The World in My Kitchen (7 page)

I wanted to make our first Christmas in New York special. We decided to spend Christmas Eve together in our house in New York, then the next day, we would fly to Florida to visit Anne. I bought a small Christmas tree, decorated it with just lights and placed presents all around it. Our relationship with Murray and Naima had cooled, but on weekends I often took John and Maxwell to the park. So when they asked us to join them for Christmas dinner, we accepted and postponed our trip to Florida. I offered to cook the dinner, as Naima had cooked the Thanksgiving dinner. This started a tradition that lasted for ten years. Naima and I took turns in preparing Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. A genteel, unspoken rivalry started: who was the better cook, who had the most imagination.

For that first Christmas, I became obsessed with the dinner. I wanted to make everything special. I spent hours talking to Jimmy about it. I devised an elaborate menu. I would make a five-meat pâté to start and follow with a goose stuffed with chestnuts and apples. I would also stuff the goose’s neck with the goose liver and Italian sausages, as I remembered my French grandmother doing it; prepare a carrot soufflé; and sautéed potatoes with rosemary and pine nuts. Dessert was more of a problem because I was not a very good pastry cook. I thought that caramel-poached pears would be the easiest. To find all the ingredients we needed, Jimmy and I spent the weekend before Christmas roaming the Village and the Lower East Side. We bought dried chestnuts and Italian sausages in Little Italy; for the pâté, I bought chicken breast, chopped pork, veal, and fat back in a small pork store I had found on Ninth Avenue. The goose was a problem. When I asked the local butcher for a goose, he answered that he had never sold a goose before. He said that a turkey was what normal people made for Christmas and suggested a ham as a substitution. But I thought,
I am a normal person, and I want to make goose!
I was about to give up the idea when walking down Bleecker Street, I saw a butcher shop with a sign in its window that read “Wild Game.” I went in and asked about a goose. “Of course I can get you a goose,” said Mr. Ottomanelli, who, along with his brothers, owned this wonderful store. “However,” he added, “I’m not sure I can get a fresh one; it may have to be frozen.” On the following Thursday, I proudly returned home loaded with a frozen goose, some chicken livers, and fresh herbs. This was to be my first attempt at making a goose. I had found Kosher salt, which was quite similar to the coarse sea salt my grandmother used, and, mixing it with minced garlic, I rubbed it on the goose inside and out and refrigerated the goose until Christmas. On Christmas day, I removed all the salt, slid large pieces of butter under the skin of the breast, rubbed the goose with more butter, and hoping for a golden goose, baked it in a 350° oven for four hours. It had been decided that I would prepare the rest of the dinner at my sister-in-law’s house. Jimmy was to bring the goose later, close to dinnertime. I had instructed him to baste the goose from time to time and add some broth to the pan if he saw that the liquid was drying up. I then went over to my sister-in-law’s house with the other ingredients. Around 7:00
P.M
., I received a frantic phone call from Jimmy. He had forgotten the goose and had never basted it. It had been in the oven for over five hours, the pan looked black, and please could I rush over. The goose was cooked!

I thought I could save it and told him not to tell anyone what had happened. I cut as much meat as I could, arranged it on a platter then proceeded to make a creamy sauce with lots of butter and heavy cream, using also some of the drippings from the roasting pan. I covered the meat with the sauce, sprinkled it with chopped parsley, and brought it back to Murray’s and Naima’s house. The pâté was a success, and so were the soufflé and the potatoes. No one talked about the goose except to say that this was quite an original recipe. Years later, I told Naima what had happened. She laughed and said, “And we all thought you had served a very special dish from France! No one dared say it wasn’t very good!”

The next day, Jimmy and I flew to Miami. In 1956, Coral Gables was a large community of mostly retired families. Anne’s house, like most houses in Coral Gables, was built in the Spanish style, with a red tile roof, blue-green shutters, and ochrestuccoed walls reminiscent of the Mediterranean. She had a lovely garden, and I was delighted to find that she had fruit trees loaded with bright large lemons, grapefruit, and limes and a jungle of banana trees. What pleased me even more was to find in the back of the house a mango tree like we had in Cairo. I had not tasted a fresh mango since I had left Cairo years ago. The sweet smelling fruit brought back memories of trips to the mango market with my Egyptian grandfather. In Cairo’s market, there were many types of mangoes: some flat and round, small bright yellow ones, or very fat ones in deep purple, red, and green. Here in Florida, the red mangoes were enormous and very juicy. I sat in the garden and ate my first American mango with relish.

