Learning Curves 1 - French Cooking 101 (2 page)

Ariane continued, “…so for a Sunday lunch when the entire family gets together, the meal comprises a starter ‘l’entrée’—that’s what we call a ‘faux ami.’ You know the word ‘l’entrée,’ but it does not have the same meaning in your language. Then a ‘plat principal,’ which is what Americans call ‘entrée’, followed by a salad and cheese, often served at the same time, and then ‘le dessert.’”
 

Clearly oblivious to George’s distraction Ariane addressed him directly, bringing him back to earth. “George, to help with your research, I have prepared books about 17th century cooking that I can lend to you for a while. You’ll see that during that period, those who did not starve had amazingly diverse meals.”

“Thank you, Ariane,” he managed to mumble. He felt like a complete idiot, as though he was back at school and letting his mind wander.
 

“Now let’s get cooking,” Ariane said. “We’re going for a light evening meal. We’ll start with a classic vegetable soup, continue with a ‘poisson en papillotte,’ and end with a ‘tarte fine aux pommes.’ Tonight will be our shortest session. We’ll have three teams of two: Jena and Thomas, George and Mary, and Peter and Charles.”

Mary looked at George and smiled. He felt like the luckiest guy on earth. He was going to say something, but she silenced him by touching his arm and directing him with a movement of her chin to listen to Ariane’s instructions. Just the pressure of her hand on his arm, and he was rock solid like…a regular rolling pin! Boy, concentrating would be difficult.

Ariane said, “All you need is in the bag in the sink in front of you. The recipes are in your handbook. The first thing you need to do is look at the time you need to cook or bake everything. You need to organize your work and decide what you will start first. The soup takes the most time since you have to peel the vegetables, boil the water, and then cook it. The pie is second, but you’ll want it hot when you serve it. You’ve got to get it ready but wait to throw it in the oven because it’s a fast bake.
 

“The ‘papillotte’ is quite quick but only if the oven is already warm. So first, go turn on the oven to two fifty. Yes, right, sorry… Everything is metrics here. But before you do anything else, there is one thing you must do first. Does anyone know what I’m talking about? No? Well it’s a basic hygiene rule. Wash your hands.”

❦

For the first half hour, Ariane supervised each team. She told Mary she was leaving George in her capable hands since it was clear Mary knew what she was doing. George was delighted. Working with Mary, uninterrupted by Ariane, was a pleasure. He had a private tutor and enjoyed every second of their time together.
 

“You see,” Mary explained, “the length of the cooking varies according to the size of the vegetable. The more you slice and chop, the quicker it will cook. So your cooking depends on how much time you have and what type of soup you want. If you’re going to purée your vegetables once they’re cooked, then you just chop them into large pieces. If you don’t want something a little more sophisticated, then you need to cut all of the vegetables in pieces that are the same size and put them in the water in the right order to get them all at the proper consistency at the same time.”

“You seem to know everything about cooking. Why are you taking this class? It’s not advanced enough for you,” asked George.

“You’re absolutely right,” answered Mary with a wink, “but this is perfect for my brother. He needs basic training. He’s been a recluse—eating frozen food and take out—since his wife passed away a year ago.” Getting closer to George, she whispered, “Look at him now. Two minutes of Ariane’s attention, and he’s a regular peacock on parade.” She chuckled. “She’s just what the doctor ordered to get Peter back in the saddle, so to speak.”

“How long are you guys in Paris for?”

“Ten days. We’re leaving Monday night. Why?”

“Well that’s short, and this is only a weekend seminar. They’ll barely have time to get to know each other.”
 

“Oh, snap out of it, George. This is the 21st
century, not the Middle Ages. People don’t court for months before they declare their intentions. That is, if that’s what they really did then. I have strong doubts about that. Anyway, today, you see someone you like, and you go for it. Sometimes you get lucky, sometimes you don’t. In that case, you move on and try again ’til you get it right.”

“Wow, let me process this. I seem to have been living in my history books for too long,” said George, leaning closer to Mary while slicing the last onion. “Let’s say I’m interested in you. I should find a way to let you know—”

“Like keeping almost constant eye contact at the risk of chopping off your fingers?”

