5

My Stepfather

My mother had returned to Paris as the revolution was about to explode. Most European Jews living in Cairo fled to Europe. My mother’s best friend, Elie, and her daughter went to Brussels. My mother might have followed them there but feared becoming too dependent on them. And then there were her own family’s reprisals if she didn’t return to Paris. After all, my aunts whispered behind her back, “Ses enfants sont là-bas, et il est temps qu’elle soit près d’eux!” (Her children are there, and it’s about time that she be near them!) My mother made a compromise between her duties as a mother and her much-cherished freedom and settled alone in a one-bedroom apartment with a kitchenette in the 16th arrondissement of Paris.

It was a far cry from the luxury she was accustomed to in Cairo, but it had been impossible to take whatever was left of her money out of Egypt because of the revolutionary turmoil. She had salvaged some of her possessions upon leaving, and they cluttered the already cramped space. A magnificent Oriental carpet covered the entire living room floor, and other rugs were rolled and stored in a closet. In one corner, prominently displayed, was a silver tray with a silver tea carafe, creamer, and sugar bowl, the same that used to grace the dining room serving board in my grandparents’ home and that now hides in one of my closets. I’ve tried to pass it on to my children when they got married, but I had no takers. From time to time I take it out, polish it, and set it on my kitchen counter, remembering when I was a child living in Cairo and the tea set would be polished and used for my grandmother’s poker day.

I rarely saw my mother in my adolescent days in Paris. Occasionally, she would invite my brother and me out to lunch, never to her apartment. During these lunches, she often complained of being alone, of having no friends and no money. Sometimes, just to spite her, I ordered the most expensive dish on the menu, knowing she’d say nothing. On the way back to our grandmother’s house, Eddy would scold me. “You are terrible,” he’d say, “why did you order that dish?” I didn’t know how to tell him that what I really wanted was to live with her, that hurting her was my way of getting back at her for not taking me in. I knew my mother. I knew that deep down, she felt guilty and scared of me … scared that I would turn my back on her as her own mother had done to her. When I asked my uncle Clément why she had no money, he shrugged his shoulders. “She spent it all on her friends. She wouldn’t let us take care of her finances. She trusted strangers, not the family.” I wanted to tell my mother that I would gladly give her my inheritance if only she would act like a real mother, but I never found the courage.

I was sixteen when I received a disturbing phone call from my mother. “I am married,” she announced. Her tone was curt, businesslike. Resentment and curiosity twisted my voice to shrillness as I fired questions at her. She refused to answer them, instead inviting me to lunch to meet him. “It’s an excellent restaurant,” my mother said dryly. “We’ll have a great meal. The chef is Mira’s friend.” Her new husband’s name made me snicker. And since when did my mother enjoy good food, I wondered. She was always complaining that she was fat and on a diet.

Faugeron was on the Left Bank and had a Michelin star. The day of our lunch, I dressed carefully, thinking I should impress my new stepfather. The word “stepfather” sounded strange. I had not had a father since I was six. What would this one be like? What role would he take in my life? As I pulled on creamy silk stockings and smoothed down my tight navy skirt, I daydreamed of living in a big house with them. I was hopeful that maybe they would decide they needed a child in their life even if that child was a teenager.

I arrived on time and was greeted by a solemn maître d’hôtel. As I waited twenty minutes for the newlyweds to show up, I surveyed the restaurant’s interior: red velvet banquettes against the wall, tables with white tablecloths and comfortable chairs, landscapes of the Côte d’Or, well-fed and contented diners. My mother made her entrance followed by a man who was holding the door for her and looking at her with adoration. I had to remember to close my mouth, which had opened in shock. Almire Ducreux (a name that might have been given to the protagonist in a seventeenth-century comedy of errors, I thought) was shorter than my mother, with a stiff gray crew cut, a small, expertly trimmed mustache, and a round belly. He was neither handsome nor elegant, and I was totally baffled. Their lateness, it seems, was my mother’s fault—she had been fussing with her hair and dress. He apologized to me with a smile as he looked tenderly at my mother. I suddenly realized that he was looking at her as one looks at a lovable child. I liked him already … he knew what my mother truly was!

