Insatiable (11 page)

Infidelity Soup with Turkey and Winter Vegetables

T
his will be even better the next day or the day after, so you can leave it in the fridge to comfort your mate if you’re feeling a little guilty about playing around out of town. If you don’t have a turkey on hand, use chicken bones or a ham bone, or even chicken stock.

Stock:

Carcass of a 10- to 12-lb. roasted turkey, broken into pieces

1 large yellow onion, sliced

3-4 celery ribs

1/2 tsp. dried thyme or 3-4 sprigs fresh thyme

1 bay leaf

1 tsp. whole black peppercorns

Soup:

1 package of 16-bean mix, soaked overnight in cold water to cover

2 cups reduced turkey stock

4 cups cubed winter vegetables: carrots, turnip, parsnip, sweet potatoes, and red onion

2 to 3 tbsp. chili powder, to taste

Salt, to taste

Freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 cups leftover turkey in largish bite-size cubes, preferably dark meat

Optional: 1 cup ribbons of kale, cabbage, or romaine lettuce

Optional: 1 cup cooked fusilli or penne

1 or 2 tbsp. freshly grated Parmesan and a drizzle of good olive oil per bowl of soup

To make the stock:

Put turkey carcass, sliced onion, celery, thyme, bay leaf, and peppercorns in a stockpot and add cold water to cover. Bring to a boil, skimming away and discarding any scum that floats to the top. Lower the heat and simmer uncovered for 60 minutes. Pour the stock through a fine strainer, discarding all the solids. Set aside 2 cups of this stock.

Return the remaining stock (you will have about 10 cups) to a 4-quart saucepan and boil uncovered until the stock is reduced to 2 cups (about 45 minutes).

To make the soup:

Cook the beans in a one-and-a-half-gallon stockpot or as instructed on package (after prescribed soaking), using 2 cups of stock to replace 2 cups of the water.

After 35 minutes, add the cubed winter vegetables and bring to a boil, then lower the heat and cover so the mix simmers. Add unreduced stock as necessary to maintain a rather thick texture of soup. Simmer for about 45 minutes.

When the beans and vegetables are just barely tender, season the soup with chili powder, salt, and pepper, to taste, add the cooked cubed turkey, and the optional kale, cabbage, or romaine lettuce. Stir occasionally so bottom doesn’t burn. Continue to cook until the greens are tender and the flavors have melded (about 15 minutes longer). Refrigerate if not serving immediately.

Fifteen minutes before serving, bring soup to a gentle boil. You may need to add additional stock or water to keep a semblance of soup texture. Stir to prevent burning. Add a handful of cooked fusilli or penne (if you wish) and simmer till soup is hot. Taste again for seasoning, adding more salt and freshly ground pepper according to your taste. Serve each portion topped with freshly grated Parmesan and a drizzle of good olive oil.

Serves 6 as a starter, 3 to 4 as a main course.

15

T
HE
W
OMAN
W
HO
G
AVE
M
E
F
RANCE ON A
P
LATE

I
HAD BEEN A PLEBE IN THE AVANT-GARDE OF FOOD-OBSESSED AMERICANS
that would eventually become an invasion, trekking across France in the late sixties and early seventies, gobbling, trading addresses and cuisinary gossip, stopping at Fauchon in Paris to stock up on exotic teas, fancy preserves, tins of candied chestnuts, and the inevitable gift for those left behind—wooden crates of exotically flavored mustards exactly like those that already cluttered the traveler’s fridge. We couldn’t help ourselves. Zabar’s had not yet gone global and SoHo was still forbiddingly industrial, with an invisible scattering of artists camping out in vast lofts, Dean & DeLuca not even a vision in fantasy. So it was worth whatever Fauchon charged to collect preserved prunes of Agen, Mirabelle jam, tins of duck and wild boar pâté, lavender, and herbs de Provence in clay crocks, shipped home in wooden crates, mostly to disappear in the shadows of kitchen cupboards, where just looking at the labels was fulfillment enough.

I was an outsider, an ingenue, a cartoon of an American hopelessly enamored with eating—the French seemed to find our obsession with their great restaurants endlessly amusing in its unabashed enthusiasm. And at home, people who didn’t commute regularly to France could not hope to comprehend our fervor. We were fiercely serious about our pleasure, and soon considered ourselves more knowledgeable than the seasoned toques who indulged us. Apprenticed to the range in adolescence, many chefs rarely got to eat or drink as we did. Any number of dedicated couples who explored the truffle circuit two or three times a year in the late sixties and early seventies took notes and graded dishes, sending copies to like-minded friends and, of course, to me. These enraptured souls did not call it spring and fall. They called it mushrooms and game. And they scolded chefs overstuffed with stardom for having lost their concentration. I still have the newsletter one couple mimeographed; it carried a copyright and a stern admonition that they and it not be quoted. This vigilante avant-garde noted the fumbles and divined the stars months ahead of poky old Michelin. And the ecstatic noise carried like jungle drums, a rattle of pots and pans igniting what would soon become a feeding frenzy.

