IV

Culinary Opera

I’m flying again. I get a running start and flap my arms, head straight into the wind, bracing myself for liftoff. If it’s a good dream, I get to glide high above the treetops—-centuries-old live oaks and sycamores. Other times when someone is chasing after me, I blink and turn myself invisible.

I really started vanishing at the age of seventeen, forcing people to forget about me. I left on a creative writing scholarship to a liberal arts college in Florida to study poetry, but it felt as though I had landed in a cultural desert with another group of people who looked nothing like me or wanted anything I recognized—athletic boyfriends, fast cars, deep tans, and degrees in marine biology. I muddled through my freshman year, and what saved me during my sophomore year—I had decided to minor in French—was being able to put together an independent study program to study in France.

Strangely, Europe was the first place where I felt almost at home. It reminded me how much I always dreamed of being away, heading fast to a place that could have been the moon for all my family knew. I was eighteen when I landed in Paris for the first time. Nicole, the mother of my host family, worked from home and took me into the city for classes and excursions. She loved being the tour guide but spoke French so fast that I had no choice but to learn the language quickly.

My second day, I convinced her to let me take the train in alone, even though I had no idea how to do it and hadn’t really adjusted to the time change. But I loved the idea of being in Paris by myself. I hadn’t really slept, which, oddly enough, heightened my senses even more. I remember walking the boulevard Raspail toward the Montparnasse tower, toting a navy blue backpack, taking in the smells and sounds of this new city. The air smelled of coffee and rising yeast, and mixed with my excitement and lack of sleep; I felt surprisingly hopeful.

I walked into a Montparnasse café called the Cosmos. It was early, so there were mostly men at the bar drinking from tiny cups, a few blue-collar workers nursing their first beers of the workday, eating what looked like dried sausage sandwiches. I realized that I was hungry. A paunchy waiter came over to my tiny round table and stood above me like a rising tower.

“Alors?”

“Parlez-vous anglais?” I managed. The waiter shrugged and started tapping his foot. “What is the difference between croque- monsieur and croque-madame, s’il vous plaît?”

“Croque-madame is with egg. Of course.”

“Yes, of course,” I agreed. “One, s’il vous plaît. And a glass of vin rouge.”

The waiter pointed to the list of red wines: Haut-Médoc, Saint-Amour, Graves.

“Saint-Amour,” I blurted out.

I ate heartily, breaking the warm yolk over the ham and creamy béchamel sauce. After, I ordered an espresso, and as I sat there looking around, I noticed a young woman across the room. She vaguely resembled someone I knew, a bit off balance, but her dark eyes were not as immediate as the expression of something between sheer exhaustion and hope. I kept trying to place her, and when I lifted the cup to my lips, I realized that the woman was me. But I was only really seeing myself for the first time, in a different sort of way. I ordered another glass of the red Amour and drank, not knowing when I would ever be able to sleep or dream again.

A man walked into the Cosmos and sat at the table next to mine. He was concentrating on his newspaper. I glanced at some of the headlines, trying not to stare at him. He must have sensed I was reading his paper because he closed it suddenly and looked straight at me.

“ Excusez-moi, I’m very sorry.” When I blinked, my eyes burned from lack of sleep.

He smiled and went back to his reading. I could see part of him in the mirror, the same one in which I hadn’t recognized myself. He was about ten years older than me, dressed in black. Everything about him was impeccable except for his thick curls, which gave him a look of fine-tuned neglect. He seemed at ease sitting there, securely holding Le Monde between his hands. Watching his lips move as he read, I felt a small crush come over me.

“Mademoiselle.” He was talking to me. “Je peux vous offrir un café?”

“ Oui. Yes. Avec plaisir.”

He gestured to the waiter, who promptly brought me another tiny cup of black coffee, and when I held it up to thank him, he was sitting at my table. He introduced himself as François, from Bordeaux. He had studied modern letters but also dabbled in the dead languages, even translating parts of the Vedas. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I listened as he spoke English with a half-British, half-French accent. He was intriguing but spoke too quickly for me to question anything.

“And you, you are new here, non?” he said, looking at my college backpack.

I nodded, and the movement of my head made me dizzy. I saw him looking at my watch, which read 12:30 a.m. “Eastern time,” I offered.

“I see. You are still in the past. Here it is already morning, and I have already finished my work for the day.” He spoke in riddles, with strange lulls in between.

