Prologue

This is Not For Pretend

As a little girl, while other children played house, I played restaurant.
In our basement, I set up two sets of child-sized chairs and tables topped with fabric remnants and plastic flowers. I scrawled menus in crayon, featuring the likes of licorice soup, Pez casserole and cotton candy pie. I pretended to prepare everything for my guests – often imaginary – in a broken-down Easy-Bake oven. My parents viewed it all as an overzealous game of tea.
     I think of that now, as I stand here in ill-fitting kitchen whites at the end of a cramped training kitchen in Paris. My handwritten notes from the day's demonstration, sheathed in a protective plastic liner, sit crowded within the 22 inches I’m allotted on the nine-foot long communal marble worktable. My blue-handled knives lay neatly along the edges of a scarred plastic cutting board. I feel the heat from the electric stove on my back. A chef who has headed up a legendary Paris restaurant now prowls this kitchen, barking out orders in French. 
     This is not for pretend.
     As we’ve done three or four times a week since January, this morning my Basic Cuisine class gathered en masse, on time and in uniform. We first watch a chef move through a three-hour demonstration, anxiously taking notes as we must repeat his lesson in a training kitchen later. This afternoon, I’m searing thick magrets de canard for a classic preparation of Duck à l’Orange. Magret are the breasts of moulard ducks force fed corn to fatten their livers for foie gras, a process that fattens everything on the duck. We must take care with the sauce, a slightly complicated preparation that requires cautious reduction of veal stock and orange juice, the sweetness tempered with vinegar. Our potatoes and carrots must be “turned,” a cut that transforms an otherwise unremarkable vegetable into a precise seven-sided torpedo shape.
     This is my life now. I am no longer a corporate refugee, sitting in my cubicle with photos of Paris tacked to the wall, dreaming about learning to cook at the world’s most famous culinary school. Three months ago, I walked out of my office for the last time, a heavy cardboard box filled with what felt like my entire life. A knot hit my throat in the elevator on my way down. It’s hard to know how to feel when you leave a job; it’s even harder when a job leaves you.
     I’ve traded that life for days spent soaking up heat in the kitchen, or absorbing knowledge from the chefs. I chop, braise, grill, roast and sauté. Every session in the kitchen feels like an exercise in stress loading. We must complete our recipes within two-and-a-half hours, shifting raw, whole ingredients into a finished, attractive dish presented to the chef on a warmed plate. The food must be hot, demonstrate technique, and above all, its flavor must appeal to the meticulous taste buds of the French chefs.
     Some of my classmates have cooked professionally. About half plan to go on to work as chefs. I fit into neither category. I just want to learn to cook. Some days it goes well, sometimes it doesn’t.
     Today, the chef is not in good humor. His mercurial moods have earned him a nickname from me, The Gray Chef, not only for his graying hair, but for the clouds that sometimes follow him into the kitchen.
     I take care as I arrange and finish my dish and present my plate to the chef for my daily grade. He does not smile as I put it down in front of him. Chef takes a quick taste with a spoon and his dour face darkens. Suddenly, a wrath is unleashed. My offense, ostensibly minor: a too-sweet sauce. But to the Gray Chef, this symbolizes a shameful culinary trespass – he believes I have not followed his mantra, to taste, taste, taste while cooking.
     “…C'EST HORRIBLE!” he shouts at me. With that, he begins a rant. “...ça n'est pas difficile !… Pourquoi présenteriez-vouz ce plat ?! …Vous ne pourriez pas servir ceci !”
     I snatch at words, trying to comprehend. “You,” “serve,” “no,” and “this.” 
     He slams a meaty fist against the counter, inadvertently tipping the edge of the plate I'd just presented. It spins hard on the marble worktable. The tense kitchen halts as the students freeze mid-motion. Chef’s face grows visibly red as he escalates his fierce attack on me in rapid-fire French.
     My head sinks as his voice rises and I try to fight back the tears. Not just from his diatribe, but the humiliation of being unable to defend myself. In the nine weeks since classes began, my college French has proven wretchedly inadequate.
     Everyone waits. The chef stares at me.
     They expect me to say something, anything in French to my defense. But I can’t think of a single word. He sighs. Like most chefs at the school, he speaks little English.
     Disappointed that I haven't grasped his insulting wrath en français, he waves me away and turns to the next student, a Taiwanese girl with thick glasses. As she apprehensively extends her plate, he volleys over one last assault, the coup de grâce:
     “Vous perdez votre temps!”
     My mind races to translate. Perdez? To misplace? To be lost? To waste. I move to the other words. You. Time. Your.
     Then comes the dawn.
     “You're wasting your time.”
     That’s it. I turn back to my oven. As the kitchen resumes its buzz, I start to cry. Robotically, I rush to pack up my knives and flee down the three flights of stairs to the cramped basement locker rooms where I escape into a pocket-sized staff bathroom and lock the door. I cannot stop the tears now. I have not sobbed like this in years. Then, I catch my reflection in the mirror.
     Under a buzzing fluorescent light, I see my smeared mascara and stained kitchen whites. I am 36, unemployed, and I’ve spent the last of my savings to pursue a dream of studying at Le Cordon Bleu only to be reduced to tears by a chef I hardly know in a language I barely understand.
     What am I doing here? Maybe this is all a big mistake.