The large menu offered dishes I had never heard of: baked truffle over ashes, partridge terrine, foie gras sautéed in a port sauce, beef en daube, stewed hare. I was relieved when Mira asked if I minded his ordering for us. My mother said that she’d have an appetizer and a salad … that she really wasn’t hungry. This self-abnegating request was repeated countless times in the years to come, while Mira and I plunged with gusto into exquisitely prepared dishes, which made my distant mother even more glum.

My first course arrived engulfed by the most extraordinary, intoxicating aroma. A lone globe of aluminum foil sat on a white china plate, accompanied by thin slices of buttered toast. I didn’t move and simply allowed the scent to waft toward my nose. My stepfather, smiling gently, suggested that I open the foil. I followed every movement he made with his own silver packet. Now a black ball revealed itself, engulfed in steam, its rough, patterned skin reminding me of epidermis under the microscope of my science class. “Slice it thinly and taste it,” Mira said with a mock serious tone that belied his amusement. I slid the slice of truffle into my mouth, and I tasted something more sublime than any other food I had ever had. “It’s … it’s …” I couldn’t begin to describe the joy I felt eating that truffle, an epiphany of the senses, a thrill caressing my adolescent tongue. I grinned at the two of them. My stepfather seemed a little surprised and very pleased by my enthusiasm and my obvious pleasure in eating that truffle. He wondered if I would like to know where they came from and how they were gathered. “Oh, yes!” I exclaimed. But to my great disappointment, my mother, forgotten in our exchange, said dourly, no, next time, when I came to their house. She added that they were moving to a hotel near the Seine until they bought a house. My curiosity about this man who was so unlike my mother was intensified, but I knew better than to ply him with questions. As the next dish arrived, I swore to myself that I would get to know him. If he liked this type of food, I was willing, in my naïve yet pretentious way, to ignore everything else that I felt was strange about him. The next dish was quenelles of brochet (pike), a specialty of the north where Mira was born. The quenelles were bathed in two sauces, one white and one pink. As I took a bite, I had a second revelation. This was not any ordinary fish preparation. The airy quenelle dissolved into nothing, leaving my mouth with a creamy, buttery sensation hinting of the sea. Mira explained that the pink sauce was made with tiny fresh shrimps. Seeing that I was enchanted, my stepfather relaxed and began to talk about himself while I savored each mouthful, barely listening.

Almire Ducreux was born in Normandy in 1905, in a small village near Honfleur. His grandfather had been an apple farmer and a maker of Calvados, the apple brandy that Normandy is so famous for. When I met him, he still owned the apple farm but the commercial production of Calvados had been abandoned. Calvados was made only for members of the family and friends. Later, after I had married and moved to New York, Mira would send me 100-proof Calvados in an old bottle of cologne (it was illegal then to ship alcohol by mail). Whenever we received it, we invited friends over to try this powerful drink. We dunked sugar cubes into the golden liquid and sucked on them. The only person I knew who could actually drink the Calvados neat was my friend Adam Santoki, a Lithuanian immigrant, who could swallow it in one gulp and ask for more. I made crêpes with the Calvados and used it to flavor some of my pâtés. I never told Mira that we couldn’t drink it, that it was much too strong for us.

