My Life in France Read online

  Near the end of 1950, Lee Brady was suddenly ordered to Saigon as public-affairs officer (PAO) in charge of USIS activities for Indochina—a most difficult and dangerous assignment indeed. He would be forced to work with the Bao Dai regime, which had not been freely chosen by the majority of citizens. Paul grew upset that the U.S.A. often found itself supporting weaklings and stooges—King George in Greece, Chiang Kai-shek in China, Tito in Yugoslavia, and now Bao Dai. What was an emissary of the U.S. government supposed to say when the Communists claimed, correctly, that his government supported a puppet, dictator, or horror?

  VII. THE ARTISTES

  IT WAS OCTOBER, and cold, but those wonderfully juicy and perfumed Parisian pears were in season, and despite our tender tummies we ate them for breakfast, along with bowls of cornflakes and Grape-Nuts. We would wash it all down with Chinese tea, which had a less poisonous effect on our plumbing than coffee.

  Oh, it was so cold now. I hated it. The water hadn’t frozen in the gutters yet, although it was twenty-seven degrees and should have. It took real courage to leave our warm(ish) salon and venture into the frigorification of the house, where our breaths came out as steam. Every year at this time, I found myself thinking about our toasty little house in Washington, D.C.: push a button, and the entire place was warm in literally five minutes. But, I scolded myself, I’d had such a soft life—never known Hunger, never known true Fear, or been forced to live under the boot heel of an Enemy—that it was good for me to have an idea of what so many people in the world were going through.

  On November 7, 1950, we celebrated our second anniversary in Paris. On a whim, Paul and I decided to indulge ourselves at one of our places, Restaurant des Artistes, up near Sacré-Coeur. At the Chambre des Députés we jumped on a metro to the Place Pigalle, and walked a couple of blocks toward the Montmartre hill. Along the way, we stopped to look at the pictures of naked girls in front of Les Naturistes. As we stood there gazing at a funny photo of a line of girls, back to the camera, holding their skirts up to show a row of bare buttocks, a young, fast-talking tout was giving us a non-ending pitch on the glories awaiting us within, uttered in about five languages—French, German, Italian, English, and a weird one which might have been Turkish. We laughed and kept moving along the avenue, crowded cheek-to-jowl with shooting galleries, strongman tests, and merry-go-rounds. We paused to shoot ten arrows with an all-metal bow, then, at Rue Lepic, we ducked into the restaurant.

  The Artistes was a small, neat place with only ten tables (about forty seats) in its dining room. But stashed away in its cave were some fifty thousand bottles of exquisite wine. The dining room was warm and always filled with that wonderful smell of good cooking—a white-wine fish stock reducing, a delectable something being sautéed in the best butter, the refreshing sting of a salad tossed in a vinaigrette.

  As we came through the door, Monsieur Caillon, the maître d’hôtel and owner, and his wife, the cashier, greeted us like the prodigal son and daughter. Their young daughter (that lucky girl) was in the kitchen with Chef Mangelatte, one of my favorite teachers at the Cordon Bleu. He was a small, intense man with dark hair and piercing dark eyes. He had started his career as a pastry chef and, like many of that special breed, had evolved into a precise cook. Mangelatte had eloquent hands, and was as skillful as a surgeon. I’d seen him vider a full chicken—plucking out the pinfeathers, degutting, and cutting the bird into pieces—in four minutes flat.

  At eight-thirty, we began dinner with an apéro of Blanc de Blanc and cassis. Sitting at the next table were a fat Belgian and his plump wife, eating slices of lièvre à la royale and imbibing from a dust-covered bottle of 1924 Burgundy. As we chatted with them about wine, our first course arrived: a loup de mer (sea bass), its stomach cavity stuffed with fennel, grilled over charcoal. With this we drank a lovely 1947 Château- Chalon, a white from the Jura, which had a deep-topaz color and an interesting taste, almost like Manzanilla. (“It is made from grapes that are picked and hung to dry like raisins for about six months,” Monsieur Caillon said.) After that, Paul had two venison cutlets with a wine sauce that was so deep and richly concentrated it looked almost black, accompanied by a chestnut purée. I had roasted alouettes (larks) and puffed-up potatoes. We drank a bottle of Saint-Émilion 1937. Finally, a wedge of Brie and coffee. A perfect meal.