When I didn’t respond, he went on to explain that he was an antiquarian, that he found the most valuable objects between 3:00 a.m. and now. He stared at me, and while he was speaking, I stroked the coarse strands of my hair and told myself that surely he wasn’t speaking to me. I was a college sophomore, and until then no one, especially a man, had ever addressed me with such interest and genuine pleasure. My heart was beating so hard, I could feel it in my ears, and I was afraid he could hear it, too, but he just kept talking, mostly about all the places he had been and the others he wanted to see before he died—New Guinea, Bhutan, “She-cow-go,” the bayous of Louisiana. He asked me lots of questions I didn’t know the answers to.

“And you, I’m sure a young woman like you has many dreams.”

I remember wanting to say something about happiness, such a strange word in many languages, but even back then I knew that it was never really a goal in itself. I took pleasure, hastily, from where I could because I sensed that it would never last. Instead of waiting for an answer, François told me that he had always wanted to see le quartier français. After another round of coffee, it was decided that he would accompany me back to New Orleans after my semester in France. It was the first time since leaving home that I felt I really wanted something. I must have given him some right answers because he suddenly said to me, “ Viens. I will show you my city.” He stood up abruptly, took my bag and my hand, and led me out into the street.

The sun was starting to spread across the wide boulevards, a light I had never noticed before that seemed to settle deep and warm into the bones of the city. I thought about calling Nicole so she wouldn’t worry but instead spent the rest of the day with François, riding around in his miniature car, succumbing to his whims. I tasted everything I could, no matter how odd or disturbing: butter-drenched organ meats, crusty sour breads, cheeses covered with the softest gray fuzz. We ate the crispy darkened skin of duck breasts and drank lots of wine before crossing his favorite bridges.

I finally got on the train late and back to Nicole’s in the suburbs, sick with what I thought was longing for François, but the next morning Nicole proudly diagnosed my liver as having its first crise de foie, a true French liver crisis. She happily made herbal concoctions from her garden and made me drink salty Contrex water for three days. When she decided I was better, she taught me to make pork rillettes and monkfish larded with fresh garlic and sprinkled with toasted fennel seed, crispy potatoes with shallots and parsley. She was a fabulous cook and had only sons, no daughters or nieces, so I let her teach me and initiate my unassuming liver into the wanton ways of the French culinary world.

François didn’t call for a week, and when I did see him again, he was seated at a sidewalk café across from the Luxembourg Garden with two women, drinking small glasses of golden-colored wine. He waved promptly and stood up to introduce me. The women kissed me absently on the cheek and said something too quickly for me to understand; looks were exchanged. I envied them; they had been raised in this country, mastered a language of gestures to help them deal with engaging and singular men in a city where whole affairs were constructed or demolished with the slightest glance or nod of a head.

“Come, join us.” François sat close to me and held my hand. One of the women, a North African with deep olive skin and huge black eyes, smoked endlessly, stopping only to sip her wine or shrug her shoulder every once in a while. While François conferred with the waiter, the women were quick to ask me how I had met their friend and offered a few words of advice. I’m sure they dismissed me as some naive Américaine who didn’t know much about anything, and they were right—but for a moment I was someone else, momentarily happy, and I found everyone around me palatable and glowing. The waiters were unusually charming, and the toast-colored wine was like butter on my tongue. I drank while François gently stroked my thigh under the table.

The following morning would be the last time I’d ever see François. He picked me up early—it was still dark—from Nicole’s and drove me to the outskirts of Paris to sell and bargain at the Saint-Ouen flea market. He showed me the difference between fake and real first editions, the value of certain artist’s proofs, and which porcelain plates were très recherchée. I bought an etching from a South American shipwreck collection with the few francs I had. Over a sunrise café crème, he told me that he was off to Spain and Italy to search for rare books and prints.

“They have the best crostini with crushed chicken livers, salted anchovies, and the women . . . ooh la.” He smiled. “You will come with me, non?”

I was about to answer that I would taste anything for him when one of the women, the dark, beautiful one from the day before, showed up at the café. I don’t remember her name, just that her head was expertly wrapped in a printed silk scarf and she wore large dark sunglasses, even though there wasn’t much sun to speak of. She ignored me and said something to François and left. I looked at him, waiting for something, but he just shrugged and lit a Lucky Strike.

