and roses during the short walk up to the restaurant.
A few evenings later, it rained just as we closed the restaurant for the evening. We hadn’t seen much rain. We welcomed it and that particular, fresh smell rain has after a long dry spe
ll. Taking a drive down the dark and winding country roads, we started seeing little lights dotting the fields. We were bemused—even, perhaps, a little alarmed. Could it be poachers? If so, what on earth were they poaching, and why were they using flashlights to do so?
The next morning, we were eager to share our observations and went up to the restaurant together quite early, finding all the staff—waiters, gardeners, and kitchen staff alike—already there and prepared to solve the mystery. All around the kitchen were buckets of snails. Alive. I eyed them warily, having familiarity with live snails. The lights we had seen were all the local people out with lanterns and flashlights, looking for snails. In fact, the staff viewed us with a bit of derision for not having a few kilos of our own to add to the stash.
There was a great deal of joking about how many snails everyone could eat, most people claiming a hundred each, and a long discussion about the preparation. The upshot was that the snails were washed and placed back in the buckets. The tops of the buckets were covered with a wire mesh to prevent their wiggling out. The snails were to be fed cornmeal, rosemary, and/or fennel until Sunday, which was several days away, and a day when we didn’t serve lunch.
After church on Sunday the kitchen, normally empty, was full of rapidly talking people. The maids, their husbands, the wife of the arrogant maître d’, all moving around, hands in sinks, scrubbing snails, rinsing ducks, separating eggs, or chopping herbs.
I joined the maître d’ in moving several tall stockpots to the back of the stove. To each we added a dead and cleaned duck, a dead and cleaned chicken, handfuls of thyme and fennel from the garden, dozens of peeled garlic cloves, cut-up onions, and, finally, the clean snails. We opened several bottles of a favorite Spanish white wine and poured them atop the snails, then added water to fill the stockpots three-quarters of the way to their brims, and covered them with lids.
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