  By eleven, we were the last customers in the dining room. Chef Mangelatte emerged from his kitchen and joined the Caillons at our table. We discussed French cooking, and Mangelatte said that the French culinary arts were slowly going downhill. In response to this crisis, he’d organized an academy of professional chefs, limited to fifty members, whose goal was to promote classical cuisine. They were jointly writing a cookbook that would set forth the whole gamut of classical dishes. He hoped to find a financial backer, so that the group could issue awards for new dishes, much as the Goncourt Academy does for literature (the Prix Goncourt).

  When the conversation drifted, inevitably, to the Cordon Bleu, Mangelatte revealed that he felt the school was doing a great disservice to the métier, as the administration was focused on a mad scramble for money rather than on the excellent training of their pupils. The school had lowered its standards, he said, and sometimes didn’t even have basic commodities like pepper or vinegar for the chefs to demonstrate with. A boy had to scurry out around the corner to buy what was needed with the chef’s own money! His chefs’ group saw an opportunity to establish a rival school, a really high-standard establishment to teach the classical métier.

  I greatly admired Mangelatte’s devotion to his craft and the systematic way he was attempting to ensure that the traditions were passed along. But it was sad to see that even such an energetic chef, with such a deep-seated sense of artistry, had to fight so hard to protect a civilized piece of French culture from barbarism. On the way home, Paul lamented that if he’d only known about the chef’s cooking academy a year earlier, he probably could have funneled ECA money for tourism into it; but now, with America’s focus swinging from butter to guns, it was too late.

  “THROWN ANY PIES lately?” These were the first words that Ivan Cousins said to Dort. She burst out laughing, but didn’t recognize him.

  He was a short, dapper, musical Massachusetts man of Irish stock. Before the war, he had gone to visit friends at Bennington College, in Vermont. Sitting in the dining room there, he noticed a strikingly tall, thin, vivacious woman throw a pie in the face of another girl, then run off cackling. That was my sister.

  Ivan recognized Dort at the American Club Theatre in Paris, where she worked in the business office and he had just signed on as an actor. When he wasn’t working his day job with the Economic Cooperation Administration (ECA), which administered the Marshall Plan, Ivan starred in such plays as Thornton Wilder’s Happy Journeys. During the war, he had volunteered for the navy, where he rose to lieutenant commander and captained a PT boat in the Pacific (he was nearly blown sky-high by a floating mine). After the war, his navy friend the poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti—who called himself Larry Ferling—convinced Ivan to join him in Paris to “cool out.” In Paris, Ivan roomed with Ferlinghetti and joined the expat swirl.

  Toasting Dort and Ivan

  Dort and Ivan began to date and hang around with the theater’s young, self-consciously bohemian crowd. After a bit, we oldsters had suggested that it might be a good idea for Dort to find a place of her own. She agreed that it was time, and found a little garçonnière—a small apartment, so named because families rent them for their sons (and their girlfriends)—on the Boulevard de la Tour Maubourg. It was on the Left Bank, near the Pont Alexandre III, not far from Roo de Loo.

  BY CHRISTMASTIME, which we once again spent with the Bicknells in Cambridge, England, Paul had a renewed appetite, had finally gained a few pounds, and was sleeping like a veritable Yule log. My tummy troubles had also disappeared. And so, during the quiet holiday, we ate a lot of local fare, like Scottish pheasant, and cakes imbued with the concentrated essence of essential concentrates.
On Christmas Eve, Mari and I once again made a soufflé Grand Marnier, which we accompanied with a bottle of Château d’Yquem 1929. It was still a perfect combination, and now a holiday tradition.

  We were back in Paris by New Year’s Eve. I took a hot bath at nine-fifteen and retired to bed with a book. Paul wrote letters. At eleven-fifteen we hoisted glasses of Pouilly-Fumé, toasted the future, and went to sleep.

  VIII. SURPRISE

  BY LATE 1950, I felt ready to take my final examination, and earn my diplôme from the Cordon Bleu. But when I asked Madame Brassart to schedule the test—politely, at first, and then with an increasing insistence—my requests were met with stony silence. The truth is that Madame Brassart and I got on each other’s nerves. She seemed to think that awarding students a diploma was like inducting them into some kind of secret society; as a result, the school’s hallways were filled with an air of petty jealousy and distrust. From my perspective, Madame Brassart lacked professional experience, was a terrible administrator, and tangled herself up in picayune details and petty politics. Because of its exalted reputation, the Cordon Bleu’s pupils came from all over the globe. But the lack of a qualified and competent head was hurting the school—and could damage the reputation of French cooking, or even France herself, in the eyes of the world.

