White Truffles in Winter (16 page)

When he came to a grandchild's glass, “Sabine, we'll need water for the children. Half wine and half water always,” he said and winked at the round-faced child.

Sabine was surprised to find Delphine still in the kitchen.

“Take me in.”

“Madame?”

“Sabine. Please.”

Sabine rolled the woman into the dining room and everyone stopped talking. Escoffier put the carafe on the table. Delphine's voice was nearly a whisper.

“He was the Emperor,” she said. “There was nothing you could do.”

“He may have been the Emperor but I was Escoffier.”

The air itself seemed to become dead weight. They all looked at their plates, their hands, their feet. Anywhere but at Madame and Monsieur.

“Old man, you are such trouble.”

“And you are unbearably difficult to love: a trial that would tempt Job.”

And then Escoffier kissed his wife as a young man would, all passion and promise. He kissed her until the gaggle of grandchildren, great-grandchildren, grandnieces and grandnephews began to squirm again, then giggle.

“And you, the great Escoffier, cannot put that on a plate?”

“That is the core of the issue.”

And so he kissed her again. And the children laughed out loud.

“I miss Daniel so very much,” she whispered in his ear.

“Soon,” he said.

“Soon,” she said.

L
ATER THAT AFTERNOON, ESCOFFIER REMOVED THE COPY OF
le Guide Culinaire
from the kitchen and replaced it with
Ma Cuisine.

“It is for housewives.”

“Perhaps you should hire one.”

“Try, Sabine. Try. That is all I ask. Memorize the rules and the rest will come naturally. The
sauciers
are the enlightened chemists of the kitchen and at the foundation of all great sauces is stock. Begin with stock. Stock ennobles the ordinary sauté. It adds amazing depth to any stew. Make stock and then we will create magic.”

Sabine did not make stock. Nor did she even open the book. Supper that evening was simple. With the large mortar and pestle, Sabine mashed handfuls of almonds together with anchovy fillets, garlic and fennel until it became a paste. She served it as a spread with warm crusty bread and fried ravioli made with goat cheese. There were bâtons of raw vegetables and tomatoes broiled with fresh herbs. While she had other cheese to bring the meal to a proper end, she also made a milk gratin with cognac topped with warm caramel and ripe pears that she had “borrowed” from the neighbor's tree.

It was well received by all except Escoffier.

“This is not from
Ma Cuisine
.”

“But it is what a housewife would make.”

He opened the book to page twenty. “Read. Then cook.” When Sabine delivered his nightcap at
2
a.m., he seemed more tired than usual.

“How is the stock? I could not smell it.”

“It is complicated.”

“It is simple. First make the white stock and then use it to make the veal. The carrots, and bacon, combine to create a taste on the palate that makes the diner think ‘veal' because together these elements bring out what is the best in the meat. It is pure.”

“It is soup.”

“It is the foundation of civilization.”

“It is a vehicle for noodles.”

“Read the book, Sabine.”

And so she did.

While her favorite rule was, “Monotony jades the appetite,” that night she'd fallen asleep with the book in her hand dreaming of the line “One must not forget that good sound cooking, even the very simplest, makes a contented home.”

The next morning she awoke wanting a cigarette and a sailor. Unfortunately, neither was readily available and Escoffier was waiting for her in the kitchen determined that she'd make the veal stock. His way. Page twenty. Simple.

It wasn't even sunrise.

“White stock first—ten pounds of veal, shins and shoulder, carrots, cloves. Five hours. Then use that stock as the base and add more veal, six to eight pounds, bacon, onions and all the rest. Three more hours.”

“Eight hours for soup?”

“Stock.”

“Stock is soup.”

“Stock is revolution.”

“And if you put noodles in revolution, it is soup.”

Escoffier rubbed his forehead. Closed his eyes. “What have you learned from
Ma Cuisine
?”

“That you have no idea what the word
simple
means.”

She poured him a glass of lemonade. “This was not in
Ma Cuisine
, either. But it is very good.” Strawberry honey, fat lemons and just a touch of lavender—he drank it all. It was, indeed, very good.

