My friend Jacqueline, who is part of my French family, once framed her expectations for what constitutes a perfect dinner. She told me that she was having guests and that she wanted to be dressed nicely. She also said that she wanted to plan food that would not be so complicated that she wouldn’t be able to be with her guests. She went on to explain that she wanted the food to have a certain audacity, so that her guests would understand that she made extra effort on their behalf. And, finally, she said to me “I want you to help me, but I don’t want you to cook.”
One dish that exemplified her thinking was a pumpkin soup. She prepared it by sautéing a mirepoix of vegetables, a tiny dice of onions, carrots and celery. When they cooked soft and tasted sweet, she added the pumpkin and sweated it the same way. Next she added the liquid, half stock and half water, and let the flavors of her soup steep. She liquefied the mixture, poured it into a tureen and brought it to the table. As she ladled soup, people were filled with anticipation. They told her they recognized the aroma of pumpkin soup. But once the first bowl was filled, she picked up a block of foie gras, and a vegetable peeler, and shaved leaves of foie gras, the way you might do with a piece of Parma cheese, onto each soup as a garnish. The guests’ jaws dropped, and they marveled at her audacity. Mission accomplished.
I cooked for Jacqueline over the years, and when she liked something she would say, “You know, Robeirt, this is not bad.” It was how I learned that “not bad” was a compliment. When I asked her about that comment, she said with a smile, “We don’t want to give you a swell head.” One evening she was sitting next to me at the dinner table. I had served a savory tart, like a quiche. The crust was exceptional and, after she’d tasted it a couple of times, she picked a piece of it up on her fork and held it mid air. Before putting it in her mouth, she said, “Did you make this crust 60-40.” She was asking if I’d prepared the crust using a formula that called for 60 percent flour, 40 percent butter.
I recognized a few things in her comment. First, she did not say, “This isn’t bad.” I knew I was in a different league today. The fact that she engaged me in a technical discussion of tart-crust making was the compliment. She wanted me to know she knew her business. Third, the fork was poised, so there would be no back peddling. I had her. I turned to her, put my fork down, and said, “No, I made the tart dough, weight for weight. I used as much butter as flour.” She smiled, looked at the morsel of food poised on the fork, and before she popped it into her mouth with lust, said only loud enough for me to hear, “Assassin.” That was the ultimate compliment.
I told a story to the students gathered around the table at the Chef Studio a story about one of the times I taught in Italy. I wanted to demonstrate the difference I experienced between the French and Italians. Each week in Venice I would bring the cooking students to my friend’s mother’s apartment. His mother lived with her sister-in-law. These two kindly old ladies had a division of labor in their kitchen that they had worked out over the years and was written in stone. One boiled the potatoes, the other peeled and riced them. One shaped gnocchi, the other poached them. One put the sauce on them, the other finished them with a grating of cheese. They both served. The little dumplings were of course perfectly sublime.
When Zia and Nonna, Auntie and Grandma, had the students in their kitchen, they were very attentive to them. They would hold the hand of a student who’d asked a question as they explained what they were doing. They would pull the student to their side, taking them into their confidence, and say, “Cara, this is how you do this.” Once I asked a question, and the little Auntie who was standing next to me, turned and hit me on the back of the head, and said, “No, you don’t do that!” I was shocked and laughed at her audacity. I tried to recall if anyone had ever hit me on the head. Of course it was all done for affect, and they were the most hospitable hosts. In retrospect, however, it did make me realize that given the experience between the French and the Italians in the kitchen, I understood why I’m a Francophile.