I looked around, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. Midmorning light flooded the stalls of used and battered things; the smoke that escaped from François’s nostrils crisscrossed in shadows across his face, rendering his eyes cavernous and hollow. He kissed me, talking the whole time, though no longer in English.

“Tu es si jeune. Je ne peux pas l’expliquer. Je m’en vais bientôt.” He embraced me and whispered something about my being so young, about not being able to explain, about having to leave, but filtered through the sounds of the rising babel in my chest, it could have been Latin or Sanskrit or some other ancient language spoken long ago.

I swallowed hard, nodded, and pointed at his watch. I told him that by the time he arrived at his destination, he would be the one in the past. “As for me,” I said, finally changing the hands of my watch, “it will be a new day.” I sounded braver than I was—I wanted to stay there forever, be loved by this strange and beautiful man in a country I was just beginning to discover—but I hadn’t cried for anyone up until then, and I wasn’t going to start for him.

I hated returning to Nicole’s in Précy-sur-Oise, hated the idea of returning to the bankrupt sky and bleached sands of Florida’s waterways. Nicole sensed this, so with her contacts, she arranged a two-month stint for me to work (where one of her sons was already) as a Club Med Gentil Organisateur on the Greek island of Kos. After that, I promised to return to the States in time for a new semester, and I did, hating my dismal dorm life of cardboard pizza boxes and overlit salad bars. All I wanted was to cross the ocean again and disappear into a copper pot, into the big creuset of France.

My family came to visit me in Florida once, and I returned to New Orleans for the holidays, but I knew it wouldn’t be long until I would leave again. I had disappeared at age three, at seventeen when I left for college, eighteen to Europe, and then again my senior year, when I transferred my credits and enrolled at the University of Nice to study French language and civilization. I said good-bye, leaving behind my sister and brother, my parents and grandparents, promising I’d be back soon, not knowing that soon would be in ten years.

In Nice, I met Joachim, a Swedish political science major with ambitions of working for the United Nations. He was my complete opposite: pale, green-eyed, confident, and stubbornly convinced that he could change the world. When we met on campus, he said I looked like someone who had survived a shipwreck. But it was my lucky day, he claimed, because he was going to save me.

Not that I believed he could save me, but I liked the boldness of his declaration. We started out as friends and shared a rented flat in Vieux Nice, just behind the Cours Saleya, with a Dane and a German architecture student. Joachim, Teis, and Wolfgang had decided—three male votes to my one—that I would have the smallest room off the kitchen. After I’d spent several hours rearranging my new room, the roommates I had secretly dubbed the European Larry, Curly, and Moe summoned me.

“Vee are to eat,” announced Wolfgang like a fledgling maître d’hôtel.

On the makeshift table in the living room were mismatched bowls and plates of boiled gray potatoes, stewed onions, jars of pickled herring, dented tubes of Kalles Kaviar, and hard brown bread.

“Vee three made it. Our first meal together.”

They must have thought I was delighted since I remained speechless as they seated me at the head of the table. I managed a smile and thanked them. Chewing wistfully on a slimy onion, I closed my eyes an instant and recalled the sweet Vidalias from my childhood and recipes for thick and creamy potato salad, fried chicken, and corn bread.

When I opened my eyes, the boys had disappeared from the table and were leaning out the window. I joined them as they jeered at a street brawl below. Men in earth-colored clothes and lopsided berets screamed strange syllable combinations, shaking their fists at one another. One toppled another’s stand of bright red tomatoes, kicked over some heads of lettuce, and, hand in hand with a beautiful woman, marched off through the crowd, disappearing through the arch and into the Mediterranean.

I was grateful for the uproar and encouraged by such excitement at a food market. I slipped on my sandals and, with the stooges in tow, rushed down the three flights of stairs and out into the street. The sun lit up the Cours Saleya like a culinary opera. Children danced around, tossing figs at one another while their mothers in brightly colored skirts flirted with the vendors. I immediately offered up a few francs in exchange for a basket and waltzed through the stalls, composing my own private aria filled with musical words: fleur de courgette, asperge sauvage, cabri, jambon de Montagne, rascasse, cigale de mer.

The boys were also excited and pulled out money to help buy kilos of tiny sun-warmed squash and fresh fava beans, lemons, bouquets of fragrant blush peonies. I courageously began bartering in broken French with the marchands. Most were happy to listen, patiently allowing me to finish a sentence, then offered up samples of warm peppery socca and sweet and savory tourtes aux blettes, a pissaladière of sticky caramelized onions and salty-sweet anchovies. Others tried to speak Japanese to my Asian face.

