Hungry Woman in Paris (9 page)

Bassie and Janeira distributed the vegetables to everyone by putting them in metal bowls. Two people across from each other
were to share the one bowl with all the ingredients. They left the pot of chicken stock by the sink closest to the elevator,
which would be used to bring the trays of ingredients from the basement to the many floors at the school.

I grabbed a carrot and I peeled. I grabbed some celery and I peeled. I looked across to see what the Korean woman was doing.
She had already peeled everything and was preparing the bouquet garni. She cut a large piece of cooking string with her paring
knife. She was so precise, not afraid of cutting herself. My biggest fear was cutting myself. I was a klutz. I had five scars
from knife cuts I’d made on my index finger from the various times I’d tried trimming tree branches back when I was a tomboy.

I cut my carrot into long rectangles and then I tried cutting them into
paysanne
and
brunoise
pieces. Chef Frédérique walked around smiling and telling us we were all doing well. I took my onion and started cutting
away. It didn’t quite end up looking like the onion Chef Sauber had cut up. Chef Frédérique watched Arthur, a small-framed
guy who looked like he was in the closet. He admired the way Arthur handled his onion and commended him on his precision cutting.
Chef Frédérique pointed to my onion and said to the class that we shouldn’t cut our onion like that. I was the bad example
for the class. My jaw dropped in embarrassment and I tried to hide my onion. Seeing my discomfort, he put his hand on my right
shoulder and smiled. He winked at me to show me he was only joking.

“
Je plaisante,
” Chef Frédérique said apologetically. I think he meant it, but he probably thought I was a delicate American student who
should be treated with soft baking gloves. I didn’t know if I should smile or apologize, but he proceeded to massage my back
and said, “No problem,” in his limited English to put me at ease. When I finally looked up at him with a smile, I continued
with my onion and made the best of it. As I cut the onion I fought back the tears. I think I was so moved by his touch because
it reminded me of how long it had been since a man had caressed me. At that point it had been at least four months since Armando
had had sex with me. He had stopped making love to me a long time before that.

I continued cutting my onion until I couldn’t stand my watery eyes. I wiped my eyes and thought to myself, I want to be touched
again and again and again.

Just then Janeira screamed. She had cut her finger and had to let everyone know it. The chef pointed to the first-aid kit
in the hallway.

I proceeded to remove the ends on the haricots verts. After doing a few green beans I decided to cut off the ends by doing
it to the whole bunch at once. This, I thought, was smarter than one by one.

I saw an old onion, partly rotten on one side, abandoned on the marble counter in front of me and looked around to see if
it had an owner. Everyone was done cutting his or her onion, it seemed, so I figured it was there for the taking. I cut off
the rotten part and was about to cut it in half. I couldn’t remember if you were supposed to cut it horizontally, then vertically,
or the opposite. I put it back in the center of the counter and figured, It’s just soup. Next time I will get it right.

Janeira returned to the practical room with practically her whole hand bandaged. She reached for her onion and inspected it.

“Who did this to my onion?” she demanded, wanting to shed someone else’s blood. I was about to say something when Chef Frédérique
shot me a look. I kept silent, and we both smiled. I looked down and said nothing. He told Janeira that it didn’t matter how
the onion was or who did what. She had more than enough onion to finish her soup. Janeira complained in Portuguese, saying
how could there be thieves in such a refined school, loud enough so that anyone who understood Spanish or French could figure
out what she was saying. I felt so ashamed of myself for messing up my onion, stealing someone else’s onion, and then not
admitting to it. It reminded me of the times my mother would rub a chile pepper on my mouth for lying and swearing when I
was a little girl back in our pueblo in Mexico. She did it so much that I began to love chiles and hot food. My mother stopped
doing it when she saw me salivating just before she was going to punish me. She just cursed me by saying, “When you have children,
I hope they do the same to you.”

I told myself that after we graduated from Basic Cuisine I would confess to Janeira, give her a gift, and apologize to her
for taking her onion.

“Allez, allez,”
Chef Frédérique said to encourage us to work a little faster. The Korean woman asked the chef in French where the soup bowls
were located. He went to the pastry practical room and came back with fourteen soup bowls. Everyone grabbed one and a few
of the faster students proceeded to fill up the soup bowls and present them on the standard white plates, which they’d found
in a cabinet above the sink, next to the cooking wines and spirits.

Another student, Martin, a lanky American with thinning hair, called the chef over and said he was ready. Chef Frédérique
went over to him and set up his grading station on the center of the counter between Martin and Bassie. He tasted Martin’s
soup and said it was
“bonne.”
Martin smiled and turned to the side so the chef could inspect his ID badge and get his name right. Chef Frédérique wrote
a score in the roster. Martin proceeded to clean up, and then Rick and the Korean woman presented their soups. One by one
everyone took his or her plate to the chef. He tasted mine and said it was too salty. I didn’t want to admit that I’d added
salt and forgotten to taste it. He took a spoon and swirled the soup. He uncovered an haricot vert with the tip still on it.
He pointed it out to me and told me to pay attention to all details. I wanted to tell him it was his fault I was distracted.
How could I concentrate with a wet vagina? But I saved my excuses and nodded, practically bowing to him after he was done.
I turned to my side and he inspected my ID.

“Jolie photo,”
he said, complimenting my picture. He pronounced my name and asked me where I was from.

“Los Angeles,” I said.

“Mais vous êtes méxicaine, n’est-ce pas?”
He could tell by my high cheekbones and full lips that I was not really an American —a typical one, that is.

“Oui, Mexique,”
I replied, trying to sound like I knew enough French to handle a conversation with him.

“Viva México,” he cheered. I looked down, trying not to smile too much, and took myself and my mediocre soup out of his presence.