  I was sure that the little question of money had something to do with Madame Brassart’s evasiveness. I had taken the “professional” course in the basement rather than the “regular” (more expensive) course upstairs that she had recommended; I never ate at the school; and she didn’t make as much money out of me as she would have liked. It seemed to me that the school’s director should have paid less attention to centimes and more attention to her students, who, after all, were—or could be—her best publicity.

  After waiting and waiting for my exam to be scheduled, I sent Madame Brassart a stern letter in March 1951, noting that “all my American friends and even the U.S. ambassador himself” knew I had been slaving away at the Cordon Bleu, “morning, noon and night.” I insisted that I take the exam before I left on a long-planned trip to the U.S.A., in April. If there was not enough space at the school, I added, then I would be happy to take the exam in my own well-appointed kitchen.

  More time passed, and still no response. I was good and fed up, and finally spoke to Chef Bugnard about the matter. He agreed to make inquiries on my behalf. Lo and behold, Madame Brassart suddenly scheduled my exam for the first week in April. Ha! I continued to hone my technique, memorize proportions, and prepare myself in every way I could think of.

  On the Big Day, I arrived at the school and they handed me a little typewritten card that said: “Write out the ingredients for the following dishes, to serve three people: oeufs mollets avec sauce béarnaise; côtelettes de veau en surprise; crème renversée au caramel.”

  I stared at the card in disbelief.

  Did I remember what an oeuf mollet was? No. How could I miss that? (I later discovered that it was an egg that has been coddled and then peeled.) How about the veau “en surprise”? No. (A sautéed veal chop with duxelles—hashed mushrooms—on either side, overlayed with ham slices, and all wrapped up in a paper bag—the “surprise”—that is then browned in the oven.) Did I remember the exact proportions for caramel custard? No.

  Merde alors, and flûte!

  Madame Brassart giving out diplomas

  I was stuck, and had no choice but to make everything up. I knew I would fail the practical part of the exam. As for the written exam, I was asked how to make fond brun, how to cook green vegetables, and how to make sauce béarnaise. I answered them fully and correctly. But that didn’t take away the sting.

  I was furious at myself. There was no excuse for not remembering what a mollet was, or, especially, the details of a caramel custard. I could never have guessed at the veau en surprise, though, as the paper wrapping was just a lot of tomfoolery—the kind of gimmicky dish a little newlywed would serve up for her first dinner party to épater the boss’s wife. Caught up in my own romanticism, I had focused on learning far more challenging fare—filets de sole Walewska, poularde toulousaine, sauce Vénitienne. Woe!

  There were no questions about complicated dishes or sauces, no discussion about which techniques and methods I’d use. Instead, they wanted me to memorize basic recipes taken from the little Cordon Bleu booklet, a publication written for beginner cooks that I had hardly bothered to look at. This exam was far too simple for someone who had devoted six months of hard work to cooking school, not to mention countless hours of her own time in the markets and behind the stove.

  My disgruntlement was supreme, my amour-propre enraged, my bile overboiling. Worst of all, it was my own fault!

  I despaired that the school would ever deign to grant me a certificate. Me, who could pluck, flame, empty, and cut up a whole chicken in twelve minutes flat! Me, who could stuff a sole with forcemeat of weakfish and serve it with a sauce au vin blanc such as Madame Brassart could never hope to taste the perfection of! Me, the Supreme Mistress of mayonnaise, hollandaise, cassoulets, choucroutes, blanquettes de veau, pommes de terre Anna, soufflé Grand Marnier, fonds d’artichauts, oignons glacés, mousse de faisan en gelée, ballottines, galantines, terrines, pâtés . . . Me, alas!

  Later that afternoon, I slipped down to the Cordon Bleu’s basement kitchen by myself. I opened the school’s booklet, found the recipes from the examination—oeufs mollets with sauce béarnaise, côtelettes de veau en surprise, and crème renversée au caramel—and whipped them all up in a cold, clean fury. Then I ate them.