“That would be one way, I guess.” George cautiously brought his eyes back to his knife.

 
“Or then again, you could ‘accidentally’ lean against me when you want to get a closer look at what I’m doing.”

“Oh, and then it would be your turn? You would need to find a way to let me know you’re interested as well by…” George paused his chopping and looked at Mary, his eyebrows raised.

“Let me see… I could not move away when you lean against me, or I could start by initiating physical contact when I talk to you.” Mary put one hand on his arm while leaning over to throw the onions in the pot. She brushed his shoulder with her breasts as she moved back.

All of him stood at full attention again. Her eyes were cast down. Had she noticed?

“Also, I could tease you or whisper things in your ears.”

“Fine. What would be next?”

“You would need to find a way for us to be alone. That’s the tricky part since you can’t possibly invite me for lunch or dinner. We’re already scheduled for our upcoming meals.”
 

“So I would need to invite you out for an after-dinner stroll, possibly along the river banks of the Seine, and pray for the weather to hold.”

“See? You’re catching on. That sounds like a good plan—”

“What’s a good plan?” Ariane walked up to them.

“Now that we’ve thrown all the diced vegetables in the boiling water, the plan is to get started on the pie,” answered Mary without hesitation. “Do you think it’s okay if we prepare the crust and slice the apples to get them ready for baking and then turn to the fish?”

“Absolutely. I guess you don’t need me for now. I’ll go back to helping the two love birds.”

“So where were we?” asked George.

“We were about to clean up the vegetable peels,” Mary said, bumping him with her hip. She slid the peels into the sink.

“What are you doing?” George asked.

“Disposing of the peels, but I can’t seem to find the garbage disposal switch.”

“Because there won’t be one.”

“Why not?”

“No one has them in this country.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. See, I can teach you something too. People here just throw things in garbage bags.” George bumped her in turn with his hip, and she took the peels out of the sink.
 

She laughed. “How long have you been in Paris?”

“For a few months, almost a year. I’m starting to know the town quite well. Maybe I could take you around for a walk after tonight’s class.”

“What a lovely idea. It’s so thoughtful of you. I would love to,” answered Mary with a satisfied smile.

George wondered if she was always so clear about what she wanted. Come to think of it, he wouldn’t mind that! Better to know what he was doing than go pecking in the dark… Well, that was obviously a figure of speech. He wasn’t into drawing the curtains and turning off all the lights. Curiously, he thought she would be okay with some light, too.

❦

PETER WAS HAVING A GREAT time. Who would have thought peeling and chopping vegetables could be fun?
 
Of course, Charles’s wicked sense of humor helped. But what made the experience truly enjoyable was Ariane. Somehow, one look at her had been enough to crack open the door of the cage he had locked himself in when his wife died. Meeting her was a turning point. He wondered if finding Ariane was sheer luck or if Mary—who had been trying to get him out of his shell for a while—had seen pictures of Ariane before she booked the class. That was ridiculous. How could she have known he would fall for Ariane? She wasn’t like Kristina at all.

Nevertheless, the woman was gorgeous. She had no angles, just curves—delicious-looking curves. Her face was round, her eyes were almond shaped, and the arches of her lips were deliciously curvy. She smelled like vanilla or maybe cotton candy. Everything about her was sweet. Even when she scolded him for not following the instructions—which he was starting to do on purpose to make her pay more attention to him—her voice was soft and melodious. The cherry on the top of the delicious creature was her French accent.

“Voilà, Peeeter, it’s puuurfect zat way,” she said, sliding between Charles and him to check how they were doing. She leaned over to help him fold the cooking paper in which they were wrapping the lemongrass-sprinkled fish filet on a bed of lime. “Zis way it will not dry. You want it to be able to raiz its temperature but to remain very moist and spicy.”

Hell, yes! Hot, moist, and spicy. He couldn’t have said it better himself.
 

Peter looked at her and smiled as she opened the door of the preheated oven. She told him to put the fish on the center of the middle rack.
 