As I washed my knives, I discovered a sore spot on my finger. I’d ended up with a little cut and I didn’t know how I’d done
it. I hadn’t even felt it. I must have put too much pressure on the knife, so much so that I’d torn my skin. I packed my things
and saw Bassie struggling with her soup. Janeira would take occasional breaks because her cut was bothering her. I left with
a smile, wondering if all the chefs were as delicious as the two that I had seen so far. “One recipe down, twenty-nine more
to go,” I sighed, hopeful that I had found a new profession.

I
sat in the front row again and the Korean woman sat next to me. I introduced myself and she said her name. I still couldn’t
pronounce it, so she said, “Call me Ale, like ginger ale” and made it easy to remember. The chef’s new assistant in the demonstration
worked diligently setting up all the vegetables and ingredients. Chef Chocon, a stocky man with a red nose, perhaps from drinking
too much, walked in through the door—one reserved exclusively for the chefs—carrying his metal briefcase. He opened his case,
took out his tools, and began sharpening his deboning knife, which looked more like a stiletto heel than a knife.
“Bonjour,”
he said to the few students already there, in a high, nasal voice.

He chopped up bones with a cleaver and explained how we would roast the bones in the oven for forty minutes at 450 degrees;
add the vegetable
mirepoix,
with the vegetables cut at half an inch halfway through the roasting; and then add water to deglaze. Janeira turned to another
student to ask for the quantity of water, but Chef Chocon raised his voice and told her to ask him, not her fellow student,
because she could be getting the wrong information. Janeira apologized in French and explained that she hadn’t wanted to interrupt
him. Chef Chocon explained that he was here for his students, and after working at three-star restaurants, he wanted to be
of service to aspiring chefs. That was why he taught at the best cooking school in the world.

Chef Chocon proceeded to cut an onion, first horizontally, then vertically. Got it, I thought. He finely sliced all the onion
and put it in a pan with olive oil. We were to make a “tart,” translated Henry, but under his breath he said, “It’s really
just a fancy French pizza.” The chef emptied the rest of the oil into the anchovies, throwing the bottle into the garbage.

“You must put the anchovies in milk to help remove the strong taste,” translated Henry. Henry muttered, barely audibly, to
the front row: “Too bad you can’t do the same to women.” I looked up and stared at him, unsure he had actually said that.
He was glad he’d caught my attention. He smiled at me and winked. I looked away when I realized he was flirting with me. I
looked down at my notes. This is going to be a pizza, I thought; so much for gourmet food.

In practical, Bassie was the only one concerned about the steps. She studied her notes carefully and took out her tools. I
grabbed my onion and paid attention to the way I cut it this time. I couldn’t get fine slices. I looked next to me and instead
of Janeira, now the woman from Hong Kong was slicing an onion effortlessly. I’m sure Janeira suspected me and had decided
to move to another station rather than risk losing her onion again. I poured olive oil into my pan and warmed up my onions
on a slow burner. The smell of onions hit my nostrils and the memory of pulling out onions from the earth massaged my face.
The dirt buried itself in my fingernails and the smell of onions on my fingers seemed like it would never, ever go away. I
smelled my tiny ten-year-old fingers and asked my mother if the smell would ever fade.

“When we pick a different vegetable, it will go away. Maybe the next vegetable will not be so smelly. Maybe when we move to
the city we won’t smell like vegetables or dirt anymore,” my mother said.

“When will that be?” I asked.

“Someday, when we have picked enough vegetables, we will be able to afford an apartment for all of us.” My father came by
and told us to stop talking or the rancher might complain and fire us. I shut up and continued pulling out onions.

The chef assigned to our practical entered with a
“Bonjour”
that commanded attention. We all turned to acknowledge him and I was immediately disappointed that it was not Chef Frédérique.
Chef Tulipe resembled Santa Claus. He walked around inspecting what we were doing and stopped next to Bassie. He looked her
up and down as if wondering if she was even eighteen and allowed to be in the kitchen. Bassie turned away from him and sliced
her onions. She cut her finger and quietly exclaimed, “Ah, shit!” to herself. Chef Tulipe took her knife and studied it.

“It’s the dull knives that are the most dangerous,” Chef Tulipe said in French. He ordered her to sharpen her knives before
continuing. Bassie went to the first-aid kit and then to the sink. I walked past her to collect my can of anchovies and asked
her if she was okay. She looked up at me with a smile, surprised that I’d noticed. She pretended to be tough and said it was
nothing.

I went back to my onions, stirring them and taking in their pungent smell once again. This time I was in my mother’s kitchen,
during a party.

“Come here and help me with the food,” my mother ordered me. I was thirteen and braless. My nipples were barely showing, but
I always tried to prove my point.

“No. How come the men aren’t in the kitchen? How come they’re drinking beer and laughing and we are in this hot kitchen doing
all the work?” I demanded.

“That’s the way it is. We cook for the men. Men eat first,” my mother said unapologetically and without concern.

“We are not in Mexico anymore,” I reminded her.

“Just because we are in Los Angeles doesn’t mean you are American. Pay attention to the chiles… They are supposed to
be roasted, not burnt.”

I pulled a chile off the fire and burnt my hand. I yelled, “Ouch,” but instead of my mother sympathizing she said, “Ya ves,
for not paying attention.” She pushed me aside with the roundness of her body and demonstrated how it should be done. She
ended up doing all of them by herself.

“You have to do it right or it won’t be worth making it. Go peel some garlic.”

I peeled garlic and ended up with some of it buried in my nails. She chopped up the garlic and threw it in the pan along with
an onion and diced tomatoes. She added rice and made me stir the rice back and forth to roast it. My Tía Lucia came in with
a recipe and read it out loud to my mother.