The World in My Kitchen (8 page)

As I was going to bed, I thought,
This is my life;this is my home. I am going to have a baby.
For the first time in many years, I felt I belonged somewhere. I was sure that the whole world was open to me, that in New York nothing was impossible, and that I could do anything I wanted.

M
arianne was born on September 27, 1957,
on a cool autumn morning. I took a leave of absence from the convent to take care of her when suddenly, after barely two months, I received a frantic call. My replacement was a disaster. The students hated her, and parents were complaining. Could I come back sooner? I was breast-feeding Marianne and enjoying being a mother, and the prospect of teaching again so soon did not appeal to me. But we needed the money, and when Mother Superior said that my schedule would be changed to allow me to return home at noon to feed the baby, I accepted. It was then that I was faced with a big problem: I needed a baby-sitter. All the ones that I interviewed were very expensive; we could not afford them since we had very little money. I put an ad in the local neighborhood paper, and Frau Zeimnitz came into our lives.

A Viennese woman living in the United States for over thirty years, Frau Zeimnitz had been a governess for wealthy Upper East Side families. She was married but had no children, and I never did meet Herr Zeimnitz. Now retired, she was bored and missed looking after children. The Fraulein was a short, bosomy woman and looked something like an oversized keg of beer. She was in her late sixties and wore a drab gray suit that matched her hair. I was slightly frightened of her and wondered if I should let her take care of my baby. But I had no choice. “I can pay $35 a week,” I explained, “and you have to be here promptly at 9:00
A.M
. and stay ’til 3:30
P.M
.” This was, even at that time, a miniscule salary. I was sure she was going to refuse, and I would have an excuse not to go back to work. Instead she answered in an imperious voice: “Show me the baby!”

We went into Marianne’s room to look at the tiny sleeping baby. Marianne opened her eyes, smiled, and went back to her dreaming. Fraulein scowled, looked around, and barked, “Where is the carriage? And where are her clothes?”

And so I knew then that Fraulein was here to stay. I showed her Marianne’s dainty knitted dresses that my mother, who was in Paris, had so lovingly made, the sheets with embroidered blue jumping rabbits and the ones with pink dancing elephants, both of which I had never used. I explained that my mother had copied Princess Grace of Monaco’s child’s trousseau, hoping that her first grandchild would be as well dressed. With a cluck of her tongue, Fraulein approved.

My Uncle Clement had sent me an enormous classic English carriage that I disliked because it was, for my taste, too ostentatious. On seeing the large, imposing-deep-blue lacquered carriage with its matching blue canopy embroidered with Marianne’s initials, Fraulein’s tongue clucked furiously like a hen that had just laid the perfect egg. I realized that I had nothing to fear and could go back to work without worrying about my daughter.

The year went by without incident, and I was rather naively unaware of what was going on around me. My life gravitated around Jimmy, my child, and my teaching. I was getting used to New York, we had new friends, and my English was quickly improving. On weekends, Jimmy and I would take Marianne for walks in Central Park or explore other parts of the city. We would stroll down Mulberry Street, through the heart of Little Italy. Mulberry Street was lined with Italian restaurants. We would stop for an Italian espresso and a piece of torrone at Ferrara’s on Grand Street. Sometimes we’d shop at Di Paolo, a grocery store packed with salamis, hams, mozzarella, and cans of imported tomatoes. I would try my Italian with the owner’s son while he thinly sliced some prosciutto or compared the different pecorino cheeses that were displayed on the counter. While Jimmy and I walked home, laden with Italian goodies, I tried to imagine what I was going to cook that night: maybe spaghetti with fresh tomatoes and mozzarella or veal chops covered with a layer of pecorino.

Although I was teaching, my salary was not high enough to complement what Jimmy was earning. We were always broke. I wondered what else I could do. I placed an ad in
The New York Times,
offering my services for translation work. I received many calls and got an assignment to translate business documents for a bank. The documents were technical and boring; however, I was learning how to write in English. I used to work late at night while Marianne slept, and Jimmy worked late in the office. It was during this period that Jimmy’s office called to say that he had had an accident and was in the emergency room at New York Eye and Ear Infirmary. Someone had thrown an eraser, and it hit his eye and tore his cornea.

