The pumpkin pie was, I’m sorry to say, not a success. After a polite bite or two, the slices went ignored in favor of the apple tart. I feared I had made a mistake with the recipe—confused salt with sugar, for example—but it turns out I had underestimated the visceral French hatred of cinnamon. To me the pumpkin pie tasted cold and creamy, sweet and spicy, just like the pies of my childhood. I thought it was delicious, which proves that, even culinarily, some things can get lost in translation.
At some point the dessert plates were cleared, more wine was poured, and an accordion appeared in Cathy’s hands. She played a few jaunty bars in invitation, and then people were moving the tables, opening up the floor, and joining hands in pairs to bound across the room. I watched them advance and retreat, circle and release, and I imagined, a little romantically, all the Aveyronnais before us who had danced these same steps after a good dinner. And I knew I would dream of this meal forever, just as I dreamed of the spicy punch of my dad’s mapo tofu, or the doughy chew of a bowl of Beijing noodles, or the bright tang of cassis sorbet eaten in the brilliant light of a Paris summer evening—all the food memories dancing their own country jig, advancing and receding to make way for the next one.
Aligot
The key to aligot is tome fraîche, a semisoft fresh cheese that is, unfortunately, not available in the United States. Purists would say that it’s impossible to make aligot with any other cheese, but like Julia Child, I don’t believe in dogmatism. In the recipe below, I have used mozzarella, which is another fresh cheese (albeit a salted one). But any fresh, uncured, preferably unsalted cheese or cheese curds would be a good substitute, the fresher the better. (Aged cheeses, however, should never be used.) It’s not quite the same as le véritable aligot, but it would comfort a homesick Aveyronnais in a pinch.
Serves 4
2½ pounds nonstarchy potatoes, such as Bintje or Yukon Gold
¾ cup crème fraîche or sour cream
1 clove garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
14 ounces fresh mozzarella, cut into ¼-inch dice
Peel the potatoes and cut them into 1- to 1½-inch chunks. Place them in a large saucepan and just barely cover them with cold water. Bring to a boil and cook for 15 to 20 minutes, until a fork pierces them easily. Drain thoroughly and pass them through a food mill or ricer to obtain a fine puree. Try to keep the puree as hot as possible.
Return the potato puree to the saucepan. Stir in the crème fraîche and the whole garlic clove. Season with salt and pepper (remember, the mozzarella is salted as well).
Place the saucepan over low heat and stir the cheese into the puree. With a large wooden spoon, beat the mixture for at least 15 minutes, making a figure-eight pattern within the saucepan. The aligot is ready when it begins to pull away from the sides of the pan. Remove the clove of garlic. Lift the spoon. If the mixture flows in ribbonlike strands, serve it immediately, piping hot, preferably with a rare steak.
Epilogue
Rue de Loo
It was January, the darkest period of a Parisian winter, and our apartment search felt as cold as the weather. As we trooped up endless flights of stairs to converted chambres de bonne, the gloom seemed to send us back in time, to the days when maids inhabited the attics, without heat or running water. One apartment had a spectacular view of Montmartre rooftops and a bedroom in a crawl space, accessible only by a pull-down ladder. Another had slanted wood-beamed ceilings, creaking floors, and an air so desolate I felt ghosts swirling above our heads. Several places had never seen direct sunshine, though the agents tried to convince us that “lots of light reflected off the buildings opposite.”
At first Calvin called the real-estate agents—mainly because his French was better—but it soon became clear that apartment hunting was a full-time job, not something to be squeezed in during your lunch break. “I don’t have any other time,” he said. I believed him, but I also felt our months in Paris dwindling—we had about a year and a half left. And so I found myself doing something unexpected: I volunteered to take over the project.
On my first phone call, I responded to an apartment advertised as “vente en viager.”
“Do you know what that means?” the agent asked me. It was, he informed me, a special agreement that meant the elderly seller could spend the rest of her days in the flat in exchange for a lowered price.
“How old is she?” I asked.
