Hungry Woman in Paris (7 page)

So what was I going to do? Would I keep this room and live in Paris and ditch my apartment in L.A., with all my belongings,
or would I go back? I looked around for answers, automatically opening the fridge to get food. I noticed Rosemary’s rotting
cheese. Since she wasn’t coming back, I could finally get rid of it. I stared at the cheese; it looked all disfigured, like
a dead rat whose insides had imploded. Poor cheese, I thought. I cleaned the sink and washed my dirty dishes and started to
laugh at the thought of cooking school. Then I recalled my sisters laughing at me when I tried making a cream-cheese-and-salsa
dip that ended up looking like vomit. I’d be the first to admit it was worse-looking than vomit, but I’d felt so tiny in their
eyes. The fact that I was a very intelligent, educated, accomplished, and competent woman who could not make a simple dip
was just so hilarious to them. This was the sign that although I could compete with men, I failed as a woman because I couldn’t
do the most basic thing, like make dip. That was the last time I’d attempted to do anything related to food. As a journalist
always on deadline, I considered food simply fuel and not the meaning of life. I saw a movie about a woman chef who had no
family, but at the end of the movie she makes a dinner for several passionless people in a tiny village in Denmark and everyone
ends up happy and her life has meaning again. I thought how empty her life must have been that making a meal was that important.
Just being in Paris for two and a half months had made me see that, for the French, spending more than two hours on a meal
and spending another three in the grocery store and in the kitchen gave meaning to their thirty-five-hour workweek.
Life is food; food is life
was a thought that flowed out of the river of my stream of consciousness.

I flashed back to the past and relived that moment, but this time I had prepared a fancy French appetizer. This time everyone
was impressed that I could do such a thing, and they didn’t laugh because they were too busy trying to say
foie gras
or
terrine
or some other difficult-to-pronounce dish. Hmm, how would my life have been different? I wondered. Then I flashed to the
future and imagined myself, having already graduated from the most famous cooking school, as that woman in that food movie
making a feast for my repressed and passionless family. Of course a repressed and passionless Mexican-American family will
look like a very passionate and enthusiastic WASP family… so I prepare this amazing meal and not only am I an amazing
journalist, but I can also cook. Now I am complete. I am competent and capable like a man, and sensual and creative like a
woman.

Yes, it was a silly fantasy, but it was the best thing I could think of for now. Maybe if I learned how to cook I could transform
my relationship to food. I could look at food as food and eat for pleasure and, like Frenchwomen, not get fat. Maybe I could
finally lose these twenty pounds I keep losing and gaining. It would be easier to tell people back home that I went to Paris
to study cuisine than to tell them the truth: that I left to get away from my neurotic mother and kill time until I could
figure out what to do with my life… or end my life.

Yeah, I could go to cooking school, get my
carte de séjour,
and hang out in France for a year cooking, becoming a food connoisseur, and learning French. At the very least I could become
a food critic to make a living. “Okay, I have a plan!” I celebrated. Though I still couldn’t call my mother and share my plan
because her laughter would crush me.

I
got off the metro and couldn’t find the Le Coq Rouge building. I studied my map and, after a few tries, I broke down and
asked for directions. I’m like a guy when it comes to directions: I can do it on my own! But I didn’t want to be late for
my appointment. Finally, a retired man with a beret was nice enough to pay attention to me and point. I found the building
and realized that I had passed it many times, but the big red rooster on the window had made me think it was a rotisserie
instead of the cooking school. Then, like a big ol’ dummy, I went, Oh—
le coq rouge
means the red rooster, the national symbol of France. Somebody please kick me. I went to the front counter and waited as
the receptionist spoke to a short American girl with a ponytail who looked like she had just graduated from high school.

“You must fuckus,” said the receptionist with a thick French accent. The American girl’s ponytail practically stood up, but
she stared at the receptionist, not sure what she meant.

“What do you mean?” she inquired delicately.

“Fuckus, fuckus—you know: pay more attention.” The receptionist said it louder in her best English and leaned forward to make
her point.

“You mean
fo
-cus.” The short American girl overpronounced the word to help the receptionist avoid making Americans blush. “Yes, I have
trouble with that. I have a doctor’s note explaining why I can’t focus,” she continued, expecting some sympathy, but the receptionist
turned her attention away from the girl and asked me if I had an appointment. I nodded and she pointed me to a hallway. I
walked past an opened door of a demonstration room with a chef chopping up vegetables before a class of about fifty students,
all watching in awe. I continued down the hallway to a tiny courtyard where other foreigners like me waited for their tour.
After a few minutes, a representative in a stylish red suit welcomed us in several languages. The woman looked like a Latina
and spoke English with a Latin American accent I could not place. She told us how Le Coq Rouge was one of the oldest and most
prestigious cooking schools in the world. She pointed at a bronze emblem that stated the date of establishment, in case we
didn’t believe her.

“Graduating from this school is an accomplishment that automatically tells your future employer you are serious about being
a chef,” she bragged. She also emphasized the fact that enrolling in cooking school in Paris was the dream of so many people
around the world, but only a few special people got to accomplish that dream. Would we be one of those lucky people? Although
this was supposed to be the Harvard of cooking schools, the building was tiny and I noticed a few paint cracks in the courtyard,
covered up by small palms that needed to be tended to. She took us quickly to the demonstration rooms and the kitchens. There
were kitchens with up to fourteen students per class, divided into three levels: Basic, Intermediate, and Superior. She explained
how it was possible to get your diploma in both pastry and cuisine or in just one.