When I got to the hospital, I was sent to the intensive care unit. I waited for the doctors to let me in, and when I was finally able to see Jimmy, I was terrified: Both his eyes were bandaged.
Was he blind?
A young Chinese doctor was standing next to him. As I bent down to kiss him and hold his hand, he whispered to me: “Colette, I am so scared. These eyes are my life. What will happen if I can’t see? What will I do?” I turned to the doctor.

“I am Doctor Chen, Suzanne Chen,” she said. “He will be fine. His cornea was torn but not badly. He will heal, but it may take weeks. We will keep him here. I will look after him. Please don’t worry, and tell him not to worry. I promise: He will see, but he has to rest and keep his eyes closed. We have to prevent his eyes from moving so the wound heals faster.”

I looked at Jimmy again. He looked sad lying there with his head on the pillow, his eyes covered by two heavy bandages. Several times as she turned to leave, she repeated, “Don’t worry; he will be fine. I will see him later.”

“You will be all right. I like her; she would not lie. Please don’t worry. I will be here with you. I will read to you and stay next to you. It is just a week until you come home.”

That afternoon, I stayed with Jimmy then went home to reorganize my life. I would need a baby-sitter every day after Frau Zeimnitz went home. I would have to organize my classes so I could run to the hospital and see him at lunch and then again at dinner. The nuns were very kind and allowed me to switch my classes so I could be free at noon. Frau Zeimnitz agreed to stay until after dinner so that I could spend some time with Jimmy.

Doctor Chen came to see Jimmy several times a day and chatted with him. She was a beautiful young woman, thin, petite with straight dark black hair and a wonderful warm smile. Together they talked about China and her family. I thought it strange that she spent so much time with Jimmy.
Was I jealous?
Maybe, but I resolved to befriend her.

I learned that Dr. Chen was born in Shanghai. But at the age of two, she had escaped with her parents to Hong Kong, fleeing the Japanese invasion. When she was twelve, as China became communist, she was sent to her mother’s family in New York to attend school. At a very young age, she became interested in becoming a doctor. Her parents and her two brothers came over to America much later. One was an architect who worked for a firm that Jimmy knew. Doctor and patient talked about architecture, politics, and food. Food at the hospital, as expected, was horrendous. So every day I cooked something to bring for Jimmy’s lunch then returned home and cooked his dinner. But what do you cook for someone who is bored, lying in bed, his eyes closed, having nothing to do but listen to music and eat? The food had to smell good and taste even better. This was quite a challenge. I bought a hot plate, so I could reheat some of the dishes I brought. I roasted a chicken and served it room temperature with a cold tomato sauce; on another day, I served it with a spinach and tarragon sauce. I made a sweetbread salad with raw mushrooms and julienne fennel, and I poached salmon and served a green mayonnaise to go with it. I grilled sliced eggplant served with lemon vinaigrette and made his favorite, a meatloaf with pork, veal, and beef, which he could eat cold the next day. At every meal, Jimmy insisted we play a game. I was to describe what was on the plate, the color, the texture of the food I was about to serve him, and how it was arranged. Then he would describe the taste as he bit into a piece of chicken or fish. It was through playing this game that I learned to talk about food in vivid language and describe a dish so well that, as Jimmy told me later, he could see it.

Ten days later, Jimmy was discharged with one eye still bandaged. Dr. Chen proposed coming to the house regularly to see how he was doing. Jimmy was quite pleased with this arrangement. I, on the contrary, thought,
Was all this personal attention unusual?
I did not know, but I decided that the best way was to please Jimmy. I invited her for dinner the following week. Over dinner, we talked about food, culture, and Chinese customs. It was a wonderful evening, and suddenly I did not mind that she took such interest in Jimmy. From then on, she came at least once a week to look at his eye, which was healing, and to have dinner. She always came with some new ingredients: a sauce, a Chinese vegetable, or some strange candy for Marianne. She would talk about architecture and Chinese politics with Jimmy and about her family and food with me.

One Sunday, I received a phone call from Suzanne inviting me to go shopping with her in Chinatown. I jumped at the opportunity. Jimmy and I used to go shopping in Chinatown, but beyond buying fresh fish and fruit, we did not venture very far. To go with Suzanne would be a great adventure. And so one Sunday morning in February, Suzanne and I went down to Chinatown.

