Page 32 of From Paris, with Butter
“I’m so sorry about the trouble,” I told them. “Fortunately, afternoon is my favorite time to be in the Eiffel Tower. The light makes everything gorgeous.” But that did nothing to placate them.
They spent the entire meal checking their watches and ordering me to bring out the courses more quickly so they could get back to their itinerary. Each time I brought out a new dish, they scarfed it down as I was still explaining it, clearing their plates in under a minute.
As I was removing dishes, I caught a glance of a sheet of paper at the man’s elbow. It was their itinerary for the day, each hour filled with at least one activity.
My quick look was enough to see that they had four museums to visit, and they’d be ending their day with a ballet production of Sleeping Beauty. (I’d seen that ballet last week and knew it was a solid three hours.) They gestured for the check the moment they finished their final course (I was expecting it and had the bill ready and waiting), then left nearly at a run.
“Well, I hope they enjoy their trip,” Leïla said, passing by as I cleared the table. I looked at her and grinned. She’d been steadily gaining confidence and was no longer so silent and worried-looking at work. Now she was even making quips.
During the break between the lunch and dinner shifts I made a beeline for the kitchens. There, I sat on one of the tiny stools and recounted my dinner with Laurent to Chef La Croix. He found the experience very trying.
“How,howcan you walk through every precise step of a recipe when you bake, but when you fill a pot with oil and put it over a fire you never think to test the temperature?” he said despairingly, eyes turned heavenward. “I am certain Alain Passard’s staff do not hurt him like this.”
I was in such high spirits that his reaction didn’t even slow me down. Plus, I didn’t find Chef La Croix nearly as terrifying as I had before.
When I got to the part of the evening where I underbaked the tarte flambée crust, Chef La Croix actually dropped his ladle and covered his face with his hands.
“I would prefer to be stabbed with a steak knife than present an underdone tarte,” he said, his voice slightly muffled. “I would rather be force fed a PB&J sandwich, with its flabby white bread and offensive flavor profile, every day until my death rather than pull a dish out of the oven early.”
Chef La Croix regularly expounded on his hatred for peanut butter and jelly, and I let him continue for some time before interrupting.
“And we’re going to La Forêt next week,” I said, grinning like a maniac.
Chef La Croix dropped his hands. “You don’t deserve a nice meal. You don’t deserve anything more than American white bread and water for the remainder of your life.”
He sighed heavily. “But I’m happy for you. Now please, let me get back to my risotto. And never,neverlet me hear about you underbaking a crust again.”
Yasmine was hardly any better. Though supportive of my cooking attempts, she actually made fake retching noises when I went on too long extolling Laurent’s virtues.
“Sorry,” she said, not looking a bit of it. “It’s just that you’ve been ononedate with him.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s not bad to be excited about a new date.”
Yasmine smiled. “I’ve never met anyone who’s been on so many terrible dates yet remains such a hopeless romantic. You’re right. Just promise me that when he starts acting like a jerk—ifhe starts acting like a jerk,”she quicklyamended when I shot her a look, “You dump him. Remember that guy you dated who complained nonstop about you baking late at night?”
“I do, and I did dump him,” I reminded Yasmine. “He certainly didn’t deserve my midnight croissants.”
Yasmine still looked serious. “Just tell him that if he ever makes my happiest friend cry, I’ll scratch the hell out of every one of his nonstick pans.”
I grinned. “I’m sure that’ll have Laurent shaking in his patent leather shoes.”
It had been unseasonably cold all week, and the skies opened just as the dinner shift began. Rain came down in buckets.
“The weather is terrible,” a woman at my first table said. Her tone suggested I had purposely conspired with the weather gods to ruin her day.
“Paris certainly likes to keep us on our toes!” I said, pouring them water. “We have vin chaud on the menu if you’d like something to warm you up.”
“We should get a discount because of the weather,” her partner said. I simply smiled at that.
When I brought their first course—a gorgeous citrus salad with fresh crab—they appraised it with pursed lips.
“It’s not very much food,” the woman said.
“This first course is an apéritif,” I explained. “Your meal includes seven courses, and nearly all our diners feel they’ve had a satisfactory amount of food by the end of it.”
“It seems very basic for the price we’re paying,” the man told me. Despite Luc requesting all diners to leave their umbrellas in the rack up front, this man had insisted on bringing his with him. He’d even dragged a chair over to lay the umbrella on it.
For a moment I was distracted, watching the chair’s fabric saturate with water. Once they left, I’d have to take the chair to the staff room and blast it with a hair dryer.