Even after the fall of 1968, when I went professional at
New York,
I was just an American parvenu abroad. That was about to change.

In the spring of 1971, the name on every gourmand’s fois gras-stained lips was Michel Guérard. Little known and unbankable, Guérard had launched himself in a cramped low-rent spot in Asnières, a working-class suburb on a faraway edge of Paris. Quickly discovered by the French press, he soon found his twenty seats claimed months ahead by an international cognoscenti. I tried every tack I could think of to book a table at his tiny Pot au Feu, but in vain. I called weeks ahead from New York. No hope. The concierge at my modest hotel lacked clout, too. A foodie friend urged me to get in touch with a woman he’d met on his last Paris jaunt. “A great beauty, exquisitely dressed,” he said. “She drives a silver Rolls-Royce and she knows all the chefs. You two were born to be friends.”

I phoned Yanou Collart. She was a well-connected publicist for many causes, most of them, it seemed, edible, drinkable, or matinee-idolizable. “Can we meet?” I asked. “Can we have a lunch or a dinner at . . .” I hesitated, not wanting to be too obvious. “Le Pot au Feu?”

“When would you like to go?” she asked. “Tonight? Tomorrow?”

“But they say it’s fully booked six weeks ahead.”

“Tomorrow lunch, then,” she said. “I’ll pick you up at your hotel.”

Yanou Collart pulled up in her gleaming Rolls. She was Belgian, it seems, but looked very French to me, unabashedly braless and flashing sapphires and diamonds on various fingers. I could see the perfect cleavage in the deep V of what had to be a couture suit, fitted to skintight perfection. I got a distinct impression her gems were real. She was at ease in adorably fractured English, with an accent that made even her longest bawdy jokes wildly funny.

Yanou seemed to know everyone—movie stars, couturiers, famous writers, the lions of business—and in my honor, she was full of gossip about Paul (Bocuse,
naturellement
) and Roger (Vergé) in Mougins, about the amazing Jacques Manière at Au Pactole and why Michelin still gave three stars to La Pyramide long after Fernand Point’s death. She promised I would have no problem getting into the Tour d’Argent, one of four Michelin three-star restaurants in Paris that year (dinner cost from fourteen to twenty dollars, exclusive of drinks and service). She had only to phone the dapper owner, Claude Terrail, and I would have a window view of Notre Dame.

At Le Pot au Feu, Guérard’s woman, the
belle
blond Jacqueline, greeted Yanou like a long-lost sister, a movie star, the ambassador of global
publicite
she was, and Michel came out of the kitchen to kiss the air that kissed Yanou’s cheeks. Was she their official publicist or just a friend willing always to help a friend? Even when I got to know her well, it was not always easy to make the distinction. She was the most charming facilitator I’d ever met, as well as a clever publicity counselor to the gastronomic superstars. (“The best-connected person in France and all of Europe,” Pierre Salinger described her. “She is a magic wand who can launch a chef through promotion like a boxer, or a couturier or a film,”
Food Arts
would quote Paul Bocuse in awarding her its December 1993 Silver Spoon Award.)

The chef sought to gauge Yanou’s pleasure. Small, with a shock of dark hair, a quizzical smile, and a long pointed nose, Guérard looked like Pinocchio in a human phase. “Shall I just make you a dinner?”

The chef’s impromptu tasting? Of course. Yes. Yes. Yes. We both agreed.

We shared a bottle of red—Yanou drank only red, usually a significant Bordeaux, often with a name even I recognized. After the lofty Château Pétrus she favored, her everyday choice was a Ducru-Beaucaillou from a respectable year. Did she ever ask for a check? I don’t remember, and anyway, no chef in his right mind would present one. Since the French critics were by reputation mostly incurable freeloaders, it was a while before she would understand that certain American journalists had the endearing but rather imbecilic notion that free meals for critics were immoral.

The food emerging from Michel Guérard’s kitchen that day was unlike any other I’d ever tasted. His
merlan braisée après Fernand Point
was typically bold. Whiting, while definitely low-caste, was nothing I’d ever spotted on a menu in an ambitious
maison.
In homage to the great Fernand Point in Vienne, where many of the three-star chefs had prepped, Guérard’s firm wraith of whiting rode to the table on a bed of tomato, shallot, and mushroom bits—in a pool of its cooking liquid, reduced to an intense bouquet and then thickened by the whisking in of a ton of butter. Our uncontrollable whimpers of pleasure escalated with the first shock of a gossamer
mousseline de brochet
—nothing but pike beaten to a pulp with cream, so light that it seemed to float right off the plate, its free-form dive arrested only by nubbin of lobster in the Nantua sauce.

Fricassée de volaille au vinaigre
seemed daring, too. It was the first time I’d confronted what would eventually become a nouvelle cuisine cliché—the bird thrillingly moist, its sauce gaspingly tangy. I imagine even now I am tasting for the first time Michel’s riff on sweetbreads—batons of the delicate organ, tossed with sticks of truffle, foie gras, and ham, the nutty warmth of cream that filled my mouth. I’m not really sure why I loved it so much. This dish was cute, while the rest was astonishing.

