“It’s a girl, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Go. Don’t worry about them.”
I must have looked confused.
He wobbled his head, the Indian way, and before I knew what was happening, he was leading me farther down the hallway, the slap-slosh of Papa’s slippers turning right, down the half staircase, down to the Dufour mansion’s side door and the gravel drive. Papa took out his jangling keys, unlocked the door used for deliveries, and held it open.
He smiled kindly and gestured with his head.
“Go. You are working very hard, Hassan. You deserve some fun. I will take care of Mehtab and your aunt, don’t you worry. The ting about agitated hens, you throw some corn, you cluck over them a bit, and in no time they settle down. So go. I will take care of them. Not to worry.”
“Listen up, all of you.”
Madame Mallory and Monsieur Leblanc stood in the doorway of Le Saule Pleureur’s kitchen in heavy overcoats and hats.
“Henri and I will be gone for most of the day. We have some errands to run in Clairvaux-les-Lacs. So you will collectively assume the day’s responsibilities in my absence, and I will review your work when we return at eighteen hundred hours.”
It was a couple of years into my apprenticeship, and not, in itself, entirely unheard-of as Monsieur Leblanc and Madame Mallory occasionally took time off together, a morning here, an afternoon there, for errands or a little relaxation. We were never entirely sure about the true nature of their relationship, whether discreet Monsieur Leblanc and intensely private Mallory indulged in some form of amour when away from the restaurant and its staff; there was much speculation in the kitchen on this point. Margaret and I, perhaps influenced by our own secret, were convinced the elderly couple were lovers, but Jean-Pierre and Marcel took the opposite view.
On such days when the two went on an outing, Madame Mallory divvied up the day’s preparations for the evening meal among all of us. I, of course, was always given the least complicated of the assignments. On this blustery fall day, however, Madame Mallory had the devil in her, and she decided to mix things up, to keep us on our toes. Jean-Pierre, chef de cuisine, master of the meats, was tasked with making dainty desserts. Margaret, so skilled with sweets and pastry, was ordered to get her hands dirty with the fish. And I, the novice, was expected to prepare and precook the evening’s main meat dishes, which included, among other things, six wild hare, the same amount of pigeons, a gigot, and a pork joint. Most were perennials on the menu and were simple executions of well-known Mallory recipes. They did not worry me.
The hare, however, they were a surprise.
“Chef, is there any particular way you want me to cook the hare?”
“Yes. I want you to astonish me,” she said, and without further instruction, she and Monsieur Leblanc were out the door.
Well, you can imagine, no sooner had they left than the three of us went to work, lips pursed, brows beaded with sweat, keenly aware we had each been given an exam to determine how flexible we were in the kitchen. Jean-Pierre was soon dusted in flour, whipping up mille-feuille with preserved citrus cream made from Menton lemons, while Margaret, stern-faced with concentration, made a crayfish-and-sherry saffron sauce to accompany meaty chunks of pike grilled perfectly on metal skewers.
If I am honest, most of the day is lost to me in a blur of relentless hard work conducted at a furious pace. I do remember that after I butchered the hares, I marinated the pieces in white wine, bay leaf, crushed garlic, malted vinegar, sweet German mustard, and a few crushed and dried juniper berries, for that slightly pungent and piney aftertaste. Suitably softened, the hare then spent several hours cooking slowly in a cast-iron pot. It was nothing grand. It was simply my take on an old-fashioned country recipe, fleetingly glanced at during a study session up in Madame Mallory’s attic library, but it just seemed right for a chilly and windy autumn night.
The side dishes I prepared were a mint-infused couscous, rather than the traditional butter noodles, and a cucumber-and-sour-cream salad dashed with a handful of lingonberries. I thought together they would make soothing and light counterpoints to the heavy mustard tang of the stewed hare. Of course, now, looking back, I realize the cucumber and cream was, conscious or not, inspired by raita, the yogurt-and-cucumber condiment of my homeland.
Madame Mallory and Monsieur Leblanc returned in the early evening, as promised, and we watched anxiously as the chef silently took off her overcoat, donned her whites, and made the rounds, inspecting what each of us had prepared. I recall that she actually had fairly kind words to say about all of our efforts, for her, albeit she never missed an opportunity to point out how each of us could have improved our dishes, with this adjustment or another.
Jean-Pierre’s red fruit tarts, for example, had a very respectable crust, firm, and the lip-puckering crème de cassis filling also had just the right balance of fruity sweetness and tart acidity. But when everything came together it all lacked somewhat in originality, she sniffed. A little grated nutmeg on the crème fraîche would have elevated the dessert into something special, as would have a few wild strawberries from the woods, sprinkled around the rim of the plate.
Margaret, meanwhile, had, besides the grilled pike, made rouget stuffed with asparagus and simmered in a grapefruit bouillon, before wrapping the fish in a filo jacket that was lightly baked in the oven. “Very unusual, I grant you, Margaret. But the pastry ruins it, for me. It’s a nervous tick with you, always wrapping everything in pastry dough. You must be more confident and leave your comfort zone. Such strong flavors—rouget and asparagus and grapefruit—they do not need a pie crust slapped on top.”
By now she had wandered over to my station, where I stood nervously, a greasy tea towel hanging from my shoulder. Madame Mallory inspected the gigot—the spring lamb, its skin perforated with garlic slivers, dusted in cumin and herbes de Provence, all ready to enter the oven—but didn’t comment. The pork joint was already roasting in the oven, but was still too raw for a tasting, and the pigeon avec petits pois simply received a head nod.
Madame Mallory was, however, drawn to the cast-iron pot bubbling on the stove, pulsing and filling the air with a vinegary steam. She lifted the heavy lid and peered inside at the game stew. She sniffed, took a fork to a joint of hare, and the meat broke off easily. Chef Mallory then snapped her fingers, and Marcel rushed over with a little plate and a spoon. She tried the hare with some of the mustard gravy spooned over the minty couscous and the accompanying sour-cream-cucumber salad.
“A bit heavy-handed with the juniper berries, I would say. You only need three or four to feel their presence. Otherwise, the taste, it’s too German. But, really, other than that, very well done, particularly the untraditional side dishes. Simple but effective. I must say, Hassan, you have the right feel for game.”
The explosion was immediate.
“C’est merde. Complètement merde.”
Mallory’s public compliment, highly unusual, was just too much for Jean-Pierre. Unable to contain his fury any longer, Jean-Pierre snapped his foot hard, which in turn sent his clog shooting forward like a missile at the startled-looking Marcel on the far side of the kitchen. But the apprentice showed immense grace and speed for a boy his size, for he dropped to the floor like a felled stag at the crucial moment. The footwear continued on its trajectory and hit the kitchen’s far wall with a loud crack, taking down on its descent a jug sitting on a shelf, which crashed loudly to the floor in a shower of shattering pottery shards.