When Mira passed his certificat d’études, a diploma awarded after completing sixth grade, his teacher told Mira’s father that his son was exceptionally bright and should continue to study. Farmers’ children usually went to work for their parents at that point and to allow Mira to continue meant that he would have to be sent to the next town to attend a lycée. But in 1916, most men were at war and Mira’s father needed him on the farm. Mira begged his father to say yes. “It was my mother,” he told me years later. “She knew that by sending me to a lycée, I would be able to get out of the village and become somebody.” His father relented and Mira was sent to Deauville. He lived with a family friend of his father, a wine merchant to whom the elder Ducreux sold his production of Calvados. He supported himself while studying by working in restaurants, first as a dishwasher on weekends and nights, then as a vegetable prep. With eyes and ears open, and through his friendships with the young chefs in the kitchen, he learned about restaurant management, purchasing, and cooking techniques. In 1923, when Mira passed his baccalaureate with flying colors, his teachers again appealed to his father, suggesting that Mira study at the university to become a teacher. The elder Ducreux, finally coming to terms with the fact that Mira would never be a farmer, relented. After four years at the university, Mira became the first person in his family to be educated and have a white collar job. Although he was assigned to a school in Deauville, Mira found himself still drawn to the restaurant world. He augmented his meager teaching salary by managing the account books for his chef friends. On crowded weekend nights, he doubled as a maître d’. One night, a regular patron of one of the restaurants, with whom he often had conversations after-hours, asked him to join him for a drink in a private room near the kitchen. This meeting changed Mira’s life forever. The patron, a Rothschild, proposed hiring Mira as a manager of a group of hotels he had bought in the Mont d’Or, a watering place in central France. Later, the magnate explained, there would be other partnerships whenever a good business venture came along. Mira jumped at the offer. By the time he met my mother, my stepfather owned several hotels in Paris and two in the Mont d’Or. Yet, in some ways, he remained a farmer’s son, a fact that got in the way of a true union with my mother, who was afraid of the disapproving judgments of her own family.

My mother took over the conversation as we finished our quenelles, chatting mindlessly about buying a house, having a garden, going to Mont d’Or to take the baths. I looked over at my stepfather, who was again gazing at her almost stupidly. I knew then that I would not have a place in their lives. My mother would see to that. She did not want her daughter around looking in on her life with a critical stare. As the menu for dessert was handed to me, both of them turned to me. “Colette does not like sweets,” said my mother in a nasty tone of voice. “No, Maman,” I retorted rudely. “I think I will try the chocolate ganache.” Why had I said that? I hated chocolate. My stepfather looked at me, smiled, and said gently, “I don’t think chocolate after this meal is a good idea. How about a crêpe filled with fraises des bois (tiny wild strawberries)?” Did I like crêpes? I wasn’t sure. The only ones were those Georgette used to make, swimming in an orange sauce that made me sick. But it was better than chocolate, and I decided then and there that I liked this man. He was kind, warm, and seemed to understand my mother and our tense relationship. The crêpe came, golden and lacy. As I took a bite, the soft warm crêpe melted in my mouth and I was left with the slightly tart, perfumed taste of the fraises des bois. I must have looked very pleased because my stepfather started to laugh—an honest, hearty laugh that came rolling from the center of his being. I looked up at him and laughed also. We understood one another. My mother, flustered, wanted to know why we were laughing. How could I explain to her my relief in meeting her new husband, and the anxieties I had experienced before going to this lunch—that I would dislike the man, that he would take my mother even farther away from me, that he would reject me as a stepdaughter. All these worries had vanished at my first bite of the crêpe. My stepfather had understood my fears, and had unveiled my profound love of food, which tied him to me.

Crêpes Stuffed with Fraises des Bois

In the bowl of a food processor place ¾ cup flour with 2 tablespoons sugar, 2 eggs, ⅔ cup beer, ⅓ cup water, 2 tablespoons melted butter, and ½ teaspoon grated lemon rind. Process until all the ingredients are well mixed. Pour the batter into a bowl, cover, and allow it to rest for at least 6 hours. Heat a 5-inch crêpe pan. Butter the pan, add a small quantity of batter, tip the skillet, and let the batter spread over the bottom. If you have poured too much batter, tip the skillet, and pour out the excess. Cook the crêpe until the edges are golden brown, flip the crêpe, and cook the other side. Wash and drain 1 pint fraises des bois. Toss them with confectioners’ sugar and a few drops of lemon juice. Spread some strawberries in the middle of the crêpe and roll the crêpe around the strawberries. Pour some melted butter over the crêpe, sprinkle with confectioners’ sugar, and serve. Makes about 14 crêpes.

