CHAPTER 19
BON TRAVAIL
LESSON HIGHLIGHTS: PIGS’ TROTTERS, PUFF-PASTRY WITH TUNA, AND SHOPPING FOR WEDDING RINGS IN PARIS
Like many women, I started thinking about my wedding when I was a little girl playing with my friend’s Beautiful Bride Barbies. As a thirty-six-year-old bride-to-be, I’ve had a lot of time to think about it.
On an impulse while walking in place Vendôme, Mike and I go into Cartier to try on rings. Inside, we immediately know we’re out of our depth. My hands are ragged from cuts and burns, my nails heavy with the residue of chipped pink polish.
“I’m in cooking school . . . .” I start to explain to the well-coiffed, perfumed saleswoman. Just then, my elbow tips my purse, splaying the contents onto the Persian rug. Pens, tampons, receipts, a vegetable peeler, and a fortune in coins fly out. I drop to my hands and knees. “Oh, I’m so sorry, really . . . .” As I sit back on the silk-covered wing-backed chair, I say, “I can’t believe I’ve done this in Cartier.”
The coiffed woman looks like she’s just been hit with a bucket of icewater. “This isn’t Cartier,” she sniffs in reply. “They’re next door.”
We’re feeling the time crunch. We don’t have rings, and with only two months to our wedding I have no time to order a dress. I see a sign for a Wedding Dress Expo in the Twentieth arrondissement, so I spend forty-five minutes on the Métro getting there. The “Expo” is a run-down wedding-dress shop. But what the hell, maybe they sell off the rack.
“Vous pouvez en essayer quatre à la fois seulement,” a severe-looking woman says, standing protectively in front of a rack of dresses.
I’m too flustered to know how to respond.
“Pourquoi?” Why can I try on only four dresses? Does she think I’m a crazy American tourist who flits around unfashionable Paris neighborhoods trying on wedding dresses for fun?
She simply crosses her arms. “Quatre.” It’s four or nothing. My French isn’t good enough to argue. I select four, while madame fusses over another customer—a French woman on whom she has imposed no limit. But I overhear their conversation and realize it’s all pointless. She tells her belle cliente that none of the dresses is available for purchase; each must be made to order.
These are far from the worst issues.
The Fourth of July has become a big holiday on Anna Maria Island. Locals swarm to the beach in droves to shoot off illegal fireworks and to watch offshore boat races. When we try to find a hotel to put up our fifty or so expected guests, we find that everything is booked. Mike spends hours on the phone scrounging up a few rooms here, a couple of rooms there. We’re lucky, though, to secure the castle house for two weeks. Mike comes up with an idea. He’ll invite his best friend’s family to stay with us there. After all, they are the reason we chose this date.
We have our first big fight.
“There’s only ONE real bathroom in that house!” I yell at him. “Can’t you understand, I don’t want to share a bathroom with seven people on my wedding day?!”
“You’re overreacting, Kat. There are two bathrooms,” Mike says.
“The whole point of renting the castle house was to spend our wedding night there! So you’re fine having three kids in the room next to ours watching late-night TV while we consummate our marriage?”
It escalates. I complain about everything to him, not the least that I feel rushed to the altar, resulting in chaos. I turn into Bridezilla.
“We have NO PLACE to have the reception! We have NO PLACE to have a rehearsal dinner. I have NO DRESS! We have NO RINGS! We’re sending out invitations that neither of us have EVEN SEEN!”
I run into the bedroom, slamming the door behind me. I hear something break.
I sheepishly walk out into the living room. We search for what’s broken, both of us thinking of Arturo and our small fortune in security deposit. The argument is forgotten.
I am blaming the kindest man I know for trying to be thoughtful of his best friend. I am blaming him, too, for things that are not his fault.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and I mean it. We see what’s broken: a souvenir ashtray my sister forgot to pack to take home. We breathe a sigh of relief.
The Saturday after the buffet, I review the remaining ten lessons for Intermediate Cuisine. Among them is another featuring puff pastry. I head down to rue Montorgueil and pack my collapsible shopping cart with two heavy bags of flour, dry butter, and fresh yeast. Mike lugs them up the stairs to our flat. For the next three days, I make no less than six batches of puff pastry. By the fourth batch, it’s light, airy, and flaky. I work slowly and methodically, remembering that you cannot rush puff pastry. You must show it respect, like a person you admire. Showing remarkable restraint, I eat none of it, so that I can fit into a wedding dress, if I ever find one.
Back in school, I hear that the Gray Chef scolded the students who didn’t help set up for the buffet. Like me, they felt slighted that they weren’t asked to cook. So they skipped it altogether. But L.P. saw the whole thing differently.
“It was a test,” she says, and one that only I passed. “Wait and see.”
Today, we’re studying Auvergne, the coldest region in France, says the Gray Chef, with the oldest mountains in Europe. Those mountains were once active volcanoes, and as a result this is an area of high yet especially fertile plateaus loaded with volcanic soil. The hearty people of the Auvergne eat a whole lot of pork and stick-to-the-ribs food.
Chef demonstrates pigs’ trotters glazed with foie gras on toast. Pigs’ trotters are exactly what they sound like. They aren’t bad if you can get over the idea, and find the flavor of ham hocks studded with meaty gelatin appealing. In our practical, we make cabbage stuffed with veal, pork, and bread-crumb panade that’s then braised in veal stock studded with slab bacon. We also start a batch of puff pastry.