He was usually the bossy one in relationships, but around the kitchen, he would let her be in control…a little. If things between them moved in the proper direction, he would set things straight and lay out his rules for play. Peter closed the oven door and watched Ariane walk toward Jena and Thomas.
 

“Hurry, hurry, Peeter,” said Charles, imitating Ariane’s accent. “The fish will be cooked in a few minutes, and you have not set up your apple slices on the dough.”

Peter laughed. “Man, you’re taking this too seriously. It’s not open heart surgery—it’s just dinner.”

“Yes, but as long as we’re doing it, we should try to do it right. Don’t you think?” asked Charles.
 

“You’re damn right about that. When a man sets out to do something, he’s gotta do it right,” Peter answered, still staring at Ariane’s back.
 

“For some strange reason, I think you just sidetracked this conversation.”

“Would you get out of my mind?” Peter feigned anger. “There’s not enough room for two, and anyway, you wouldn’t enjoy the film I’m playing in my head nearly as much as I do.”

“I’m sure you’re right about that. So while you watch your brain-made X-rated movie, I’ll set up your apple slices,” said Charles in mock contrition. “There must be something in the air tonight, and I’m unfortunately the only one immune.”

“What do you mean?” George noticed a bit of sadness in Charles’s voice.

“Well, there’s the newlyweds. They can’t keep their hands off each other. Every five minutes, he stands behind her and, under the pretense of watching what she’s doing, he presses so hard against her I don’t think there’s room to slide a piece of cigarette paper between them. Come to think of it, I think they’re the source of the pheromone overload in the room. They contaminated your sister and ‘The Thing.’ Those two are working very, very closely… Much more physical proximity than necessary,” observed Charles.

“Now that you mention it, he does look a bit like Michael Chiklis with a crew cut, and they do seem attached at the hip.”
 

“And then there’s you and Ariane. Every time she comes near you, your jeans become too tight. Don’t roll your eyes at me. You’re standing next to me. I can’t help noticing. Anyway, I’m surprised you haven’t found an excuse to whisk her away to another room to carry out whatever fantasies you’ve been having about her. But now it’s too late. Dinner will soon be ready!”

❦

They all removed their aprons and moved to the adjacent dining room. It was a rectangular room a third of the size of the workshop with a table that could seat about eight, possibly ten. The windows of one wall opened to the courtyard while the three other walls were decorated with a few paintings in the style of Arcimboldo. Perfectly fitting for a cooking school to have faces made out of food. In the corner opposite to the door to the workshop was a tiny spiral staircase. It led down, probably to the basement, and to the upper floor. Peter wondered if it could be his stairway to heaven. Did Ariane live upstairs?

They started with the vegetable soup they had pureed with a hand-stick blender. Charles made horrible jokes about what a horror movie producer would imagine doing with that instrument. The soup had been fine, nothing to write home about, until Ariane made them add a dash of spices and a couple of spoonfuls of crème fraîche, the wicked French cousin of the American sour cream.
 

“Amazing how a little fat changes everything,” Mary said when she tasted the soup after stirring in the cream.

“Yes, it does make everything more mellow,” Peter answered, looking in Ariane’s direction. She had freed her hair from her bun just before they sat down to eat. He loved the way her curls framed her face. She had also removed her apron. The top four buttons of her shirt had popped open, and the view was irresistible. He had an urge to bury his face in the visible valley to check if her skin was as soft as it seemed.
 

Feeling alive again was so strange, like waking up from a very long sleep. The fish was good, tender and flaky, but he couldn’t care less. He was devouring Ariane with his eyes, and she had noticed. He tried to read her thoughts. Initially, he had seen puzzlement on her face, as though she was surprised by his persistence. Since then, whenever her eyes met his, she blushed a little.
 

Yep, she had more than a casual interest too. His stare left no ambiguity about what he wanted. And the only thing he did was stare. Not his fault he had nothing to distract him during the meal. Peter was sitting between Jena and Mary. Jena only had eyes for Thomas and managed to eat the entire meal without letting go of her husband’s hand. Mary ignored Peter as well. She barely said two words to him, engrossed as she was in her conversation with George.