CHAPTER 9
THE SOUFFLÉ ALSO RISES
LESSON HIGHLIGHTS: CHEESE SOUFFLÉ, HOW TO KEEP YOUR UNIFORM CLEAN
Audrey Hepburn failed the soufflé class at Le Cordon Bleu.
At least her character did in Sabrina. Inspecting her uncooked soufflé, the chef sniffs “far too low.” A suave, elderly baron in her class quickly grasps the situation—it isn’t her soufflé that’s a problem but her heart.
“A woman happy in love, she burns the soufflé,” the baron tells her. “A woman unhappy in love forgets to turn on her oven.”
I turn mine on the minute I get to the kitchen.
Chef Jacques Bouveret oversees the soufflé class. A substantial man with a celebrated appetite, Chef Bouveret looks like the quintessential French chef, sort of like Santa Claus without the beard. Specializing in sauces and fish preparation, he’s been a chef longer than I’ve been alive. He earned international acclaim as chef of a famous three-star Michelin restaurant in Paris and won numerous culinary awards before joining Le Cordon Bleu in 1990. Despite his impressive résumé, Chef Bouveret may be the least temperamental of the lot. He whistles and hums his way around the kitchens. Sometimes, he even sings.
“Oh, Champs-Élysées. . . . Oh, Champs-Élysées. . . .” His off-key voice precedes him to the kitchen. He gives us eight minutes to whisk our egg yolks and water over gentle heat to nudge them to a generous froth. Then, he gathers us around the worktable. In unison, we whisk the egg whites for a good fifteen minutes with huge balloon whisks, until the whites form stiff peaks. It’s a song of its own, the clattering of all those metal whisks on stainless-steel bowls.
The key to a good soufflé, we learn in demonstration, is the careful folding of the stiff egg whites into whatever else is going into the soufflé. They must be blended but not too mixed. Chef Bouveret oversees our folding efforts and then instructs us to pour the mixtures into prepared, chilled soufflé dishes. We all put our soufflés into the convection oven at the same time. As the minutes tick down, I wring my hands. “Soufflé” translates roughly to “blow up.” I’m certain that’s what mine is doing in the oven.
Ding!
“Look, look,” Chef says. (I think these are the only English words he knows.) We gather around the oven to claim our soufflés as he pulls each one out. It begins badly. The first one has fallen deeply and cracked.
“Le vôtre?” he says to Tai Xing. She nods forlornly. He shakes his head. The next two are lopsided, the third one has fallen, and the next two have risen too much.
“Ooh la la,” he says, pulling out the seventh. “C’est parfait!”
I can’t believe it. “C’est le mien!” I exclaim.
“Très bien, mademoiselle, très bien,” the chef says, pushing it toward me. He gives me the thumbs-up, his ultimate endorsement. I float home on the Métro, as my soufflé suffers in my Tupperware.
Back at the apartment, I’m greeted by Mike’s best friend from Seattle, James, and Amy, his girlfriend of eight months. A thoughtful, Oxford-educated American, James is a voracious reader who is into paragliding, an extreme sport that requires jumping off a mountain with a special parachute. Amy is a veterinarian who owns her own power tools and isn’t afraid to use them.
Their romance started marvelously after they met at a book club. They cuddled in public. James developed “mention-itis,” meaning he’d bring up Amy regardless of the topic being discussed. (“You know, Amy power-washed her house, too.”) So when James called to say he was bringing Amy to Paris for Valentine’s Day, we assumed he planned to propose.
I burst into the flat, still exhilarated by the soufflé class. I can’t talk fast enough. “It was perfect, wait until you see it,” I ramble on, taking the lid off the Tupperware. It’s fallen and soggy. My heart sinks. We eat it anyway. Success can be so fleeting.
For dinner, we head down an alley and spot a tiny place called Restaurant Incroyable. As we walk in, the conversation trails off at the handful of tables. The patrons are all clearly regulars. “Bonsoir!” says the owner, getting up from one of the tables while holding a panting white puppy. It’s common in Paris to see dogs and diners together, yet this is the first time I’ve seen an owner with a pet tucked under his arm.
“Une table pour quatre, s’il vous plait?” I ask.
“Ah, oui, madame,” he says. He asks tentatively. “You are English?”
Mike, burnishing his new French, replies, “Non, nous sommes Américains.”
“Oh, yes, good, Americans! Then you are welcome to dine here,” he says in English, clearly relieved we’re not British. A thousand years of war with your neighbor can have that effect. Over the next three hours, he smiles and showers us with his hospitality, even ferreting out a last prized bottle of his favorite wine, a Côte de Beaune, to go with our grilled salmon fillets and braised lamb shanks. We ask him to join us for a glass of port as we finish our apple tarts.
Amy asks the age of his puppy. “Oh, he’s very young. He hasn’t even had his first examination,” he says, scrubbing behind the puppy’s ears.
