an amazing job, overlooking no exquisite detail. I just wished she’d told me what she’d been up to all these years. Rubbing my eyes with disbelief, I floated into the kitchen as if pulled by an unseen entity.
11
a world of confusion
Nothing had prepared me for la cuisine, which like the salon had doubled in size. The stainless steel workstations sparkled, as did the prep areas, the line, and the plating station. There were heat lamps, reach-in coolers, two walk-in coolers, and an HVAC system. A grilling station. A broiler. A fryer. Heated holding units. Two four-burner hot plates. Not to mention the two beautiful powder-blue Lacanche ranges with double ovens and warming cupboards—five burners each, a cast-iron simmer plate, plancha, and flame grill.
This setup, this gleaming kitchen, was worthy of a Michelin-starred restaurant and capable of serving at least two hundred covers. “What in the world?” I said under my breath.
Clothilde looked up from beating an enormous piece of meat. “Oh, sorry, ma puce, I didn’t see you come in.” She slammed her knife into a carcass and wiped her hands on her apron.
“I think the deer is already dead,” I said, a lame attempt at humor.
“Thankfully, Rémi skins them and empties out the organs. I don’t know if I’d be able to stomach that.” She held up the butcher’s cleaver with a wild look in her eyes. “Don’t worry, this one has been aged. Your grand-mère Odette usually prepares the meat.” Clothilde paused. “Are you hungry, ma puce? Would you like something to eat? You look a little peaked.”
My growling stomach answered for me. She winked and pulled out a stool, ushering me to sit down. I sank into my seat. This was the same stool I’d sat on as a child, the same wicker strands pinching into my legs. When I was a kid, I always had a pattern of dips and crevasses embedded into the back of my thighs.
“Besides being a little older, you haven’t a changed a bit.” She scurried around and then set a tray of cheeses and a baguette in front of me. “Everybody—and I mean everybody—works for your grandmother. Madame Truffaut makes the bread and croissants, but she bakes them at her home and brings them here. Madame Bouchon makes the yogurt, same scenario, although she makes the compotes here. And Madame Moreau prepares the foie gras, the sausages—”
As Clothilde explained the workings of les dames, my mind went dizzy as I recalled all the familiar names, trying to remember who was who. I couldn’t place them. Their names and faces blurred together into one. I spread some fresh goat cheese onto a baguette and bit into it. The bread was flaky and buttery, clearly freshly baked this morning, and the cheese was tangy and tart. For an instant, the cheese, the taste, transported me to my childhood, to the kitchen I remembered—the one with the red-and-white-checked curtains—to many days of happiness, to the cheese I was eating right now. I didn’t remember it tasting so good.
“Oh my God,” I mumbled with this mouthful of excitement, so delicious it was sinful.
“Ma puce, is something wrong?”
“No, this is the best meal I’ve had in weeks,” I said. “It’s sublime.”
“Bah,” she said. “It’s simple. But sometimes simple is the best, non?”
I couldn’t have agreed with her more. I wanted—no, needed—simple. Lately everything in my world was so complicated; I prayed for simple.
“Madame Pélissier makes our goat cheese right on her farm—also other fresh cheeses like le Cathare, a goat cheese dusted with ash with the sign of the Occitania cross, as well as a Crottin du Tarn, which is the goat cheese we use for the pizza, and Lingot de Cocagne, which is a sheep’s milk cheese. Do you want to do a little tasting of her cheeses?”
“Would I? You bet.”
Clothilde ambled over to the refrigerator, returning with a platter of lumpy cheese heaven straight from the cooking gods’ kitchen.
“Et voilà,” she said, placing it down and bringing her fingers to her lips, blowing out a kiss.
There were veiny cheeses marked with blue and green channels and spots, soft cheeses with natural or washed rinds, and fresh and creamy cheeses, like the goat cheese. The scents hit me, some mild with hints of lavender, some heavily perfumed, some earthy, and some garlicky.
“Merci beaucoup, Clothilde,” I said, my mouth full and crumbs sprinkling onto the table. “This is amazing.”
“It’s wonderful to have you back even under such circumstances. It feels like yesterday since you visited with