“Sixty-five. But you never know what might happen!”
Non, merci.
My second call I got flustered and tutoyé-ed the agent, who frostily informed me that the apartment had already sold.
On my third call, I managed to set up an appointment. I felt triumphant until a few hours later when I saw the place. It had sloping floors and cracks running down the outer walls. It appeared to tremble when the wind gusted.
January turned into February, which turned into March. I thought I knew Paris before I started hunting, but now I really knew Paris—the soft edges where trendy neighborhoods met the up-and-coming, the packed métro lines that passed nowhere near the city’s historic center, the distinguished but dull quartiers that emptied during the school holidays. I became an expert at deciphering real-estate code: “à rafraîchir” (to refresh) hinted that the place hadn’t been touched since 1959, “plein de charme” (full of charm) indicated a toilet shared with all the other apartments on the floor, “travaux à faire” (work to do) meant avoid at all costs.
One sunny day in April, I called about a new listing. “It’s bathed in light,” the agent told me. “Magnificent parquet, crown moldings, two bedrooms, an elevator . . .” It sounded lovely, but then again they all sounded lovely until you saw them. I agreed to meet her at four o’clock and scribbled down the address. “Rue de l’Université,” she said.
I gripped the phone a little tighter. “Rue de l’Université?”
“Oui. Vous la connaissez?”
Did I know it? I almost laughed. How many times had I walked down rue de l’Université, pausing in front of number 81—Paul and Julia Child’s former flat—which they had dubbed “rue de Loo”?
“Oui, bien sûr,” I assured her. “I’ll see you there.”
In the three years I’d lived in Paris, Julia had never been far from my thoughts. I looked for her in all the usual places—outside her old apartment, her haunts like the cookware shop E. Dehillerin, or the Les Halles bistro Au Pied de Cochon (I felt sure the latter two must have been more honest and appealing in her time). Lesser-known spots, too, like the Hôtel de Talleyrand, home of the Marshall Plan and postwar diplomatic cocktail soirees, or the place de la Concorde, where our husbands worked at the embassy, albeit separated by sixty years. Now there was an apartment for sale on her street? It seemed too good to be true. Or maybe it was fate.
Outside the apartment the hallway was dim, but when the double doors opened, the light dazzled me. I blinked and saw a salon flooded with sunshine, a small kitchen adorned in lime green tiles, two modest bedrooms facing a flowered courtyard. The apartment was tiny, with yellowed walls that hadn’t seen a lick of paint in thirty years, but the light and tall windows made it feel spacious and airy. I could picture myself making a morning cup of tea in the kitchen, sunlight spilling across the counters.
“Do you like it?” the agent asked, and I tried to frown.
“I’ll have to show my husband.” I strove to inject a note of doubt into my voice.
“How about tomorrow?” she said. “I already have a lot of interest.”
* * *
* * *
“Are you sure this is the one?” Calvin asked me. “Even though it only has one bathroom?”
“And the kitchen is this terrible color . . . the electricity needs rewiring. And it’s smaller than we wanted.” Later that evening I had started to have doubts.
But the next day I watched Calvin’s face as he walked through the ro
oms. Perhaps it was just the reflection of afternoon sunshine, but he seemed to glow with appreciation. We both struggled to maintain our poker faces until back on the street, when the words burst from him. “You’re right. It’s the one. You found it.”
“Are you sure? The kitchen . . . ?”
“All it needs is a little love.”
We stood on the street corner smiling at each other. I started to say something about how nervous I was about spending our entire life savings, but when I glanced at Calvin again, I stopped. Because I felt sure that his expression reflected my own—and what I saw there was peace.
Five minutes later we called the agent to make our offer. And after a few months—and a lot of administrative angst—we gathered in the hushed conference room of a notaire’s office and signed the deed.
“Bienvenue à Paris,” the agent said as the ink dried on the contracts. “Bienvenue chez vous.”