“I’m a veterinarian; can I have a look?” He thrusts the tiny fur ball toward her. Amy inspects his teeth, coat, and ears. Then, she slips her chair back a bit from the table, flips the surprised puppy on his back in her lap, spread-eagle, and nonchalantly conducts a thorough probe of his privates. “Everything’s in great shape,” she announces brightly. “Both of his testicles have dropped already!” She hands the furry ball back to his owner.
This has drawn the attention of the patrons at the two remaining tables, now quiet with disbelief. Not missing a beat, the owner sets the puppy on the floor, slides back in his chair, and assumes a spread-eagle position. “Perhaps I am next?”
The restaurant erupts in laughter. Incroyable, indeed.
I wake to an empty apartment the next morning. James and Amy are off to sightsee, and Mike left for French class at 7:00 a.m., as usual. I work on cleaning my uniforms.
Culinary school is a messy affair. Every day, new stains and smells assault my whites with vigor. I always wonder who came up with the idea of the standard kitchen uniform. Why white? Le Cordon Bleu uniforms have a deep-blue logo emblazoned on the center of the apron and on the left breast of the chef’s jacket. Simply washing them in strong bleach and detergent seems to destroy the blue in the logo yet leave intact the blood, fish guts, veal stock, and other unpleasant residue of our practicals, not to mention a cast of repulsive smells.
Thus I’ve begun to haunt the cleanser section of the nearby Monoprix. Perusing labels and thumbing through my pocket dictionary, I add a curious mix of words and phrases to my vocabulary: détachant (stain remover), eau de javel (bleach), solvent de sang (removes bloodstains), nettoie tout (cleans everything), décapant puissant (powerful cleanser), and odeur fraîche (fresh smell). Like a stain-fighting apothecary, I concoct a potent, very likely lethal mixture to apply to the stains. Then, I cram the garments into the tiny washer embedded in our kitchen and set it at the highest possible temperature. As in many European apartments, there’s no dryer. A painfully complicated drying rack must be assembled. Later, I iron the whole lot. With just two jackets and three aprons, it seems like an endless cycle. Treat stains, wash, struggle with the rack, then iron.
I’ve just hung the last apron on the rack when the apartment phone trills with its typically French “purr purr” ring, I hear a familiar Cockney accent. “Roight, hello then!”
“Albert! Where are you?”
“Roight, we’re downstairs, and it’s just stopped pissing rain out here.”
Albert’s the first person from my office I’ve talked to since I lost my job and was shunned from the herd. He’d phoned a week earlier to say that he and his fiancée, Vickie, were coming to see his relatives somewhere in the murky outskirts of Paris. We agreed to spend my Friday off from school sightseeing together.
Albert joined my former company when his career in biochemistry provided disturbing insight into what really goes into nonfat cheese, as well as into the true prevalence of airborne diseases. Half French and half English, he had previously worked for Mike in London, then later served on the management team with me. “Bunch of twits,” he concluded and changed jobs.
I run downstairs to meet them. Vickie’s fragile five-foot frame swims in a camouflage-patterned parka. A former cult member who is now a practicing witch, she gardens part-time for some minor British royals in Sussex. I’m utterly intrigued by her, though she rarely speaks.
“So Vick’s never seen the Sacré Coeur, and I thought that it would be cool to go see it,” says Albert, finishing the last of a pain au chocolat. We take a cab to avoid the mountainous climb that would be required if we took the Métro to Abbesses.
We emerge in front of steps leading up to the Basilica. As we get out, I back up and bump into Amy.
“What are you guys doing here?”
She looks glum. “Well, only I’m here.”
“Where’s James?”
“I have no idea,” she says, shrugging. “We had a fight at breakfast.”
Oh. Insert uncomfortable conversation pause here. Albert saves the moment by clearing his throat, forcing introductions.
We wander around the Catholic cathedral with Vickie, the practicing witch, and then agree to climb to the top of the dome. At the bottom, we see a temporary sign in English: “Caution: Precarious steps. Steep climb. Proceed at your own risk.” As we navigate the steps, it occurs to me that the sign isn’t in any other language. Amy and I speculate that it is probably there for Americans. As a result of our overzealously litigious society, it seems like much of the world is undergoing childproofing on our behalf. I’d once visited the Cliffs of Moher in Ireland, where an unprotected overlook juts above a sheer drop of more than seven hundred feet straight down into the icy waves of the Atlantic. A couple people walk off the edge each year. “They’re always Americans,” the Irish caretaker told me.
“I think they assume that if there aren’t buckets of warning signs and guardrails, it just isn’t that dangerous.”
Here at the Sacré Coeur, we scramble over broken steps and dislodged bricks and balance along a thin precipice wall before reaching the safer confines of the dome, where we share the endless view with a handful of Italian tourists. Maybe it comes from living daily with history, but Europeans seem so much more accustomed to the fragility of places.
Later, we wander through the touristy shops near the cathedral. Vickie and Albert duck into a tabac for cigarettes. At one of the outdoor stalls, Amy picks up an apron with an image of a black cat that says in English, “My cat loves Paris.”
