Hungry Woman in Paris (10 page)

“I got this recipe for mole negro oaxaqueño from my neighbor. We’re going to need to buy the chocolate.” She left the recipe
on the counter next to the stove and I read it while they debated what kind of chocolate to add.

My mother came by and saw that the rice was burning. She slapped my hand so I would pay attention.

“Mira! You’re burning the rice! You really are good for nothing.” I stirred the rice as if I were slapping her back.

“Stop that!” she commanded again. I continued throwing the rice back and forth; if I wasn’t going to get to eat that rice,
why should I care if it got burnt? She grabbed the stirring spoon and took it away from me. She pushed me aside with her big
hips and told me, “If you are not going to do it with love, then don’t do it at all. Get out of my kitchen!” She made a scene
and humiliated me in front of all the women at the party. Tía Bonifacia shook her head at me as I grabbed a soda and left
the kitchen with my head held high.

I sat next to the men. My father looked at me but didn’t say anything. None of the men spoke to me, and I didn’t eat mole
that day. I had gotten very sick the first time I’d had red mole, when I was five. Even though this was supposed to be black
mole, it would taste bitter to me. I swore after that experience that I would not go into a kitchen to cook for a man. I swore
I would someday marry a man who would love me for my mind and not for how I reminded him of his mother or for the cooking
and cleaning services I provided.

I recall Armando’s mother complaining to him that I might be exciting and fun now, but that he was going to go hungry and
so would his children. A man like Armando would never go hungry. If his wife didn’t cook for him, you know his mother would
be there, serving up his favorite meal. A man doesn’t get to go hungry the way a woman goes hungry. A woman will give away
all the food she needs to nurture her body and her soul to the man she loves and her children before she thinks of herself.
I had gone hungry for so many years. I had never had a mother who cooked for me the way she cooked for my brothers. In my
home food was not for pleasure; food was the way you told somebody you loved them and that they were worth something. I remember
being hungry when I was growing up. My mother said we never lacked for food. There was always beans and rice and, if I was
woman enough, I could cook myself something.

Why do these onions bring back all these memories? Why does it still hurt that my mother never cooked for me? Why does my
mother’s kitchen always remind me of hunger? I was hungry for her love and affection and encouragement. I was hungry for a
life that was not promised to me the second I was sentenced a girl. I was hungry for an adventure forbidden to me as a Mexican
woman. I was hungry for a world where women like me could be seen as creators and not just pieces of meat. I am still hungry
for my mother’s acceptance. I am so hungry that it hurts, because I can’t explain how someone as hungry as me can’t keep these
twenty pounds from disappearing. I want to disappear, but the hunger I feel and the pain in my gut makes me feel alive. I
know hunger; she is my friend. She has been with me on all these journeys where there was never enough to go around. Hunger
was there in my college days when I could barely afford tuition and had to live on Cup O’ Noodles and Top Ramen. Hunger has
been with me for a long time, even when I called it off with Armando after our fight over the menu.

Chef Tulipe walked behind me and startled me by barking,
“Vous êtes en train de brûler les oignons!”
My onions were burning, and I immediately removed the pan from the burner.

Many more mistakes were to follow. I turned a fish fumet into a green glob when I threw parsley into the butter sauce too
early. I overcooked my carrots, ruined the skin on my delicate fish, and tied up my chicken like it was ready for S & M instead
of roasting. I kept telling myself that I was glad I’d made those mistakes so I would never make them again. So what if my
fish had a few scales left on it? No one died. Yesterday was too much salt; today I reduced improperly; not enough butter,
et cetera, et cetera. The big thing I had to remember was to taste, constantly be tasting, tasting, tasting.

“Cuisine is sensual,” translated Henry for Chef Sauber during one of his many demonstrations. “You must always be touching
and tasting and smelling and having all of your senses completely open. You can follow a recipe, yes, but you must also feel
your way through it.” He added, “You have to be like an Italian; you have to touch everything. To truly be a great chef you
must love to give pleasure to people.” The second he said this, I swear I could feel the hearts of the female students jump.
Chef Sauber was old enough to be my father, but in front of the burners he was the chef, the sexiest man alive; the man who
could take dead materials and give them life with his beautiful hands, holding the meat and carving out our fantasies. He
was an alchemist, turning simple food items into golden delicacies that melted in our mouths, leaving us wanting more . .
. Oh, my God, I’m starting to sound like a cheesy romance novel.

In Paris, chefs are revered the same way rock stars or auteur filmmakers are in Hollywood. The cuisine chefs were sexy, but
the pastry chefs were the ones with the Adonis bodies. There were a few with doughboy bodies too, but the head pastry chef
was charismatic and had muscular arms. He spent all day slapping and punching dough. One day, when I arrived too early for
my Basic Cuisine class, the pastry demonstration was finishing up. I snuck a peek and saw that Chef Guillaume had several
female pastry students around him. Maybe they were just really impressed by his pies, but they were like little birds flocking
to him and eating out of his loving and muscular hand. He grabbed the dough and shaped it like a big breast.

“Now, you must caress it like a beautiful woman’s breast,” he said. The women blushed. “This dough needs to be like love—the
more you beat it, the more it loves you back,” Chef Guillaume advised. He slapped the dough with such intensity it was hard
not to imagine him slapping you on the ass as he penetrated you doggy-style. Even some of the heterosexual men had to look
away. I had considered taking a pastry class, but Luna dying of diabetes, having several uncles and tías who had also lost
out to the disease, and knowing how Mexicans in general are prone to getting it had killed that idea.

A
t every demonstration we got a new chef. Some tried to be funny and keep it lively, and others didn’t care whether you liked
them; they just wanted us to go back to our home countries knowing their techniques and pronouncing French words correctly.

