Five Quarters of the Orange Read Online Free PDF Page A

kitsch ,” explained Laure kindly, patting my hand. “I don’t suppose you’re interested in things like that, but believe me, in Paris, this is very fashionable.” She leveled her teeth at me. She has very white, very large teeth, and her hair is the color of fresh paprika. She and Yannick often touch and kiss each other in public. I have to say it all rather embarrassed me. The meal was…modern, I suppose. I’m no judge of such things. Some kind of salad in a bland dressing, lots of little vegetables cut to look like flowers. Might have been some endive in there, but mostly just plain old lettuce leaves and radishes and carrots in fancy shapes. Then a piece of hake (a nice piece, I have to say, but very small) with a white wine shallot sauce and a piece of mint on top—don’t ask me why. Then a sliver of pear tartlet fussed over with chocolate sauce, dusted sugar, chocolate curls. Looking furtively at the menu, I noticed a great deal of self-congratulatory stuff along the line of “a nougatine of assorted candies on a mouthwatering bed of wafer-thin pastry, bound with thick dark chocolate and served with a tangy apricot couli s.” Sounded like a plain old florentine to me, and when I saw it, it looked no bigger than a five-franc piece. You’d have thought Moses brought it down from the mountain, to read what they’d put about it. And the prices! Five times the price of my most expensive menu, and that was without the wine. Course, I didn’t pay for any of it. But I was beginning to think that all the same, there might be a hidden price in all this sudden attention.
    There was.
    Two months later came the first proposal. A thousand francs to me if I would give them my recipe for paëlla antillaise and allow them to put it on their menu. Mamie Framboise’s paëlla antillaise , as mentioned in Hôte & Cuisine (July 1992) by Jules Lemarchand. At first I thoughtit was a joke. A delicate blend of freshly caught seafood subtly melded with green bananas, pineapple, muscatels and saffron rice …. I laughed. Didn’t they have enough recipes of their own?
    “Don’t laugh, Mamie .” Yannick was almost curt, his bright black eyes very close to mine. “I mean, Laure and I would be so grateful….” He gave a wide, open smile.
    “Now don’t be coy, Mamie .” I wished they wouldn’t call me that. Laure put her cool bare arm around me. “I’d make sure everyone knew it was your recipe.”
    I relented. I don’t actually mind giving out my recipes; after all, I’ve given enough out already to people in Les Laveuses. I’d give them the paëlla antillaise for nothing, plus anything else they took a shine to, but on condition that they left Mamie Framboise off the menu. I’d had one narrow escape. I wasn’t going to court more attention.
    They agreed so quickly to my demands and with so little argument. And three weeks later the recipe for Mamie Framboise’s paëlla antillaise appeared in Hôte & Cuisine , flanked by a gushing article by Laure Dessanges. “I hope to be able to bring you more of Mamie Framboise’s country recipes soon,” she promised. “Till then, you can taste them for yourself at Aux Délices Dessanges, Rue des Romarins, Angers.”
    I suppose they never imagined that I would actually read the article. Perhaps they thought that I hadn’t meant what I’d told them. When I spoke to them about it they were apologetic, like children caught out in some endearing prank. The dish was already proving extremely successful, and there were plans for an entire Mamie Framboise section of the menu, including my couscous à la provençale , my cassoulet trois haricots and Mamie’s Famous Pancakes .
    “You see, Mamie ,” explained Yannick winningly. “The beauty of it is that we’re not even expecting you to do anything. Just to be yourself. To be natural .”
    “I could run a column in the magazine,” added Laure. “‘Mamie Framboise Advises,’ something like that. Of course, you wouldn’t need