* * *
* * *
One of the first things I bought for our new apartment was the photo. It was a picture of Julia Child in her Paris kitchen, and I wanted to hang it in my own. When we moved into our new home, on a cloudy June afternoon—almost a year after we had purchased it—I immediately hung it on the kitchen wall.
Two years had passed since Calvin’s return from Baghdad. In the blink of an eye—a gold-tipped, market-stall-striped, gleaming-cobblestoned blink—it was time for us to move on and discover another city, in this case Washington, D.C. A day earlier the movers had swept through our rambling apartment on boulevard Raspail, leaving the rooms empty and scuffed and so vulnerable. I could scarcely bear to say good-bye to the place that had seen me through some of the happiest and hardest moments of my life. But I grasped Calvin’s hand, and he helped me into a taxi and into rue de Loo, into our next adventure.
And yet Paris. It captured me still, with its weekly open markets, and Frenchwomen with voices like songbirds, and Frenchmen adorned in pastel sweaters thrown across their shoulders. There was no experience, I thought, quite as wonderful as being an American in Paris. But part of the romance was the heartache. Vacations ended, visas expired, and, in the end, most of us were obligated to return home. As I unpacked a stack of blue-and-white flea market dishes in our new kitchen, I felt a rush of relief and gratitude that we had found this tiny haven, a place for us to nurture and love and dream about during life’s difficult moments.
In 1952, Paul Child’s assignment at the American embassy in France ended, and he and Julia never again lived permanently in Paris. (Though they kept a small stone house in Provence, they used it only for vacations.) If I were being honest with myself, I had to admit that I, too, would probably never again live permanently in Paris—a hard truth that made my heart seize up.
But thinking of Julia reminded me of the important things in life: the essential humanness of sharing good food with the people you love, even when you may be in a place you don’t love very much. Somehow everything tastes better eaten with your favorite dining companion. I looked up at Julia in her kitchen on rue de Loo. I hoped she would keep an eye on things until I returned.
FIN
Index
The page numbers in this index refer to the printed version of this book. The link provided will take you to the beginning of that print page. You may need to scroll forward from that location to find the corresponding reference on your e-reader.
Académie Universelle du Cassoulet, 149
Adams, Abigail, 232–34
Adams, John, 209, 232–34
Aigle, L’, 172
aligot, 231–59
recipe, 258–59
alpagistes, 182, 184, 193–94, 197
Alsace, 161, 171–72
choucroute from, 157–79
Alsatian dialect, 164–65, 174–75, 176, 177
American Foreign Service Association, 48
American Library in Paris, 78–82, 130, 235
andouille, 38
andouillette, 29–53
andouillette à la sauce Maury (recipe), 52–53
AOC (appellation d’origine contrôlée), 195, 197, 240
Appetite for Life (Fitch), 217
Association Amicale des Amateurs d’Andouillette Authentique (AAAAA), 36–37, 41–42, 43
Association de Défense des Bouchons, 89
Association la Boule Dorée, 114
Au Boeuf Couronné, 2
Aubrac, 249–51
Au Jardin Gourmand, 44
Au Pied de Cochon, 263
Auvergnate, L’, 245
Au Vieux Quimper, 60
