The Monday Night Cooking School - By Erica Bauermeister Page 0,55

Valentine’s Day. I think Valentine’s Day is a gift, like the weather we had today. Here we are in the midst of winter. Our skin has been hibernating in layers of clothes for months; we are accustomed to gray. We can start to think that this is how it always will be. And then, there’s Valentine’s Day. A day to look in your lover’s eyes and see color. To eat something that plays with your taste buds and to remember romance.

“But here’s the thing.” Lillian ran her fingertips thoughtfully along the smooth surface of the wooden prep table in front of her. “If you live in your senses, slowly, with attention, if you use your eyes and your fingertips and your taste buds, then romance is something you’ll never need a greeting card to make you remember.”

Lillian looked out at her class, at Claire’s hair, still tousled from her baby’s exuberant good-bye, Antonia’s sleek black work blazer, Tom’s business shirt, rumpled at the end of a long day.

“It’s not always easy to slow our lives down. But just in case we need a little help, we have a natural opportunity, three times a day, to relearn the lesson.”

“Food?” Ian suggested with a grin.

“What a lovely idea,” Lillian responded.

“AS A SENSUALIST, your ingredients are your first priority,” Lillian remarked, holding up the bottle of thick green olive oil. “Beautiful, luscious ingredients will color the atmosphere of a meal and whatever follows it, as will those which are mean and cheap.” She poured a small portion of olive oil onto a plate, then dipped the tip of her finger in the liquid and licked it off contemplatively.

“Try this,” she said, passing the plate to Chloe, who sat at the end of the first row of chairs.

“It feels like a flower,” Chloe commented, sucking her finger to get the last of the liquid before passing the plate on to Antonia.

Lillian held up a second bottle, smaller and darker than the first. “Truly great balsamic vinegar is made through a long, careful process. The liquid is moved from one barrel to the next, each time taking on the flavors of a different type of wood—oak, cherry, and juniper—becoming denser and more complex with each step. Fifty-year-old vinegar is as highly prized and highly priced as great wine.”

“Ian, hold out your hand,” Lillian directed, and poured a few drops of balsamic vinegar, dense as molasses, in the curve of skin between his thumb and index finger.

“The best way to taste balsamic vinegar is with the warmth of your own skin,” Antonia explained to Ian, holding out her own hand toward the bottle.

After everyone had tasted the liquid from both bottles, Lillian set them all to tasks, half the class grating cheese and measuring white wine and kirsch and cornstarch, the other half washing lettuce and cutting up tomatoes and baguettes.

“Helen, put the grated cheese and cornstarch in a plastic bag and shake it. The cornstarch will coat the cheese and it will melt more smoothly,” Lillian suggested. “And, Carl, you can rub the inside of that red pot with a garlic clove. Some people like to leave the clove in the pot when they’re done, or even add others to it.”

“What are we making?” asked Claire.

“It’s fondue, right?” Ian jumped in.

“Indeed. It seemed like a fun choice for Valentine’s Day. Do any of you know where the word ‘fondue’ comes from?” Lillian asked the class.

“Fondre,” replied Helen without effort. “It’s French.”

“To melt,” added Lillian.

HELEN HAD ALWAYS wanted to live in France, although her French, studied assiduously in her early schooling, had over the years of college and marriage and children become an attic collection, r’s rolling like lumpy tricycle wheels, verb conjugations jumbled together without labels or organization. She had bought French audiotapes and the playful sparkle of syntax and syllables brought her delight, no matter how clumsy her attempts at imitation. She had always wondered whether, if she was given the chance, given a week, or two, to sink into another culture, this language would somehow rise out of her and become a way of thinking. What would she dream about, if she dreamed in French?

PROVENCE, when she and Carl arrived at the end of August, had smelled of lavender—the air, the sheets, the wine, even the milk in her coffee in the morning—the lightest of under-currents, a watercolor world of soft purple. She found herself breathing deeply and slowly, to pull it in, to hold it in every part of her for later.

In