“You are not hopeless, obviously. But you cannot get discouraged. Music is always difficult for one who has never been taught how to play an instrument.”

“Or the tone deaf.”

“Madame made the same claim when we met. Perhaps you need a teacher.”

“Perhaps.”

She brought him a small jam tart that she'd made for the children. “You need to eat more.”

He took a bite. “This shows promise.”

“I can cook. I am not you, however.”

“The geese. Bobo at the Grand will boil them. Do not forget.”

She promptly forgot.

And so later that morning, Sabine stood in the pantry with
Ma Cuisine
in hand, hoping for inspiration. She had no idea how to make stock without veal or the money to buy veal. In the pantry, there were the usual staples—flours, salt, sugar, spices, jellies, chutneys and condiments of all kinds. There was golden quince paste to be spread on fresh bread. Crocks filled with persimmons cured in brown sugar and dark rum. Dozens of paraffin-sealed jars of watermelon jam made from the pale-skinned
meraviho.
There were still champagne bottles filled with tomato sauce, of course, which the children would still not eat. But there was not much else. Only two eggs remained after she'd made the milk gratin. Butter.
Crème fraîche
. There was some goat's milk yogurt that could be made into cheese again, as she had done for the ravioli, and some leftover chicken, roasted, but just a small amount.

And the geese, of course, the geese, which were salted and stuffed into crocks ready to be simmered in duck fat by Bobo and preserved for a later time.

But none of it would be enough to make a day's worth of proper meals for the house. And none of it would make veal stock. And she was out of cigarettes again. A trip into town was in order.

Someone must want to give Papa a side of veal.

Outside the kitchen window, Sabine could see that the swans had returned, hissing, and the rabbits resumed their insistent chewing of the remaining greens. The red oak, chicory and
roquette
were all bitten down to the quick.

Swan stock. Rabbit stock.
Sabine thumbed through the pages of
Ma Cuisine
without luck.
If only there were a stock made of grass.

“Stock is everything in cooking, at least in French cooking,” Escoffier wrote. “Without it, nothing can be done. If one's stock is good, what remains of the work is easy; if, on the other hand, it is bad or mediocre, it is quite hopeless to expect anything approaching a satisfactory result. The cook mindful of success, therefore, will naturally direct his attention to the faultless preparation of his stock, and, in order to achieve this result, he will find it necessary not merely to make use of the freshest and finest products, but also to exercise the most scrupulous care in their preparation, for, in cooking, care is half the battle.”

“Care?” Sabine mumbled. “If I have to care about cooking then we shall all starve to death, Monsieur Escoffier.” She continued on, skimming the pages.

“Meats are more nourishing than vegetables, but to make the best of both of them they should be eaten together.”

“A good dinner and a fine dinner should preferably end with fruit . . . ”

“Coffee, carefully prepared and taken some time after the meal, in the drawing room, helps the digestion.”

The cookbook was no help at all and so Sabine decided to take the cured geese to the Grand to be simmered instead.
To Bobo
—she laughed at the thought of his name.
He may be handsome.
And so she dressed for the occasion, replaced her white cotton apron and black uniform with a lace cotton dress that was soft as silk and the color of ripe blackberries. And of course, her red dancing shoes.

The hotel was unquestionably grand. So grand that a woman carrying two large baskets bearing salted geese could not walk into the elegant lobby and simply ask the bellboy where the kitchen was—even if she were wearing red dancing shoes—which she was, in addition to a splash of vanilla extract behind each ear and in the crooks of her arms.

And so, once she saw the seemingly endless rows of Rolls Royces idling, it was clear to Sabine that she had not thought of the logistics of the situation when she walked down the hill. Nor had she thought of the time. It was nearly noon.

There must be a delivery entrance.

She walked around the hotel's grounds carrying the geese, her hands growing numb with the weight of them, until she found an unmarked door, which luckily was open. The stairs led into the basement where the kitchen was. When she pushed her way in past the waiters it was if she'd walked into Hell itself.