I did not see my mother for a few weeks after that lunch. My brother did not ask anything about our stepfather, nor did I volunteer information. I needed to keep this relationship to myself for now. Grandmaman Rose ignored their wedding and refused to acknowledge that my mother had remarried. “C’est un paysan (He’s a peasant),” she said with disdain. “C’est tout à fait Marceline d’epouser un tel homme (It’s just like Marceline to marry such a man)!” I tried to defend my mother and explain why I liked her new husband but what came out was what a great meal I had! My father’s family had a wait-and-see attitude. It took my uncles about three months to accept her husband. I always wondered why they did. Maybe because he was rich, and money was important to them. I never found out but from then on they were nicer to my mother.

One morning my mother called and asked if that Sunday I would come to the hotel in the late afternoon and then go out to dinner. Remembering my previous lunch, I eagerly accepted. The hotel was near the Seine, in the 12th arrondissement, near the Porte de Bercy, quite far from the city’s center. It looked second-rate, just a bit shabby, and I was disappointed. As I entered the lobby, a couple was heading for the front desk in front of me. The woman stood slightly behind the man as if to hide. My stepfather, standing behind the reception desk, handed the man a card so he could register. The man seemed to hesitate but then filled out the card and my stepfather handed him the key. “Second floor to the right,” he said. “For just two hours, mind you.” I was fascinated by the whole exchange. My stepfather was running a love hotel by the hour! Did my mother know it? She was often so naïve. And how would my brother, prudish and stuck-up, react to that news? I stood frozen in embarrassment. Mira had not seen me. Should I go out and come back in or just ignore the whole incident and call out his name? I decided that I really didn’t care what the hotel was used for. I giggled and thought of my great-aunt in Cairo, my grandmother’s sister, who had run a genteel whorehouse for widowers and whom the family, except for my grandmother, had cut off. I remembered suddenly the jovial atmosphere of the place and my great-aunt feeding me nuts while she and my grandmother talked. I had loved going there as a child. The men played cards with intense good humor while the young women fussed over me.

Mira greeted me warmly and led me to the apartment behind the desk. My mother was sitting in an armchair in a large, ugly room knitting near the window. She seemed stuck to the chair, too complacent and heavy. “Colette, look at what I am knitting … Mira’s daughter is expecting her fourth child.” I had forgotten that Mira had another family. My mother seemed very interested in her future stepgrandchild. I felt jealous and angry and sat pouting in a corner. She’d never knitted for me. Mira also had a son, who was engaged to be married. “Mira doesn’t like his fiancée,” my mother confided to me, with obvious pleasure at having something to gossip about. “He is a lawyer and she is … well … vulgar,” as if being a lawyer made him more elegant. I wanted to ask my mother about the hotel but was too shy. Was I supposed to know that couples could meet and make love in two hours? Or that you could pay a woman for these two hours? I decided that, as usual, it was better not to ask my mother about things she disliked.

The dinner in the local restaurant was nothing like our first lunch. It was a small bistro, and for the first time I had hareng saur, delicate herring filets in oil and onions served with warm potatoes. This dish was followed by an omelette aux fines herbes and an apple tart. It was all tasty but didn’t come close to the intense experience I had at our first lunch. During dinner I learned that Mira was revamping his hotels in the Mont d’Or and would start out in a month, going every weekend to search for two-star chefs to run the restaurants in the summer. Mira asked me if I’d like to join them. I hesitated, but the promise of fine cuisine was tempting. I could always decline later on if I didn’t enjoy myself. Most important, it was a way to ingratiate myself. On the spur of the moment, I agreed.

For the next month, I did not see my mother. I learned that they had bought a house in the suburbs, in Maison-Lafitte, about forty minutes from the Etoile. “I have a garden,” my mother said proudly over the phone, “and nice neighbors.” My mother with a garden! She had never planted a single flower, nor could she cook. But I was jealous that now she not only had a husband but also a house, a garden, and all of this without a thought for me. I felt nostalgic for my Egyptian grandparents’ house, the noise of the women chatting on the terrace, and Ahmet! Ahmet, our cook, was my best friend when I lived in Cairo. Oh God, how I wanted to be plopped again on his kitchen counter, looking at him cooking ful medamas, the tiny brown fava beans, braised and seasoned. I wanted to sink my teeth into a hot sandwich of ful redolent of cumin and lemon…. It seemed like a fading dream.