Chinatown then was not as spread out as it is today. It was a small triangle of streets bordered by Canal Street, the Bowery, and Worth Street. Its main shopping streets were Mulberry and Mott. The restaurants were around there, but also on the little crooked streets: Elizabeth, Pell, and Baxter. The streets were teaming with people buying food for the holidays, since the Chinese New Year was only a few days away. As we passed some restaurants, delicious aromas invaded the street. I was famished although it was just 10:00
A.M
.

Looking at me, Suzanne could tell I wanted to eat something and suggested we have a bite before starting on our shopping adventure.

“Follow me; I know a small dim sum place on Baxter Street. The dim sum is Cantonese and really fresh.”

I had had dim sum with Jimmy before, but we always went to a Chinese restaurant where
Genjis
(foreigners) went, never to an all-Chinese place. The restaurant, located on Baxter Street, was jammed with people, eating and wildly chatting. Young Chinese women were pushing steaming carts from table to table, chanting the names of the foods they hawked. Suzanne knew the owner, so we immediately got two seats at a big round table with eight others. She stopped the first cart and chose three different steamed dumplings, then from another cart chose what looked like a large white noodle stuffed with shrimps. As the third cart approached, I saw chicken feet.

“Can we have some of these?”

“You like chicken feet? Americans never eat them.”

“I am French. When I was a child, my grandmother made soup with chicken feet. We would eat them with coarse salt. I loved them.”

First, Suzanne taught me how to use chopsticks and served me my first dumpling. The dumpling skin was very thin, translucent, and was stuffed with bits of shrimp and pork. The dumplings were served with a light soy sauce and julienned ginger. Delicious! Then came small, round, steamed dumplings.

“Pick them up with your spoon and be careful; they are full of broth.”

The dumpling squirted hot broth into my mouth. The broth was spicy, and the dumplings had chopped pork, bits of mushroom, and ginger. Simply luscious! I could have eaten a dozen. The third dumpling was vegetarian filled with minced spinach, chopped scallions, and peanuts. Fantastic! I tried the wide noodles stuffed with shrimps. They were like a very white, thin crêpe filled with shrimps and steamed; they were served with a light soy sauce. Its bland taste was in complete contrast to the crunchy, spicy ginger-coated shrimps. Then I attacked the chicken feet. They were totally different from my grandmother’s boiled chicken feet. These tender, golden-brown feet were cooked in a sweet soy sauce. They were soft on the outside with crunchy centers. I was in heaven; I never tasted anything so wonderful. We then had lightly fried Hakka-style stuffed tofu. Suzanne explained that each Chinese province had a different cooking tradition. Hakka food, which she loved ever since her stay in Hong Kong, came from the north of China. Their cuisine, she said, was a mixture of sea and land: fish, seafood, pork, and chicken. The simple triangles of tofu were stuffed with dried shrimp and cubed pepper, then lightly fried. Very different from the steamed dumplings we had just tasted, less spicy but far richer.

Later as we walked toward Mulberry Street, Suzanne said we were going to Mott Street to pick up a live fish.

“At New Years, you must always serve a steamed ‘live fish,’ head and tail. The fish brings good luck to the family.”

The fish store had a giant tank near the window filled with a variety of fish I had never seen before. Large black ones with whiskers, small fish that looked like dorade, or silver fish. Suzanne asked for a large fighting fish. The man who was helping us picked up a net and looked first at the fish in the tank. He pointed at a large black fish that was swimming swiftly. Suzanne agreed, and the man placed the fish in a large plastic bag. The fish was really fighting, hitting his tail against the bag. We both laughed; this was a true fighting fish.

We then walked down the street to a large grocery store that sold vegetables, meat, and poultry. Outside the store were bins filled with several Chinese mushrooms. Some of them had cracked caps showing white streaks. These, Suzanne told me, were more expensive than those with regular brown caps. The cheaper kind was for soups, and the expensive kind was used in main courses with Chinese broccoli or with sautéed chicken. The expensive ones would very soon become my favorite, as I learned how to soak them for several hours to make a delicious mushroom consommé. Suzanne then pointed to some dried yellow sticks, which she explained were dried bean curd that could, after being soaked in water for an hour, be transformed into knots and added to stews. From that day on I added them to my Boeuf Bourgignon, which would never again be the same.