We went back to the flat, and without a word the boys scraped the onions and potatoes into a dish for the neighbor’s dog. They waited impatiently, along with the poodle’s owners, Jean-Philippe and his girlfriend, as I orchestrated my first French meal. I watched the Stooges’ Nordic eyes light up as they popped yellow teardrops of tomatoes into their mouths and tasted my sweet pea salad with mint and bacon. They were a bit reluctant but enjoyed my omelet of wild asparagus dusted with fragrant thyme blossoms.

“Sublime.” Jean-Philippe winked and slid closer to me.

I think I was happy and didn’t even wince when the Dane lathered lingonberry jam on his portion of fromage. We finished off the meal with a tender salad of mâche, creamy Camembert au lait cru, and another bottle of red. The next morning, I was unanimously voted into the largest bedroom and allotted full command of the kitchen, and later, when Jean-Philippe came by to take me for coffee, I started to relish the subtle powers of knowing my way around a kitchen.

CROQUE-MADAME

This is basically a really decadent ham-and-cheese sandwich with an egg on top to elevate it from a monsieur to a madame. Substitute thin slices of grilled chicken for the ham. I like my egg sunny-side up so I can swirl the cheese sauce into the warm yolk, but poached or over easy eggs would work as well.

Butter

4 slices sourdough or pain de mie (white sandwich bread)

4 slices good-quality cooked ham (or chicken)

Dijon mustard (optional)

1 cup grated Gruyère or Emmentaler, divided

1½ to 2 cups Mornay sauce

2 sunny-side-up eggs

Heat a large ovenproof skillet over medium high heat. Butter bread on all sides and top 2 of the slices with ham (sometimes I add a smear of Dijon). Top with half the cheese and cover with remaining bread slices. Place sandwiches buttered-side down into the skillet, pressing gently with back of spatula. Let cook about 1 to 2 minutes or until bottom is lightly golden. Top with Mornay sauce and remaining cheese. Place ovenproof skillet in oven and broil 1 to 2 minutes (be careful not to burn) or until golden and bubbly. Top, with a fresh sunny-side-up egg and serve hot. Serves 2.

MORNAY SAUCE

I usually make this in a nonstick saucepan, which makes for easy cleanup.

2 tablespoons unsalted butter

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1½ to 2 cups milk (whole or 2 percent)

¼ teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon fresh-ground black pepper

Freshly grated nutmeg, to taste

¾ cup coarsely grated Gruyère or Comté (about ¼ pound)

Melt butter in a heavy-bottom saucepan over medium high heat. Stir in flour and cook, stirring constantly, about 1 minute (do not let brown). Add milk, whisking constantly. Bring to a low boil and cook, stirring constantly, about 2 minutes more. (Once it boils, if too thick add more milk.) Season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg. Remove from heat and stir in cheese.

SPRING PEA SALAD WITH MINTED CREAM AND GRILLED CHEESE TOASTS

If you make this out of season, frozen peas can be substituted. I also like to add fresh fava beans (cooked and peeled).

2 cups fresh, shelled English peas

1 cup fresh snow peas (about ¼ pound)

3 slices prosciutto or Canadian bacon

1 cup crème fraîche

½ teaspoon fresh lemon juice

Fleur de sel and fresh-ground black pepper, to taste

2 to 3 tablespoons julienned fresh mint leaves

Grilled goat cheese toast

Cook English peas 1 to 2 minutes in salted boiling water. Add snow peas and let cook 1 more minute. Shock peas in an ice bath and let drain. Cook prosciutto in a hot pan until crispy. Remove from pan and reserve. Combine crème fraîche, lemon juice, fleur de sel, pepper, and fresh mint in a bowl. Add peas and stir gently to combine. Let chill in refrigerator about 1 hour. Top with crispy prosciutto and serve with grilled goat cheese toast.

GRILLED GOAT CHEESE TOAST

Make this with almost any cheese you have on hand, but I like to use chèvre such as a young, fresh white Crottin, or try Rocamadour or a fresh Saint-Marcellin. Slice country bread or baguette and grill or toast lightly. Rub with garlic, if desired, and place cheese on top. Broil for a few seconds, sprinkle with some fresh herbs and/or a drizzle of good olive oil, and serve hot with spring pea salad with minted cream or your favorite green salad.