Guérard had begun his kitchen career at the pastry station and won a rare Meilleur Ouvrier award in pâtisserie, so his desserts were remarkable. I remember square balloons of puff pastry more delicate than any I’d ever tasted—shards of buttery leaves filled with the unbearable lightness of crème chantilly cushioning a layering of pear, each slice beatified with a tinge of caramel. And the piercing sorbets, cassis that day, that not only revived the overwhelmed palate but cleared every corner of the brain, so that somehow it was possible to enjoy the coda of minitarts and chocolate truffles. As for me and this appealing woman, the harmony of our irrepressible cries was striking. I felt we could be the Supremes of the table.

I was never a hapless tourist in France again. From that moment on, I found myself adopted by Yanou Collart, mythic mover and shaker in her world. She was irrepressibly self-involved yet astonishingly generous. I was now a favored nation, a VIP—or as we say in France,
un grand fromage,
a big cheese—wherever I went on Yanou’s advice and her staff’s reservation. It was a delicate balancing act for me because, of course, it was no secret that Yanou was the chefs’ noisemaker—that’s what she did for a living and her client list grew over the years: restaurants, hotels, spas, films and theater, movie stars. Her inventive campaigns and a highly personal touch with demanding movie stars paid for the vast office/apartment on the rue François Premier, a floor or two below Alain Delon’s. She had everything I wanted—glamour, sapphires, closet space, couturier samples, a waistline that belied her appetite, tits that stayed up all by themselves, and a refrigerator with nothing inside but champagne, water, orchids, and boxes of chocolates. I never saw her with a special man, and I had my loving husband—I still thought—even though he seemed reluctant to tear himself away from work to sit by my side on these obligatory overseas tours of duty. But she was always with friends, fermenting delicious fun, and never seemed lonely.

It wasn’t possible to know if Lionel Poilâne, the master bread baker, and the proprietor of L’Ami Louis (the ultimate joint even today for food that is only about quality and season) and the sculptor Cesar (she wore his rectangle of smashed gold on a chain around her neck) were clients of Yanou or simply good pals or admired artists crucial to her matchmaking prowess. Did she represent Regine? Somehow, Yanou could always get a last-minute table. If a movie star wanted a table and a restaurant wanted a movie star, voilà. Call Yanou. She took care of a constellation of movie stars. (Jack Nicholson told
Food Arts
that in twenty years he’d “seen her move more people around better than the Chicago Bears.” Later, she would work for the pope and the Dalai Lama, but in those early days she was just creeping into our hearts, establishing her image as an adorable fixer.

I knew she needed me as much as I needed her. My reports from abroad in
New York
brought cuisinary ingenues clamoring for tables. So we both pretended we could keep it pure. Or at least I did, probably being a shade more naïve. And she became my guru, a confidante, the woman whose coaching and coddling were prepping me to be the knowing guide to
New York
’s affluent foodie readers. She claimed she always respected my need for anonymity, making my reservations in the
nom de fourchette
on my credit card. But who was kidding whom? I struggled to keep my critical faculties clicking while chefs pretending not to know my provenance and mission fussed and dispatched little extras from the kitchen.

Lists of what was new and hot, clients or not, were ready each time I arrived in Paris, printed in the pale brown ink of her typewriter ribbon, and her assistant stood by to demand a table in overbooked rooms at the prime dinner hour. Perhaps if the restaurant wasn’t a client, I might actually be anonymous, but even so, maître d’s tended to flutter and the chef’s welcoming giveaways,
amuse-gueles
(before the phrase was gentrified to
amuse-bouches
), tended to multiply. Faithful readers could organize their own truffle tours, carrying
New York
magazine clippings, ordering what I’d loved . . . poised to feel the earth move. Oh, it was heady stuff.

When visiting Paris solo, I often stayed at Yanou’s, with its soft, sink-into velvet sofas and piles of cushions, the Art Deco vases and floor lamps, her collection of pocket watches under glass, the mirrored consoles and the mirrored bath with hundreds of dollars’ worth of fancy soap piled in a giant seashell. I slept in a camp bed in the guest room, surrounded by dozens of photographs of Yanou, stylish Yanou, Yanou in hats, in Patrick Clark’s buttons the year of his couturier succès fou, in all the evolving hairdos of the decades. Yanou with her friends: Yanou and Clint, Yanou and Charles Aznavour, Yanou and Yves Montand. Yanou with Bocuse. With a dozen stars I recognized from French film, male and female. With Sean Connery, Jack Nicholson, Kirk Douglas and his wife. With James Coburn, Peter O’Toole, Michael Caine. Sometimes she is gazing at them in rapture. Sometimes the gaze is returned. I don’t mean to suggest for a moment that this might be a rogue’s gallery of romantic conquests. Not at all. I have no idea if Yanou slept with any of them. On this aspect of her past, she was uncharacteristically discreet. There was a mysterious someone, I knew, but we’d never met.