Aux Fins Gourmets, 134–35, 151
Aveyron, 15, 19, 20, 23, 237–38, 240, 242–45, 247, 249, 250
aligot from, 231–59
Aveyronnais, L’, 19
bacon, salade lyonnaise, 97–98
Baeckeoffe, 165
basil, 111
soupe au pistou, 125–27
bavette aux échalotes (recipe), 26–27
beans:
cassoulet de Castelnaudary, 153–55
soupe au pistou, 125–27
Beaufort cheese, 185, 192–97
d’Alpage, 196–97
d’Été, 196
Beaune, 204, 206–7, 210, 225
Beck, Simone, 219
beef, 214
boeuf à la bourguignonne, 227–30
Belvédere restaurant, 182, 184
Benedictine monks, 205
Benoît, Bruno, 93–94
Bernet, William, 12, 13–15, 26
Bertholle, Louisette, 219
Bessades, Les, 246, 253, 255
blé noir, 69, 70
“Blue House, The” (Tranströmer), 221
Blum, Léon, 105–6
boeuf à la bourguignonne (recipe), 227–30
boeuf bourguignon, 203–30
Bonnieux, 106, 111, 113, 114, 118
Boucheries Nivernaises, 13
bouchons, 83–84, 86, 87–88, 90–91, 92, 93
Bouchot, Frédéric, 213–14
Bourgogne, Philippe le Hardi, duc de, 206, 225
Bras, Michel, 249–51
Bras, Sébastien, 250–51
Brasserie Lipp, 20
Breizh Café, 55
Bretagne, Anne, Duchess of, 70
Brillat-Savarin, Jean-Anthelme, vii, 195, 252
Brittany, 58, 70, 72
crêpes from, 55–74
buckwheat crêpes, see galettes
buckwheat flour, galettes de blé noir, 72–74
buckwheat tea, 57–58
Burgundy, 204–6, 212, 223–24
boeuf bourguignon from, 203–30
burons, 240–41, 249
Bussieres, Jean de, 225
Butte Aveyronnaise, La, 245
cabbage, 161–63
choucroute sans garniture, 178–79
Café de Flore, 20
Café des Fédérations (La Fédé), 89, 90
cafés, 11–12, 19–20, 21, 245
canuts, 85, 92–94
caramel au beurre salé, 60, 61, 68–69
Carcassonne, 14, 137, 148–50
cassoulet from, 129–52
carrots, boeuf à la bourguignonne, 227–30
casse-croûte, 20–21
cassole, 139, 146, 147, 150
cassoulet, 129–55
cassoulet de Castelnaudary (recipe), 153–55
Castelnaudary, 137, 138, 144–46, 147–48, 150
cassoulet from, 129–55
Cathars, 148–49
Catherine de Medicis, queen of France, 143–44
cattle, 213–14
Charbon, Le, 19
Charbonnier, Le, 245
Charcuterie Muller, 164
Charles VI, king of Fran
ce, 195
Charolles, 213
Château du Clos de Vougeot, 222–24, 225, 227
Château Saint-Martin, 149
cheese, 239
aligot, 258–59
andouillette à la sauce Maury, 52–53
Beaufort, see Beaufort cheese
fondue, see fondue
fondue à la maison, 202
from Laguiole, 241, 246
Roquefort, 195
Savoyard, 194
soupe au pistou, 125–27
vachelin, 194
cheese production, 193–95
Chemin de Saint-Jacques, 241–43
Chez Georges, 85
Chez Hugon, 91
Child, Julia, vii, 3–4, 5, 37, 203, 204, 212, 214–15, 217, 218–19, 220, 239, 262–63, 264, 265
Child, Paul, 3, 214, 217, 219, 220, 262, 265
China, 1, 29, 107, 217–18
choucroute, 157–79
choucroute sans garniture (recipe), 178–79
Cistercian monks, 205, 222
Cîteaux, 205
Code du Travail, 82
Colombier, Le, 138–39
Columbus, Christopher, 144
Compagnons de la Gastronomie Porcine, 43
Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin, 223–24
Confrérie des Francs-Machôns, 84, 85, 89, 91
congés payés, 105
Coopérative Fromagère Jeune Montagne, 241
Cordon Bleu, 3, 219
Cosway, Maria, 209, 211
Cosway, Richard, 209
Côte d’Or, 204–5, 208, 210, 213–14, 223
Coupole, La, 20
Courtine, Robert (La Reyniere), 42
cranberry beans, soupe au pistou, 125–27
crème fraîche, aligot, 258–59
crêperies, 55, 59, 60, 63, 66, 68, 70
crêpes, 55–74
buckwheat, see galettes
Curnonsky, 87
dandelion leaves, 87–88
Dell, Martin, 162
Deux Magots, Les, 20
DeVoto, Avis, 219, 220