Chef Plat had no personality, but despite being so young he was the most talented. He showed us how he turned a regular mushroom
into a work of art. With the paring knife, he gently scraped the mushroom as he pivoted his knife with his fingertips, creating
a spiraling design like the inside of a sea conch. We were so amazed. If we could master that technique, we too could be amazing
chefs like him. It reminded me of the student in kung fu being told he would be ready when he could take the pebble from his
master’s hand.

“The soufflé is one of the most difficult dishes,” translated Henry for Chef Plat, “because there are certain steps you must
follow or it may not rise.” After Chef Plat was done whisking air into his egg whites, he added the egg-yolk batter and, in
a scooping and cutting motion, folded them together while keeping in the whisked air. He took the prebuttered and floured
soufflé bowl and scraped off a fingertip’s worth of butter from the center of the bottom of the bowl.

“This little scrape is my little secret. If you do this to the bowl it ensures that the soufflé will not rise lopsided,” translated
Henry for Chef Plat. When his soufflé was in the oven he was careful not to disturb it. He saw it rising and bragged about
how his techniques
always
worked. Ten minutes later, when the soufflé refused to rise past the bowl, he was forced to admit that his techniques worked
most
of the time. The great chef was humbled by a cheese soufflé.

At the end of the demonstration we were told to get ready for our class photo. I ran to brush my hair and put some makeup
on. What a hypocrite I am! I complain about how Latinas and women spend more money on makeup than on a college education,
but the minute they say “photo” I scramble for the foundation and lipstick. Okay, I could have gone without makeup, but I
wanted my proof that I did attend and complete a culinary program from the most prestigious cooking school in the world to
show to the nonbelievers, like my family, and I wanted to look “puuurty.”

I sat down at a table with Bassie and a blonde who was putting on makeup and pearl earrings.

“He got an American girl pregnant,” said Becky, a tall blonde from New York City.

“Which chef?” I interjected.

“Chef Sauber,” she replied.

“But isn’t he married?” asked Bassie.

“Like that ever matters in this country. That’s how the women here stay thin,” scoffed Becky.

“What do you mean?” asked Bassie.

“A husband cheats on his wife. The pain causes her to not want to eat or to go on a diet so she can be thinner than the mistress.
I read that somewhere.”

I added my two centimes: “I thought it was the cigarette smoking.” It’s amazing to me that in a country with the best restaurants
in the world, Frenchwomen prefer to eat cigarettes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I knew it was being an apple-shaped woman
in a country full of pear-shaped women, or no-shape women, that made me say that bitter line. Or could it have been that the
secondhand smoke was affecting my brain?

“So did she keep the baby?” asked Bassie.

“I don’t know—ask him,” Becky replied. “They flirt with all the blondes, they think we’re all easy, but I like pussy.” I missed
being around Americans; our potty mouths always distinguished us.

A pastry student who’d finished his practical dropped off a cake at the table closest to the coat racks at the entrance of
the courtyard. My “munchies” radar got activated and I turned to Becky, who knew more about the protocols of the school, and
asked, “Is that cake for everyone?”

“Yeah, the pastry students leave behind all kinds of failed experiments and sometimes great stuff that they have no one to
share with,” she explained. I was about to rush over to get the cake when Sélange came into the courtyard and arranged the
chairs for our photograph. She clapped her hands and made an announcement.

“We are now ready for the Basic Cuisine photograph. All the girls please sit in the front row and all the tall people in the
back.”

“Hmm, what to do, what to do,” joked Becky and got up and positioned herself in the back at the center. I sat on the sidelines
next to Bassie. Since I was wearing black chef shoes, they asked me to sit in the center to harmonize with the black-and-white
shoe pattern they were striving to achieve in the photograph.

Sélange thanked us for our cooperation and we were dismissed early so we could rest and then go to the pub later and get to
know our classmates.

“Why don’t we go to a pub now?” suggested Rick. In seconds there was group agreement and all the American students ended up
at C’est Ma Vie. Janeira tagged along to complain about the chefs or anything that reminded her of her French ex-husbands.
Rick translated for us, and Jérôme recommended a red wine from Bordeaux and gave us a two-minute history of the wine.

As we commiserated about our first week in cooking boot camp and compared knife and burn wounds, everyone took turns confessing,
as only Americans can, why they were spending so much money to learn French cuisine.

“I made a lot of money, but I was miserable, so I quit,” said Francis, the lady originally from Hong Kong. “This is my reward
for putting up with assholes for many years. I guess I’m in transition.” Everyone had their individual stories, but they were
all the same story. Everyone had graduated from college or business school or law school and wanted to do something fun and
pleasurable before they sold their soul to corporate America or to a law firm. The single guys were interested in earning
points with dates by being able to slip in the fact that they’d studied cuisine at Le Coq Rouge. One named Roger was actually
there to be a head chef. He had come from Boston and was determined to be a chef. He was not satisfied being a short-order
cook at a diner.

I considered going home after two glasses of wine, but realized that by the time I got home I would have thirty minutes to
rest before I had to get up and go to the pub. I decided to hang out around the Fifteenth and look for a cheap restaurant.
Nothing is cheap in Paris except the baguettes, so I treated myself to a nice meal. I ordered a chicken with sauce
suprême,
and I smiled to myself, knowing that I could actually make that sauce, if I wanted to.

I took several metros to get to St.-Michel and walked around looking for the English pub. Although it was freezing and it
threatened to snow, people were out wearing their designer coats and scarves. I was forced to buy a scarf and mittens to function
in that weather. I was never this stylish back in L.A. It’s so hard to look BCBG—
bon chic, bon genre,
so cool—in hot places.