Hungry Woman in Paris (28 page)

I was so nervous I sharpened all my knives until I could cut paper with them. I looked up at the clock. Five minutes before
my exam time I started fixing my tie and hanging my hand towel in my apron, preparing as if I were a soldier going off to
war. I picked up my knives and all my equipment and walked past Dick, who was studying his recipe. I prayed that they wouldn’t
put that passive-aggressive jerk next to me just because his last name followed mine. I took my time getting to the second
floor, slowly passing the
Sabrina
movie poster in the stairway. I arrived at the designated practical kitchen and peeked in. I was still early, according to
the clock on the wall in the practical room. I took deep breaths and studied my recipe.

Agneau à la Mexicaine-Américaine
Lamb Mexican-American Style

Okay, no way would this lamb be spicy enough to be called Mexican; but it’s spicy enough for France. At least it ends up looking
red and green. It’s closer to an Italian dish, and the Italians are more like Mexicans, so I guess that’s okay.

half of lamb shoulder with saddle, trimmed

STUFFING

100 grams shiitake mushrooms, sliced, sautéed

100 milliliters port, reduced with shallots

50 grams pine nuts, chopped

75 milliliters crème fraîche

1 piece pig intestine lining, large enough to wrap around the stuffed lamb

DECORATION

4 basil leaves, fried

4 black olives, sliced

JUICE

1 carrot, diced

1 shallot, finely chopped

1 stalk celery, diced

BOUQUET GARNI

laurel and basil leaf

SIDE DISHES

600 grams fava beans, boiled, sautéed

4 tomatoes, sliced, baked in oil

4 artichokes, boiled and macerated

2 eggplants, baked and macerated

6 basil leaves, chopped

4 garlic cloves, sliced and smashed

4 olives, chopped

Juice of 1 lemon

TIAN

1 red bell pepper, cut into sticks

1 green bell pepper, cut into sticks

1 onion, sliced

Chef Papillon finally let me in and I was calm when I handed my recipe to him. I was number seven. Lucky seven, right? I got
there and everything was set up: a basket with everything I needed to create my recipe, ready to go. I had to take care of
my tomatoes first because they took an hour and fifteen minutes. I went to one of the two communal ovens usually used for
pastries and turned it on and got my tomatoes ready. I went to get a baking tray and Miguel Angel handed me one, trying to
be helpful. I took it and a moment later realized it was hot at one end and instinctively put it down on an unoccupied stove.
I looked under my forearm and saw that I had burnt my skin, in a line about five inches long. My arm felt like it was melting
every time I reached over by the burners. Blanca noticed my large blister and grabbed my hand to take a closer look. She dragged
me to the sink and stuck my arm under cold water.

“You have to use water to stop it from getting worse,” she said. She went to the first-aid box and gave me the burn cream.
I didn’t want to take the time to tend to my injury because I was scared I was not going to finish, but she insisted that
I take care of it. Ten minutes later, my burn was bearable and I checked the tomatoes. They seemed fine and I left them in
the oven because I wanted them to be really dry and nice. An hour and fifteen minutes later, when I was finally ready to get
them out, Dick was right in front of the oven, putting his fava beans in the Robot Coupe. If I went over there, I figured,
he would probably refuse to move just to spite me. I decided to wait a few more minutes until he was finished and away from
the communal oven.

I got caught up with other things, and fifteen minutes later I realized I had not taken my tomatoes out. When I got them they
had dwindled to nothing. I debated whether I should try to do it again or settle for these. I looked at the clock and thought
if I rushed I could do them again and end right on time. I proceeded forward and did my meat and sauce. I cut up my bones
and put the trimmings on my pan to caramelize them along with my vegetables. The sauce I got didn’t taste like anything, so
I reduced it until it was savory. The fava beans were ready in two minutes, but when I sautéed them I had a little crisis
trying to get aluminum foil, and ended up overcooking them and forgot the salt.

I didn’t want to overcook the lamb, but it became a guessing game for me to determine how long it needed to be in the oven
to be pink. Then I worked on my stuffing and I really loved it. In fact, I loved it so much that I put too much of it in the
lamb. I thought it was so good, so I didn’t want to waste any of it. I wrapped the lamb with crépine, or pig intestine, to
seal it. I didn’t want to use too much of it because it looks weird and a little disgusting. I had the lamb in my oven, but
after around six minutes I panicked. I thought if I left it in the oven for nine minutes it was going to get overcooked so
I turned off the oven and took it out. I discovered I hadn’t used enough crépine because it burst open coming out of the oven.
Now, why did I turn off the oven? I really thought it was cooked and I wanted to finish so badly. This is the one regret I
will take to my grave! I took out the lamb, left it in the aluminum foil to settle, and figured if it was very pink it would
still continue to cook under the aluminum foil. Minutes later I checked and I saw it wasn’t cooked. I turned the oven back
on, but I couldn’t get it to cook the lamb anymore!

