out, my dad didn’t mind my leaving after all, so long as I paid for the trip out of my savings from my job at Hattie’s. Hattie herself was a little put out—she thought she’d already taught me everything I needed to know about cooking—but ended up giving me her blessing.
“Maybe you’ll be able to teach me a thing or two fromthat fancy school,” she’d said. Well, maybe I would.
My aunt and great-grandmother were entirely on board too. At least they pretended to be. I knew they were trying not to smother me.
“This will broaden your horizons,” Aunt Agnes said with a brittle sort of cheer.
“And if you need anything, just whistle,” Gram added. Gram is an empath, meaning she’s a healer and also a bit of a telepath. She was saying that if I ever needed help, I could reach her just by thinking. That’s easier said than done, though. Agnes and Gram communicate telepathically with each other all the time, but I don’t exactly have the hang of it yet. But we could still write letters and e-mails.
The hardest good-bye was Peter. That is, I didn’t say good-bye to him at all. We hadn’t spoken since that terrible lunch at Pizza World, and . . . well, I was afraid he’d blow me off if I tried to see him, and that would ruin my whole summer in Paris.
So I didn’t say anything. He was working on the day I left.
Anyway, I made it to Paris, and was enrolled at the Clef d’Or.
“Kooking school,” as Fabienne called it.
I’d done it. Found the razor’s edge. Took a walk on the wild side. Said good-bye to my inner mom.
He probably doesn’t even miss me, I thought.
CHAPTER
•
FIVE
Dear Gram,
Well, the Clef d’Or surely lives up to its reputation as the greatest cooking school in the world! We are learning time-honored methods of preparing traditional French food, with no shortcuts. There are about thirty students in my class (Soups and Appetizers for the next two weeks). Most of them are French. Some are Japanese. There is one other English speaker, a Canadian named Margot. I’m sure we’ll get to be good friends.
Love,
Katy
Never mind that Margot was a fifty-two-year-old travel writer for the Toronto Sun , and was in Paris to cover a storyabout her close friend Chef Durant, the head chef of the school. Chef Durant does not speak to students, and neither does Margot, except in the capacity of interviewer. The one time I tried to talk to her, she asked me if I missed McDonald’s, which was pretty dumb, since there are McDonald’s all over Paris. Fortunately, she’s only staying around for Soups and Appetizers.
Today we made coquelets sur canapés , which translates roughly to “disgusting critters on toast.” The class began with the chef’s assistant handing out little dead birds. I didn’t know what kind of birds they were, although he told us—one of the many mysteries of French cooking is the French language—but they were pitiful, scrawny little things, with their limp little necks and pathetic, blank eyes. We were told to plunge them into boiling water and then pluck the feathers off them, cut off their heads and feet, and remove their organs (the liver, mixed with raw pork fat, is a big part of the dish) before roasting them.
The whole process was hideous. When I was working in Hattie’s Kitchen, I never had to chop anything’s head off, although I suppose someone did. I never had to sauté animal glands or skin eels (I won’t even begin to tell you how that’s done). Hattie didn’t even serve lobster, because she didn’t like the idea of taking an eight-year-old sea being and boiling it alive.
“Deserves a sweet old age, if you ask me,” she’d say.
At Hattie’s, I’d learned to cook with love. That is, love was my specialty. Hattie’s Kitchen was a magical restaurant. It was said that everybody got what they needed at Hattie’s, and when what they needed was love, my job was to stir a dose of it into their food.
But I wouldn’t be using any magic at the
“Maybe you’ll be able to teach me a thing or two fromthat fancy school,” she’d said. Well, maybe I would.
My aunt and great-grandmother were entirely on board too. At least they pretended to be. I knew they were trying not to smother me.
“This will broaden your horizons,” Aunt Agnes said with a brittle sort of cheer.
“And if you need anything, just whistle,” Gram added. Gram is an empath, meaning she’s a healer and also a bit of a telepath. She was saying that if I ever needed help, I could reach her just by thinking. That’s easier said than done, though. Agnes and Gram communicate telepathically with each other all the time, but I don’t exactly have the hang of it yet. But we could still write letters and e-mails.
The hardest good-bye was Peter. That is, I didn’t say good-bye to him at all. We hadn’t spoken since that terrible lunch at Pizza World, and . . . well, I was afraid he’d blow me off if I tried to see him, and that would ruin my whole summer in Paris.
So I didn’t say anything. He was working on the day I left.
Anyway, I made it to Paris, and was enrolled at the Clef d’Or.
“Kooking school,” as Fabienne called it.
I’d done it. Found the razor’s edge. Took a walk on the wild side. Said good-bye to my inner mom.
He probably doesn’t even miss me, I thought.
CHAPTER
•
FIVE
Dear Gram,
Well, the Clef d’Or surely lives up to its reputation as the greatest cooking school in the world! We are learning time-honored methods of preparing traditional French food, with no shortcuts. There are about thirty students in my class (Soups and Appetizers for the next two weeks). Most of them are French. Some are Japanese. There is one other English speaker, a Canadian named Margot. I’m sure we’ll get to be good friends.
Love,
Katy
Never mind that Margot was a fifty-two-year-old travel writer for the Toronto Sun , and was in Paris to cover a storyabout her close friend Chef Durant, the head chef of the school. Chef Durant does not speak to students, and neither does Margot, except in the capacity of interviewer. The one time I tried to talk to her, she asked me if I missed McDonald’s, which was pretty dumb, since there are McDonald’s all over Paris. Fortunately, she’s only staying around for Soups and Appetizers.
Today we made coquelets sur canapés , which translates roughly to “disgusting critters on toast.” The class began with the chef’s assistant handing out little dead birds. I didn’t know what kind of birds they were, although he told us—one of the many mysteries of French cooking is the French language—but they were pitiful, scrawny little things, with their limp little necks and pathetic, blank eyes. We were told to plunge them into boiling water and then pluck the feathers off them, cut off their heads and feet, and remove their organs (the liver, mixed with raw pork fat, is a big part of the dish) before roasting them.
The whole process was hideous. When I was working in Hattie’s Kitchen, I never had to chop anything’s head off, although I suppose someone did. I never had to sauté animal glands or skin eels (I won’t even begin to tell you how that’s done). Hattie didn’t even serve lobster, because she didn’t like the idea of taking an eight-year-old sea being and boiling it alive.
“Deserves a sweet old age, if you ask me,” she’d say.
At Hattie’s, I’d learned to cook with love. That is, love was my specialty. Hattie’s Kitchen was a magical restaurant. It was said that everybody got what they needed at Hattie’s, and when what they needed was love, my job was to stir a dose of it into their food.
But I wouldn’t be using any magic at the
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