That night, Jimmy insisted we go to a barbeque rib restaurant on Tamiami Trail called Shorty’s. “Barbecue ribs are the best thing in Florida,” Jimmy explained. “You must try them, and you will find out that we have dishes here as good as anything you will find in France.” The restaurant was unpretentious. The room was barn-like with wood tables and benches. Everyone sat together. In the back, there was an open pit where the ribs were slowly baked over hickory wood coals all day and all night long. We ordered several racks of ribs. The ribs were painted with a reddish-brown sauce, a mixture of tomatoes, onions, herbs, and hot spices, and when they were placed in front of me, an unexpected aroma of a winter fire, of wood burning, wafted toward me, an aroma that promised a slightly scorched but succulent meat. Grabbing a rib, I tore the meat off the bone, sauce dripping down my chin, and laughed with pleasure. The meat was tender and juicy, the best pork I had ever tasted. With the ribs, we ate steamed corn on the cob, another dish I had not had for a long time. In Cairo, the ears of corn were slowly roasted on coals. They were tough, slightly burnt; here the corn was young, tender, dripping with butter, and very sweet. With the meal, we drank large pints of ice-cold beer, and very soon, slightly drunk, we talked with everyone around us at the table. They asked the usual questions once they found out we did not live in Miami: “Where do you come from? Up North?” “No, I am French.” As in Boston, I was immediately asked, “How do you like Miami?” I didn’t know yet; I haven’t seen anything, but I am sure I will love it. The ribs are so good!

For the next few days, we swam in the ocean and drove through Miami Beach in the evening. The hotels astonished me; they looked like bad copies of Versailles or large Renaissance castles, with towers and plaster sculptures added everywhere. They were aqua, pink, and blue, and everything was so big, so vulgar, and so exaggerated that it left me baffled. I just wanted to go back to Anne’s lovely garden with the mango tree and to the incredible sandy beaches of Coral Gables.

During our stay in Florida, Jimmy and I endured a number of exasperating social occasions. One morning Anne announced that her friends at the club all invited me to lunch—alone.
Alone? A lunch with only women?
I had never heard of it!

“Jimmy, I don’t want to go. Lunch with just women! Horrible!” But Jimmy said I had to go, if just to please his mother. And so I went.

The country club resembled Cairo’s country club, with its manicured lawns, a clubhouse, and a swimming pool surrounded by deck chairs and umbrellas. But what was very different was the golf course that spread far beyond the club house and was spotted with electric golf carts silently zooming around. The luncheon event was held in a private dining room overlooking the eighteenth hole. The room was full of women with white hair tinted blue, most of whom were wearing pink or light blue pantsuits. I was introduced to Ethel, who immediately handed me a box filled with a lovely white orchid. Holding the box in one hand, I did the rounds: Ethel, Sally, Molly, Rachel, Helen, names and more names swirling around me. I no longer knew who was Sally and who was Helen, but kept on hearing whispers behind my back.

“So young, so very French, what a lovely accent, like Hildegarde! Anne must be so very happy.”