  CHAPTER 3

  Three Hearty Eaters

  I. LES GOURMETTES

  ONE FRIDAY IN APRIL 1951, I invited eight members of Le Cercle des Gourmettes for lunch at 81 Rue de l’Université. The Gourmettes was an exclusive women’s eating club started back in 1929 by some wives of the all-male Club des Cent (the premier men’s gastronomic club, limited to one hundred members) to show that women knew something about food, too. Most of the Gourmettes were in their seventies, of the right sort of family background, and were mostly French—although their leader, Madame Paulette Etlinger, was a spry old American who spoke in a kind of half-English/half-French of her own. They met for lunches or dinners in a model kitchen lent by the EDF (Électricité et Gaz de France) every other Friday for a cours de cuisine: while a professional chef did the cooking and teaching, the Gourmettes gabbled and gossiped, and sometimes helped with things like peeling and seeding, then sat down to a stupendous lunch.

  I had joined the club a few months earlier, urged on by Madame Etlinger, who wanted more American members. It was terribly amusing, as I met all types of Frenchwomen and learned quite a bit about cooking.

  I had instigated the Gourmettes’ lunch chez nous because I enjoyed the members’ dedication and wanted to get to know them better. But my real agenda was to help Chef Bugnard, who was retiring from the Cordon Bleu and was looking for catering work and private lessons. Although I never mentioned it blatantly, my plan was that Bugnard would cook such an impressive meal that my guests would want to hire him themselves.

  The Gourmettes took themselves rather seriously, and as I rushed about, dusting and straightening things, I noticed that my favorite Aubagne pottery suddenly looked a bit too rustic, and that there was more than one spot where the ancient wallpaper sagged from the wall. We had a lovely set of wineglasses, but I had to run downstairs to borrow some decent silverware from Madame Perrier. No sooner had I finished spiffing up than the doorbell rang.

  My eight guests ranged in age from about forty-five to seventy-three, and were all Frenchwomen who had lived elegantly “dans le temps.” Each had a discerning and expectant look in her eye.

  Chef Bugnard started us off with tortues of crab pounded together with shrimp and herbs and mayonnaise, served in pastry shells with toast on the side. Then came a fantastic poularde Waterzooi: chicken poached in white wine and white bouillon, on a bed of julienned carrots, leeks, and onions that had been pre-cooked in bu
tter; slathered on top was a sauce made with egg yolks and cream. And for the grand finale, he served crêpes Suzettes flambées, which he presented with a theatrical, flaming flourish.

  Sitting back with satisfied smiles at the end of the meal, the delighted Gourmettes agreed that my dear old chef had done a fine job indeed.

  When the Gourmettes gathered for a meal, their husbands—calling themselves les Princes Consorts Abandonés—would often meet on their own for a fabulous restaurant luncheon. Paul was visibly excited by this prospect, and was not disappointed by his first outing with the Princes: “This appears to be the group of civilized, witty, intelligent gourmets I’ve been looking for all these years,” he said. On special occasions, the Gourmettes and Princes would share a meal together. Once, a mob of about thirty of us trooped out into the countryside to eat at a charming farmhouse restaurant, and another time fifty of us were taken on a guided tour of the Chambre des Députés, where we saw the speaking room, the wonderful old library, the murals and statues, and had a splendid lunch at the députés’ own restaurant. As with le groupe Foçillon, we felt lucky to have found such an interesting bunch of like-minded, and very French, friends.

  ONE NIGHT we hit the town. Paul and I were joined by Cora du Bois and Jeanne Taylor, friends from the OSS days, for dinner at the Tour d’Argent. The restaurant was excellent in every way, except that it was so pricey that every guest was American. At eleven-thirty, we drove up to the Place du Tertre, where we struggled past the barkers and milling tourists in the narrow streets. At the Lapin Agile we paid two thousand francs and squeezed our way to some stools in back. The air was foggy with tobacco smoke, and a chap played boogie-woogie on an upright piano. We ordered brandied cherries, but they never arrived. Finally, a man with a good baritone voice sang four traditional French folk songs, and then we crammed our way outside again and breathed deeply in the cool night air. We strolled along the terrace in front of Sacré-Coeur to stare down at the city. Paris was serene and quiet in the moonlight, and seemed to stretch away to infinity.