I raised my hand. “Are the classes only in French?” I asked.

“They are all in French, but there is an English translator for Basic and Intermediate Cuisine. If you take Superior you must
be able to understand French to graduate from this school. But if you start taking French now you will be able to understand
by the time you take Superior Cuisine.” She smiled after her canned reply.

After the tour we were all handed fancy red folders with the prices and dates. She ended the tour by inviting us to a buffet
of food the students in catering had just made. I approached her and told her I was interested in enrolling. She walked me
over to the admissions agent, who gave me several forms to fill out.

“Congratulations on your decision,” Marie-Hélène, the admissions agent, assured me in her French-accented English.

I asked her to calculate the price for me in dollars and my eyes went blind for a few seconds. My God, I thought, I could
be going to Harvard for a year for the price I’m paying at this school. Yeah, but you really can’t brag about going to Harvard
for just one year, like you can about going to Paris and studying cuisine and getting a diploma in a year. So I’m paying for
bragging rights. I can live with that. I asked her if I could pay with a credit card and she said only half of it could be
paid that way. I asked her if they would take foreign checks and she said only wire transfers. I filled out all the paperwork;
as soon as my wire transfer came in, I would be officially enrolled. She asked me if I wanted to start right away or wait
the eight weeks until the next class.

“I can’t wait eight weeks; by then I’ll have been here for over three months. I need a
carte de séjour,
” I confided in her.

“Then you have to start next week so we can start the process for your
carte de séjour
. You’re very lucky there is an opening. We just had an American student drop out this morning from the Intensive Basic Cuisine.”

“The Intensive?”

“The class I’m enrolling you in is the Intensive Basic Cuisine. It’s not the normal class; it’s a fast-paced class. You do
in five weeks what you would normally do in ten.” I stared at her for a few seconds, clutching my application.

“Are you ready to begin your exciting culinary career?” Marie-Hélène asked, trying to reassure me that I was making the right
decision. I stared blankly up at her, not believing what I was about to do. I handed over my application, and she quickly
snatched it before I had a chance to change my mind.

My little sister Rosie was the only person I trusted to help me with the wire transfer. I would tell her it was money to pay
for a journalism course or whatever, and she would send it without asking more questions. My mother must be psychic, because
she just happened to be visiting Rosie and was next to the phone when I called.

“So where are you and what are you doing?” she fired at me before I had a chance to disguise my voice and ask for my little
sister.

“I’m in Paris… and I’m going to be here working until the end of the year,” I blurted out.

“¿Estas loca? This is crazy. You will regret passing up Armando. He loves you and he’s a doctor. I know you couldn’t care
less about your future, thinking you’ll always be beautiful and young, pero m’ija, life happens to everyone and you’re not
going to have your health and your good looks forever.”

“I know—” I started to defend myself, but she cut me off.

“No, you don’t know. If you finally get married, I won’t have to worry about you anymore. Now I’ll be stressed out even more
with you in another country. Come back now!” she demanded, and like a little kid I hung up the phone. I called my little sister
on her cell and saved myself the guilt trip.

On the first day of class I arrived at Le Coq Rouge forty-five minutes early by miscalculation and was embarrassed to let
anybody see me being so anxious. I walked up to reception, where the welcoming committee was already present, taking names
and passing out large folders. A short woman with red hair named Sélange handed me a folder. “Welcome to Le Coq Rouge. These
are your recipes,” she said, pointing me to the demonstration room on the first floor. I went in and observed all the Japanese
students already there, going over the rules and filling out their paperwork. I sat down at the front and looked at all the
incoming students. The roster had the names of the fourteen students taking the course and their countries of origin: Holland,
Brazil, Korea, Hong Kong, Mexico, Portugal, and of course the United States.

I opened my book and saw there were over ninety recipes. Each lesson was one appetizer or salad, a main dish, and a dessert.
All the names of the dishes were in French, but also translated into English. As I went through the recipes I heard Armando
telling me he was happy with the menu for our wedding reception. I had told him it wasn’t so exotic and interesting. He’d
begged me to tame my choices for the sake of his family. I’d gotten him to admit that his mother thought I was too wild to
make a good mother. We were opposites and that was great for a while, but after we argued over the menu I knew it was over.
Armando was a MAP, a Mexican-American Prince—educated, accomplished, polished, cultured, and loved his mother; but that was
the problem. He was a trophy husband, and I needed something meatier. He looked good on the menu, but he wasn’t a dish I wanted
to order for life. Yeah, it was the menu. His culinary choices were limited to beef and potatoes and I needed something colorful
and delicious. I desired one marriage and he wanted another. After the argument I began to go through the motions of a relationship,
but eventually I just had to be the courageous one to put a stop to the whole thing. My mother thought it was her fault that
I wasn’t married; she complained to me about my father too much and knew she ruined my picture of men for the rest of my life.
That’s partly true, though if I were a man and afraid of commitment, nobody would hassle me about it. But because I have a
vagina and healthy eggs, I was constantly put on the fryer for all my choices about the men I dated.

Sélange walked in, along with all the female administrative staff, and welcomed us once again. All the women introduced themselves,
including the receptionist, who introduced herself as Françoise, at our service. The fifty-something students from mostly
First World countries, or from rich families of poor countries, applauded. Finally the head chef of the school introduced
himself as Renault Sauber, a white-haired Robin Williams without all the body hair. He welcomed us in every language he knew
and told us that although there was a lot of work ahead we would have fun; he would make sure of it.