I looked up at the clock: all of a sudden I had ten minutes left to put everything together. Praying that the lamb would somehow
cook just a few more minutes, I put my four plates on the bains-marie, which had gotten too hot to work on. I turned off the
burners under them and began the assembly process. I took out my circular mold and put the bell pepper
tian
in it, forming nice little circles. I cut the lamb into four pieces; the stuffed lamb looked huge and was too big for a
dégustation
plate. With three minutes left I had no choice but to leave them like that. The hard part was the olives. I wanted to use
flowers as my decoration on the plate and was trying to arrange the tiny olive slices in the shapes of petals. They kept sticking
to my fingertips and my hands were trembling. This was the most stressful thing I had ever attempted. As if things weren’t
bad enough, next to me Dick casually began to assemble his plates over the bains-marie. He looked around for his mold and
couldn’t find it.

“Who took my mold?” asked Dick loudly so that I could hear. Everyone was too busy to pay attention to him.

“I’m missing my mold,” Dick announced. I did everything to ignore him and then he walked up to Chef Papillon. “Chef, someone
stole my mold.”

I thought, Who the fuck has time to steal your pinchi mold, gringo!

“No one stole your mold. I’m sure we’ll find it,” Chef Papillon said to calm him down.

“No, someone took it! I need it,” he said, practically stomping his foot like a toddler. Dick started to panic, and had I
not been trembling like a freezing Chihuahua with two minutes left to finish I would have laughed in his face because his
karma was kicking his ass… Dick walked up to my stove and pointed to a mold on the top shelf.

“Well, what’s that?” he demanded. I grabbed the mold and showed him the red dot I’d made with nail polish to mark my equipment.

“It’s mine, I just used it,” I said, trying not to bite his head off for being an inconsiderate fucking jerk. I put away the
mold and placed it on my
planchette
. I continued to work on the last of the olive slices, settling for flowers with three petals instead of four. Then Dick walked
up to my
planchette
and like Inspector Clouseau, grabbed the mold off my
planchette,
and said, “Well, what about this one?”

“It’s the same one I just showed you,” I said. I saw his desperate look and felt sorry for that loser. “Do you want to borrow
it? You can borrow it,” I said with compassion, surprising myself. I hadn’t known I’d had any kindness left for that ass.
He shook his head and continued hunting for his mold. With one minute left I threw the sauce on the four dishes as Chef Papillon
and his assistant came up to my stove like Nazis ready to take away my four children. They grabbed the hot plates and ordered
me to carry the saucer with my sauce down to the first floor, where the three chefs on the jury awaited my dish. Two of the
chefs on the jury were retired chefs with more opinions than white hair. Chef Chocon saw the dishes coming in with the giant
pieces of stuffed lamb and immediately commented on how my dish
agneau à la Mexicaine-Américaine
was really a
dégustation
plate for Americans. I hated being there for his joke and immediately slipped out before they commented on my undercooked
lamb.

Four hours of labor and the results were disappointing. I’d done the best I could, but it was a mess. I went back to my stove
to clean up and saw that Dick’s presentation looked great. The fact that my plates looked like a disaster would only make
his shine even more, since he was the next to present. Glad I could be of service, jerk. Dick’s plate was so simple. I should
have done something stupid and simple like him, but my dish ended up being so complicated. I felt like such a failure after
I finished, though when I saw Akiva scrounging around for leftover tomatoes, I realized that maybe my food was not perfect
but I’d finished on time and hadn’t burnt anything. Akiva had burnt all of his food and had had to restart, making a whole
new dish that he was forced to improvise with all the leftovers from the other students. I remembered my promise to just enjoy
this class and not get caught up in the competition and started to clean up my station. When I was washing my dishes I saw
Bianca crying and offered to help her, since I was done. But she was such an emotional mess that she snapped at me and told
me not to talk to her. I gave Bianca her space and went down to the locker room.

After I dressed I looked for Blanca, who had finished an hour before me. She was calm about the whole thing and had no mishaps
to report. She was a pro and was very satisfied with her work. Blanca told me she had to run off to work and said she would
see me the next day at the restaurant where we were supposed to celebrate our graduation. I walked outside with her to get
some fresh air and commiserate with all the other students who had also just finished. Pepa was smoking her lungs out and
got close to tears when she revealed to us that her lamb was undercooked. She reflected on her whole process like a boxer
who couldn’t explain how he had been knocked out when everything was going in his favor. Pepa shook her head and counted the
minutes until they posted the grades on the wall. She couldn’t imagine not passing the class after all the personal sacrifices
she’d made. If she didn’t pass she could not come back and try again. Her family life and her schedule would not permit it.
This was the first time I had seen Pepa so distraught. Normally she was the fearless wisecracking mother hen who was in charge
of the kitchen.

“Ten weeks is hard, but four months of this is crazy,” Pepa said. I kept listening to Pepa and wanted to cry too. I’d thought
that after doing Le Coq Rouge I would be able to do amazing things in the kitchen, but at this moment, despite my promise,
I felt even worse about my cooking skills. I was glad I didn’t want to be a chef, because it was really gut-wrenching and
soul-shattering. From observing what all the students here went through, I’d learned that food is about who you are. It’s
like being undressed and saying, Look at me naked. Do you like what you see?

“I’m sure we all passed because they already printed the diplomas,” Miguel Angel said, trying to console her.

“Yeah, but they can easily tear them up,” responded Pepa.

“I’m sure we all passed.” Miguel Angel insisted, trying to cheer her up. “You’d have to burn the food and set the kitchen
on fire for them to flunk you. There’s no way you can’t pass after what you’ve been through.”