Our first weekend search took place in February. We drove to Fleurines, about fifty-six kilometers from Paris, where, Mira explained, a young chef was making a name for himself. During the ride, which lasted three hours, I never spoke, feeling that I had made a mistake in being there. I had to forget about creating a relationship with my mother’s husband, as it would lead nowhere and just hurt me. This was going to be the last time I spent a weekend with them. When we reached Fleurines, Mira had trouble locating the restaurant. It was tucked away in a backstreet. When we finally found it, we were charmed by the intimate dining room, with its lace curtains, empty bottles of wine serving as candleholders, and a small bar in a corner where two men were smoking and drinking wine. As soon as we sat down, my mother whined that she wasn’t hungry and would have just a tidbit. Mira turned to me with an air of complicity and said, “I’m famished. You?” “Me, too,” I assured him. So we began a feast. The meal started with a delicate mousse of foie gras served with onion preserves. Mira watched me as I took a bite. “How do you think it was made?” he asked me. I had no idea. “Close your eyes. Imagine the spices. Do you think there is wine in the mousse? What makes the onion jam so tangy?” I tried and failed. Red wine? No. But certainly cream? Yes. The spices? I couldn’t guess. Lemon juice? No. I gave up and continued to eat, feeling flushed and excited by what seemed to me a guessing game of the senses.

The next dish was fish baked with caramelized endives. Again my stepfather asked questions about how the fish was prepared. “You see, Colette,” he said somewhat gravely, “to appreciate a dish you must know what’s in it. It is important to remember the taste. Food is memory If you can remember this lunch in a week, then the food was memorable and worth your while. I will teach you.”

Mousse de Foie avec Compote d’Onions (Liver Mousse with Onion Jam)

Trim 1 pound fresh chicken livers, removing any gristle. In a large skillet melt 2 tablespoons butter. When the butter is hot add the chicken livers and sauté for 3 minutes. Sprinkle the livers with 2 tablespoons dried tarragon, salt, and pepper, and pour 2 tablespoons cognac over them. Ignite. When the flame dies, down cook the livers for another 2 minutes. Remove from the heat. Place the chicken livers with the butter in a food processor. Add 1 cup heavy cream and process until all the livers are puréed. Strain the liver mixture through a fine sieve. Correct the seasoning with freshly ground pepper and ½ teaspoon nutmeg. Pour the mousse into a 1-quart mold or 4 small molds. Place the mold in a baking pan. Add 4 cups water to the pan. Bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool. In a bowl mix 2 envelopes unflavored gelatin. Add 3 tablespoons water and mix well. Add 2 cups chicken bouillon. Pour the mixture into a small saucepan and cook for 3 minutes, or until all the gelatin has melted. Cool, then slowly pour the gelatin on top of the mousse and refrigerate. Serve the mousse with onion jam. Serves 6 to 8.

Onion Jam

Peel 1 pound small onions and place them on a rack in the oven above a pan of boiling “water. Bake the onions in a preheated 325-degree oven for 20 minutes until nearly tender. Remove the onions to a platter and dry with paper towels. In a large skillet melt ½ A cup butter; when the butter is hot add the onions, 2 tablespoons brown sugar, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh rosemary, and salt and pepper. Mix well so that all the onions are well coated with the sugar. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring from time to time. If the onions seem too dry, add more butter. Remove the onion jam from the heat and cool. Spoon the jam into glass jars and refrigerate until ready to use.