The next day, we study Côte d’Azur, the southern, beachy edge of Provence, one of the warmest places in France and famous for its intense Mediterranean influences. Chef demonstrates galette feuilletée au thon mariné, a puff pastry topped with marinated tuna. Although not an especially complicated dish, the recipe calls for precision cuts. The tuna must be sliced to a specific thickness, then marinated and broiled to an exact degree. The whole thing is assembled like a pizza—glistening green, black, and red vegetables are slathered on the pastry, the tuna set gently on top. A garlic-basil dressing is drizzled across to finish.
The Gray Chef prowls the kitchen during the practical. He used to ignore me. This day, he offers a friendly “Ça va, ma petite amie?” midway through class.
“Bien, Chef, et vous?” I say.
He nods and inspects my vegetable cuts. “Bon travail.”
Wait, the Gray Chef said I was doing “good work”? Huh.
I finish my pastry. Before I begin, I pay attention to my hands. They feel warm. I wash them in cold water to cool them down and then dry them carefully. I’ve learned to make this pastry by touch. Is it getting too warm? Is it sticking to the counter? Has the butter been absorbed enough? After the final turn, it should feel velvety. This time, it does. I roll it out to an almost perfect rectangle and place it on a piece of parchment atop a heavy baking plaque. To keep it from rising too much, I top it with a cooling rack for the first fifteen minutes. In the end, the pastry’s light, airy, and golden.
I slice a square and work quickly to top it with the vegetables, the still-warm tuna slices, and the dressing. My plate is warm. I put an olive and a cross of tomatoes on the four sides with the tiniest drizzle of sauce. I take it to the Gray Chef.
Without comment, he cuts off a small bite of the pastry with a spoon. He tastes the vegetables and the tuna and the dressing, examining each carefully.
“Meeze Fleen,” he says, putting down his small spoon with a flourish, “excellent, non, c’est parfait.” It’s perfect. He smiles at me and first shakes my hand, then on second thought throws his arm around my shoulders. He calls over Chef Savard, who is preparing for a demonstration next door. “Regardez cette assiette.”
Chef Savard looks at my plate and smiles. “Chef Gaillard kept saying he knew you had it in you,” he says. “He just wanted you to find it yourself.”
Is there anything more satisfying than pleasing your hardest critic? I can’t think of it. I feel like crying again in this kitchen, but for wildly different reasons than before.
That night, I look online for a wedding dress, sifting through dozens until I spot a simple A-line dress with a detachable train. I show it to Mike. At once he says, “That’s it.” The dress will be shipped to my mother’s house a week before I arrive. If I don’t like it, the seller will overnight another one.
One thing down, and seemingly a hundred other details to fix. But damn it, if I can master puff pastry, we can plan a wedding in another country in seven weeks.
Galette Feuilletée à la Ceviche de Thon
PUFF-PASTRY ‘CAKE‘ WITH TUNA CEVICHE
Eight to ten appetizer servings
This is not a cake but rather a flat pastry smothered with the flavorful Provençal tomato spread from chapter 13, then topped with the tuna ceviche, sort of like an elegant, savory pizza. If you feel compelled to make your own puff pastry, consider using Julia Child’s recipe from Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volume II. At school, we broiled the tuna in the oven. Here, it’s ‘cooked‘ in lemon and lime juice à la ceviche. If desired, forgo the puff pastry and serve on toasted baguette slices. Directions for concassé—peeled, seeded, and finely chopped tomatoes—can be found in ‘Extra Recipes‘ at the back of the book. I serve this as a plated appetizer with a brut sparkling wine or a hearty Chablis.
CEVICHE
1 pound (500 g) ahi tuna, cut into small cubes
½ medium red onion, finely diced
2 medium tomatoes, concassé (1 cup)
1 or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 teaspoons coarse sea salt
Ground pepper, to taste
Tabasco, cayenne, or red pepper flakes to taste
Pinch of ground oregano
1 cup (30 g) fresh chopped basil
½ cup (125 ml) fresh squeezed lime juice
½ cup (125 ml) fresh squeezed lemon juice
1 sheet prepared puff pastry
1 recipe Provençal tomato spread (see page 133)
In a nonreactive casserole dish, preferably glass, or in a gallon-sized zipbag, combine the tuna, onion, tomatoes, garlic, salt, pepper, Tabasco, oregano, and ¾ cup of chopped basil. Cover with lime and lemon juice. Let sit covered in the refrigerator for an hour, and then stir to ensure all the fish comes into contact with the marinade. Let rest for about six hours. Fish should appear white and cooked.
When ready to prepare, preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C. Put the ceviche mix into a colander over a bowl, then return to the fridge for at least twenty minutes or the time it takes to bake the pastry. Roll out the puff pastry on a pastry sheet. Bake for about thirty minutes or until golden. When done, flatten slightly with a cooling rack, if available. Let cool slightly.
Spoon the Provençal tomato spread over the puff pastry, as on a pizza. Discard drained liquid from ceviche. Layer the tuna on top of the pastry. Add the remaining basil on top along with a few turns of fresh pepper on top.