Finally, we found our name cards; I was placed between Anne and Ethel, and we all sat down. It was then that I made my first mistake. I opened my orchid box, removed the orchid, and plopped it in my glass of water to cries of astonishment and horror of my host, who was sitting next to me. “This is a corsage. You must pin the orchid on your dress,” she said. “Don’t put it in the water!” I apologized, removed the dripping orchid, and pinned it to my dress just above my breast. Very soon my dress around my breast was soaking wet, and I looked ridiculous. I unpinned it, placed it next to my plate, smiled, and since all the women were looking at me, attacked the first course: large, chilled, boiled shrimps surrounded by a familiar pink, slightly sweet cocktail sauce. I tried to talk about New York, and my experiences at work, but no one really was listening. They were more interested in local gossip: which widow was flirting with whom and who was giving a party for New Year’s, what to wear, etc. Anne whispered that Ethel was giving a very lavish New Year’s party and that we were invited but not everyone at the table was. The next course came along, and Ethel, to everyone’s approval, announced loudly that she had ordered the course in my honor: chicken cordon bleu. I looked down at my plate. Lying there was a piece of chicken breast topped with what looked to me to be ham and covered with a beige, slightly gelatinous sauce. As I took a bite, all eyes were on me. To my mother-in-law’s dismay, I said in a very loud voice, “It is quite good, but it is not French.” Utter silence followed my statement, and I realized then that I had made another major mistake. Trying to save the moment, Anne changed the subject, saying that I had spent most of my childhood in Egypt and probably did not know French cuisine too well. From their looks, I knew that now Anne had made a mistake. I was no longer this lovely French girl but some strange Egyptian creature. I could see in their faces what they were thinking: “Poor Anne, look what she got. A strange foreigner; an Egyptian at that…she must be so upset.” I tried to save the situation as the dessert, a rich chocolate cake was placed in front of me; I exclaimed in the most French accent I could muster that this was the best cake I had ever had. But the damage was done. Nobody cared!

New Year’s Eve was yet another trial. I dressed very carefully and told Jimmy I was afraid of the luncheon guests who would be coming, but he just laughed and said they would have all forgotten about me, and Anne added that it was a privilege to be invited and that not all of her friends were.

“You are going to have a lovely time. The food there is always delicious.” I thought of my lunch and sighed in despair. Jimmy laughed at my sad face and said, “Come on, Colette. It won’t be so bad! Cheer up; we are going together. It will be fun.”

The house was an immense pink stucco house with red Spanish roof tiles, arches, and a lovely patio with a fountain in the center. Women wore long flowing dresses, and men wore suits in iridescent dark blue or white jackets. Again I was introduced as Anne’s new French daughter-in-law. Very soon I was surrounded by several men, all talking at the same time. I heard them whisper: “You know Frenchmen are lazy; they take two hours for lunch. Also when you visit Paris and they spot you as a foreigner, they raise their prices. You cannot bargain with them. After all, they forgot that we liberated them.” Someone added, “All Frenchmen are drunks; they drink wine all the time…even for breakfast!” It was an avalanche of criticism that astonished me. I was about to respond when one man, slightly drunk, added that he was eagerly waiting for midnight to kiss me, “What a treat! A real French girl!” and everyone agreed and thought it was a great thing to do. At that point, upset and on the verge of tears, I went to look for Jimmy. “Take me home. I hate it here. Please take me home….”

And so we left. Back at the house, we made a fire in the fireplace, and Jimmy tried to comfort me. As midnight approached, Jimmy kissed me and whispered, “Happy New Year in your new country. Let’s make love in front of the fire, and let’s make a baby…”

The next morning I knew something in me had changed: My breasts felt rounder. I felt full and very happy—sure that I was expecting a child. Anne had been quite upset by our departure, but Jimmy explained that everything was so new for me that I had felt homesick for Paris. She accepted his explanation and forgave me.

A few months later, I discovered that I was indeed pregnant. We decided that we needed a larger apartment so we moved to a two-bedroom apartment on Sixty-eighth Street, near Central Park West, with the same small dinette but a large living room and windows that overlooked the street. We bought some furniture, a couch, two chairs, and a dinette. The large wicker baskets were put away; we were ready to invite our new friends for dinner. We invited Gabriel Sedlis and his girlfriend; Peter Greenquist, a young man who had gone to Europe with Jimmy in 1949 and was working in a publishing house; and Michael Brill and his wife, Judy. Michael, an architect like Jimmy, was funny and very fat. He loved food, and it was amusing to cook for him. That night I went all out. I prepared a choucroute garnie, a French sauerkraut dish cooked in champagne with sausages, smoked ham, and boiled potatoes served with French mustard. With it I served hot Italian baguettes and fennel salad. The guests oohed and aahed and said they never tasted such delicious sauerkraut. I had found the sauerkraut in the Lower East Side, the sausages Uptown in the Eighties in a German neighborhood, and the fennel in Little Italy. We drank lots of wine, talked about politics, the state of architecture, the future, and what a great cook I was. I was proud and happy.