For the next three months, I followed my stepfather in his quest for new chefs. Both of us ignored my mother, who always repeated the same litany: “I’m not very hungry … I’ll have something light.” Meanwhile, she was growing mysteriously plump. During the lunch or dinner, my stepfather and I played our guessing game, trying to unravel the intricacies of our meal’s preparation. When the chef came out at the end of the meal to meet Mira, we’d ask him what herbs and spices he used, how the soufflé was composed, whether the meat was marinated overnight. In three months I had acquired a sophisticated vocabulary of ingredients, spices, methods of cooking. If I guessed correctly, my stepfather would grant me ten points. A hundred points were worth a present. This was how I went skiing at Christmas, got a new dress at Easter, a silk scarf in my favorite color. Mira and I became great friends. We did not talk much during these trips; we just ate, and the food was our bond that grew stronger and stronger every year.

Artichoke à la Barigoule

This is an old recipe from Provence. In the sixteenth century, “Barigoule” referred to a type of mushroom with which the artichokes were cooked. The Barigoule mushroom disappeared from Provence but the name of the dish has remained. Prepare 16 very small spring artichokes. Cut off about 1½ inches of leaves from the top. You should have only about 3 inches from the stem. With a teaspoon remove the center choke of each artichoke. Cut off the stems and remove the tough leaves from the bottoms. Rub each artichoke with lemon to prevent it from turning brown. Peel ½ pound onions and 4 shallots and scrape and wash 2 carrots. Place all the vegetables in a food processor. Process until all the ingredients are minced. In an ovenproof saucepan heat 2 tablespoons olive oil. Spread the vegetables on the bottom of the saucepan. Sprinkle the artichokes with salt and pepper inside and out and place them on top of the vegetables. Add 2 more tablespoons olive oil, 1 cup white wine, and 1 cup water. Add 3 sprigs of fresh thyme. Cover and bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 2 hours. Serve hot or cold as an appetizer. Serves 4.

As my relationship with my stepfather solidified, other problems arose. Mira had decided that Claude, his son, should marry me. For weeks Mira talked to me about Claude, his future as a judge, and how we’d have a great life together. I was turning seventeen, had just passed my baccalaureate, and was thinking of taking the exam to enter the Pasteur Institute. Claude and I had met several times at family functions, barely talking to one another. He was short like his father, with thinning auburn hair and a receding hairline. I called him “le hareng saur” from a poem I loved by Jacques Prevert, in which a man with fish eyes is described. His thin lips rarely smiled and he lacked joie de vivre and an appreciation of fine cuisine, both of which were important attributes for me in a future husband (I knew that already at seventeen!). I disliked his pedantic conversation and his dry humor. His fiancée was always there, shunned by my mother and Mira.

One day Claude phoned and asked me to dinner at a café on the Champs Elysées. As we sat down to dinner, sipping a glass of red wine, Claude announced that in two months he would marry Suzanne. “I don’t want to marry you,” he said. “I don’t either,” I replied. “I don’t even like you.” Claude’s nostrils flared when he heard my nasty retort. But he needed my help, so his expression softened. He pleaded with me to convince my stepfather that under no circumstances would I marry his son. I promised that I would try and we finished our dinner in silence, having nothing much in common.

The next weekend, Mira told me that we were going to go to Salon-de-Provence in the south of France to look at a new inn and talk to the chef. The inn, housed in a former convent, the Abbeye de Saint Croix, was perched on top of a hill and had a magnificent view of the valley below. As we were waiting for dinner that evening, I asked Mira to take a walk through the herb garden that the chef had enthusiastically talked about. As we walked together, I told Mira I could not marry his son. I hoped he would understand and still consider me his daughter. Mira sighed, picked a sprig of lavender, and handed it to me.

Years later, when Jimmy, my American fiancé, came for me in Paris, the only one who greeted him with open arms was my stepfather; They would sit together in the garden and talk about French politics, chain-smoking. When we caused a scandal by living together in Munich before we were even married, Mira was the only one who stood by my side and defended me. When I announced that I was going to marry this American, my brother sent me a letter saying, “In our family one doesn’t marry Americans! They are uncultured and barbaric.” I never forgave him.

Mira died in 1961, weeks before coming to the United States to visit me and my new family. My mother, widowed for the second time and alone in Paris, moved to New York, right across the street from our house, more than ever a stranger to me.