The chefs were in the middle of luncheon service. The room was as hot as an oven. The ventilation had obviously been turned off to keep the finished plates warm until they could be served. The windows and doors were closed tight. Woodsmoke from the ovens bellowed. It was so thick she could hardly see. The air felt toxic. Coal fires seared the steaks and then flamed two, three feet high.

The smell of the kitchen was intense—the food, yes, but also sweat, the pungent notes of garlic, rosemary and then that sweet sticky smell of fresh blood from the fish still flapping when slapped on the table and sliced open without a second thought.

It was chaos but the
brigade de cuisine
pushed on. Plates were passed from one station to the other. Everyone was red-faced and sweating, shouting and running from place to place, in and out of this fog of soot and cinders. There were fifty or sixty men. Maybe less. Maybe more. Some were speaking French, but there were other languages, too.

Sabine could hardly breathe.
Forty years. How can they even live that long in a place like this?

“Who's the doll?” someone yelled and the entire room came to a halt.

There were a few rude comments made in assorted languages; a handful of wolf whistles. And then, in the center of the smoke, she heard a voice. “Jean Paul, get Papa's geese from the girl. Everyone else back to work.”

She assumed the voice belonged to Bobo but he never stepped forward. The wearing of the red shoes had gone to waste. She checked her watch.
Back to work,
she thought. Supper would have to be started soon. And so she left. Sabine slowly made her way back up the hill, leaning one way and then the other—the shoes were unmerciful—wondering what a man named Bobo would be like.

When Sabine returned from the Grand, she discovered that Escoffier had disappeared. She knocked on his door and received no answer. The bed was neatly made, as if he hadn't slept in it.

If his son Paul was worried, it was difficult to tell. He and the rest of the family were getting ready to go back to Paris on the early evening train. Everyone was leaving. The grandchildren were squirming. The suitcases were packed. The train would be leaving soon. Paul checked his watch.

“Does my mother know?”

“Non.”

“He could be at church.”

Mass had been over for hours. No one remembered him at breakfast. Or lunch. In fact, no one could remember the last time they had seen Escoffier but they didn't mention that to Sabine. She was the help after all.

“Did you pack our supper?” Paul asked.

She had indeed. For the trip, Sabine put
Ma Cuisine
aside and filled the food hampers with luck and industry. She made little green pies of wild leeks that she'd found growing alongside the road on the way back from the hotel. A Joséphine salad was thrown together using leftovers and bits from the garden and pantry—chicken from the night before, curry powder, preserved lemons, and dried coconut. And for something sweet, she made curd tarts of lavender honey and lemon jam.

They were the recipes of her
grand-mère
, not of Escoffier. And as she made them they felt like a gift—not for the children and the interchangeable grandchildren and great-grandchildren—but for herself. She also placed a small cask of wine in the hamper, some soft cheese that she had made from goat's milk, and several bottles of lemonade.

When she delivered the food to Paul he thanked her warmly, which surprised Sabine. “This is quite lovely,” he said. “It all looks very good.”

“What should I do if Monsieur does not return?” she asked.

“He will,” Paul said, but didn't sound convinced. “He may have gone to Paris ahead of us. He knew we were leaving. Last time he stayed at Hôtel Garnier on the rue de l'Isly. We will check there when we arrive.”

“Has anyone looked at the casino? He could be at a table,” Germaine said.

Paul put on his overcoat. “Law is still law. Citizens still cannot gamble and he would not be there just to watch. It would make his hands itch.”

“Maybe a kitchen somewhere. He has always been quite fond of that chef from the Grand. The one with the stupid name.”

“Bobo?”

Sabine considered this a moment. Escoffier had indeed reminded her about the geese.

“If Monsieur Escoffier does not return in an hour,” she said, “I will call the police and tell them to check the hotel.”

“Check yourself. If you call the police, they will want to speak to Mother and that will upset her. She doesn't know Papa is gone.”

Paul looked at his watch again. “The train. We must leave.”

And then the children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren ran up the stairs to Delphine's room to say goodbye. Sabine retreated to the kitchen, ran up the back staircase and slipped unnoticed into Escoffier's room. She could hear the daughter's voice.