“So are you OK?” I ask.
She avoids my gaze. “I don’t know. I think we may have broken up.”
“Oh.” So much for that proposal, I think.
Albert and Vickie catch up. We weave through Montmartre to rue Lepic, a spirited market street. We take a seat under a heat lamp at the Café des Deux Moulins, the café from the film Amélie.
Albert updates me on the office. I’d been anxious to hear work gossip, but I’m surprised to find that the corporate intrigues now seem pointless and petty, the hypocrisy rampant. As our lunch arrives, I think of the “Delight the Customer” initiative started before I left the company. It occurs to me that unlike in the corporate world, customer satisfaction is a real and immediate matter in cuisine. Every plate, every meal is another test of a kitchen’s ability to satisfy its customers. A chef is judged by whether plates come back empty to the kitchen, the food happily consumed—or not.
Albert shifts to a truly engaging topic: his and Vickie’s upcoming nuptials.
“So, it’s going to be a thoroughly traditional wedding,” Albert starts. “Traditional pagan, that is,” he says, laughing. “You know, in the country, out in a field, goats, that sort of thing.” Amy and I laugh, until we realize he’s not kidding.
“We decided to forgo getting naked to consummate the marriage right in front of the guests, though,” he explains. “We’re supposed to sacrifice something, but we think putting a pig on a spit should do.”
My mobile phone bleats. “So, uhm, James is here, and I guess that he and Amy had a big fight.” It’s Mike. I get up and walk around the corner.
“Oh, yeah, I know. Amy is here with us, I’ll explain later,” I tell him.
Cautiously, we plot. He’ll take James to the florist downstairs now and urge him to make up. “Tomorrow’s Valentine’s Day, after all,” he says.
We hop a cab back to our apartment on rue de Richelieu. As we arrive, James approaches Amy at the door with a single white rose and gently enfolds her in a hug. They whisper to each other and exchange a couple tender kisses.
Although James and Amy reach a truce that night, the residue from the fight lingers. The next night, the four of us end Valentine’s Day over a late candlelit dinner in a stone-covered basement restaurant not far from the Comédie Française. We laugh and talk, but underneath the cheerfulness there’s an undercurrent of uncertainty.
There comes a time when every couple knows they’re a couple. In our case, it occurs when our visitors almost become uncoupled. As we stand in the February rain to watch James and Amy leave in a cab, I wonder if it will be the last time we see them together.
The week makes me appreciate that love is a fragile thing. It can be as precarious as those steps on the Sacré Coeur or as unpredictable as the eggs in a cheese soufflé. And in love, there are no handrails or any safe recipes to keep your heart from falling.
Soufflé au Chocolat
CHOCOLATE SOUFFLÉ
Serves six
Like love, soufflés can be tricky. This recipe is adapted with permission from the 1999 book Le Cordon Bleu at Home. I’ve added some orange liqueur in honor of André Cointreau, who owns Le Cordon Bleu. Soufflés go more quickly made with two people, especially if whisking the egg whites by hand. Mike and I sometimes make this recipe together.
CHOCOLATE PASTRY CREAM
4 ounces (100 g) semisweet chocolate, chopped
2 cups (500 ml) milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 egg yolks
½ cup (100 g) sugar
7 tablespoons all-purpose flour
6 egg whites
1½ tablespoons orange liqueur, such as Cointreau (optional)
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting
Unsalted butter, softened, and sugar for soufflé mold
Preheat oven to 425°F/250°C. Brush a six-cup soufflé mold with softened butter and carefully coat with sugar; tap out the excess. Refrigerate until needed.
Prepare the chocolate pastry cream: Bring one to two inches of water to a simmer in a saucepan. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl and set it over the pan of hot water. Let stand, without stirring, until it melts. While the chocolate softens, heat the milk and vanilla in a heavy-bottomed saucepan and bring to a boil. Combine the egg yolks and sugar in a heatproof bowl and beat until thick and pale yellow. Whisk in the flour. Then whisk a couple tablespoons of the hot milk and a bit of the egg-yolk mixture into the pastry cream. This will ‘temper‘ both, bringing them closer to the same temperature. Whisk the rest of the milk into the bowl with the yolks. Pour the yolk-and-milk mixture back into the saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium heat and then simmer until thick. Stir constantly—the cream burns easily. Whisk the melted chocolate into the hot pastry cream. Remove from heat, but keep warm.
Beat the egg whites with a whisk or electric mixer until stiff peaks form. Stir one third of them into the warm chocolate cream to lighten it, and then gently fold in the remainder with a spatula. Remove the soufflé dish from the refrigerator. Pour batter into the prepared soufflé mold and bake for fifteen minutes. Reduce the heat to 375°F/190°C and bake until the soufflé is puffed and firm to the touch, about ten to fifteen minutes longer. The soufflé is ready when it has risen yet still jiggles when moved from side to side.
Punch a hole in the center and pour in the Cointreau. Sift confectioners’ sugar over the top and serve at once.