Bon Appetit Read Online Free PDF Page B

hope in his voice. “I’m sure you could get your old job back at the bakery, at least. Though I don’t know how you’d live on it”.
    We chatted for a few more minutes. He told me Mom was having fun in Italy, and then we hung up. I brushed my hair, revived by the pep talk, and reapplied my lip gloss. Then I walked back down the road to the café. It seemed friendlier now, and everything on the menu looked great.
    I ordered and asked God to bless my meal.
    “Bon appétit!”
my waiter said.
    I grinned.
Bon appétit
, indeed. Dinner was delicious.
    I walked back to the hotel, looking at the Eiffel Tower twinklingin the distance. I didn’t feel like visiting it alone.
    I spent the next day strolling the streets of Paris. I visited an outdoor market just to have someone else to talk with. I walked all the way to the St. Michel neighborhood where the bookstores were and bought myself a French Bible. I drank another $7.50 Coke. Restored and refreshed, I was ready to head home.
    The train ride back to Presque le Château went quickly. Once it arrived, I rambled back to my cottage, re-technologized, and checked my e-mail. Sophie had written back!
    “Dear Lexi,” I read aloud. “Life is great here, the car is fine. No new piercings!” Then I read silently until I came to the end. “Oh, guess what? We hired someone to take your job. He’s had some pastry training at a community college and is picking things right up. I know you won’t mind, now that you’re a Parisian. He doesn’t have your creative touch, but he’s a hard worker, and he’s so thankful to have the job that he does just about anything, and I know he won’t quit. And Margot likes him! So that makes all of our lives easier. Mine, especially, because we are now fully staffed”.
    It sounded … final.
Scarily
final. I took a couple of deep breaths to steady myself and tried to process what this meant for me. The only thing that came to mind was a line from a hymn sung in my mom’s old church.
    “No turning back, no turning back”.

Three

    Bouillabaisse is only good because it’s cooked by the French, who, if they cared to try, could produce an excellent and nutritious substitute out of cigar stumps and empty matchboxes
.
Norman Douglas
    L adies and gentlemen, you hope to become professionals. I do not graduate people from this
école
who are not prepared for the rigors of life as a French pastry chef. I do not graduate bakers who want nothing more than to bake bread or show up late, do their work, and go home”.
    Monsieur Desfreres paced in front of the class, all of us at attention, uniforms pressed, chef’s hats firmly on our heads. Five long counters lined the room, and eight of us stood at each one. There were no chairs. The first requirement of any chef was the ability to stand for hours on end without taking a break.
    I stole a few quick glances at the others out of the corner of my eye. You’d have thought I’d stumbled into the L’École Militaire instead of the L’École du Pâtisserie. It was that serious.
    I was nervous and thrilled. It was my first day of school. New month, new life.
    Chef tapped the stainless countertop in front of one sleepy-looking young man. “I do not graduate students merely because they have paid tuition or because their
patrons
have paid tuition. In fact, I consider it a service to the patrons if I can tell them at this early date that one of their employees, regrettably, shows very little aptitude toward becoming an accomplished
pâtissier”.
He looked pointedly at the man, who stopped slouching, but the words rang through to my spine.
    “En général,”
he finished, “ten percent of the students who begin this course will, after their exhibition, complete it with honors. Let me make one thing clear—at graduation, you are not a pastry chef.
Mais non
. You are then prepared to become a pastry chef. My name will be on the
diplôme
. You will conform to my standards or it will become clear to both of