French Romance Cooking Class (2 page)

“Honey, I don’t know if they want to hear that stuff,” Dale said.

“No, it would be great,” Frannie said. “We got married over twenty years ago, and we didn’t have marriage counseling when we were engaged.”

“Okay, then,” Donna said, smiling broadly. “Here’s the list. Be a good listener. Be courteous. Encourage your significant other. Be honest. Respect yourself.” She smiled and slipped the card back into her purse.

Marie had been listening in, and sat back in her chair. “Does that include picking up his socks? Do they teach you that nowadays?”

“Socks?” Donna asked, pulling her list back out. “I don’t see anything about socks.”

“I think respect is picking up your husband’s socks for fifty years,” Marie said. “I don’t know what it is about men and socks, but they can’t pick up their socks to save their souls.”

“I put the toilet seat down,” David added. “That’s courteous.”

“I thought women want love and not respect,” Dale said.

“I think respect is a part of love,” Frannie said. “I love it when David puts the toilet seat down.”

“Do you have a list too?” David asked Dale.

“I have no list,” Dale said, sighing. “I’m not a list kind of person. Donna here is very organized, that’s why she has a list. It’s one of the things I love about her.” He leaned over to take Donna’s hand, then leaned in to give her a kiss.

“Ralph buys me a single red rose on the first of every month,” Marie declared. “He’s been doing it since we were dating. He says it’s a symbol of his love for me.”

Ralph pushed his glasses up his nose, trying to get them to stay. “Are we cooking here? Did I hear something about pea soup? I’m starving to death here.”

While they had been talking, Chef Louis had been demonstrating how to start the soup. All the other tables had stainless steel skillets on their burners, and were dumping their peas into their pans.

“Crap,” David said, grabbing a pan. “We’re flunking peas.”

Frannie glanced at the mirror above Chef Louis’ work area to see what he was doing, then grabbed a stick of butter and threw it in the pan.

“That’s a lot of butter,” David noted. “This must not be the low-fat French romance menu.”

“Help me here,” Frannie said, handing him an onion. “Chop this up.”

David grabbed a small cutting board and began chopping the onion. “Just mind my personal space, ma’am,” he said, making a circle around his torso with his free hand. “Don’t want anyone to get hurt since I’m using this super-sharp Ginsu knife.”

Frannie squinted at the front of the room. “I think we’re almost caught up.” Chef Louis was adding more ingredients to the pan.

“Maybe it needs some wine in there,” David said. “I think I saw him adding wine.” He finished chopping the onion and dropped it in the pan. The butter was only half melted, and some of the onions stuck to the butter. David reached over to the open wine bottle and poured a swig into the pan. The red wine mixed with the butter and raw onions, creating a sickly pink mixture.

Marie was rapidly adding ingredients to her own pan, Ralph encouraging her. Donna and David were working together, sneaking in kisses whenever they could.

“Newlyweds,” Frannie said quietly to David. “Gotta love them. I remember my sister telling me that we were obnoxious after we first got married. Couldn’t keep our hands off each other.”

“That’s because you were hot,” David said, looking at the remaining ingredients on the table.

Frannie stopped stirring the pan. “Was?” she asked. “I
was
hot?”

“
Still
hot,” David said, turning to her. “You are definitely
still
hot.” He kissed her, and caressed his hand on her cheek, leaving a streak of green across her face.

“Ohhh,” David leaning back. He searched around for a napkin.

“What’s wrong?” Frannie asked. She reached up to her face, smearing the peas around even more.

David used his napkin to wipe her face, and a blob of green fell from his elbow.

“Where are all these peas coming from?” he asked, lifting up his arm.

The bag of peas was crushed into his shirt, half of them dripping off his arm.

“Ooops,” he said.

“It’s all right,” Frannie said. “I think we can salvage this.” She pried the bag off his shirt and squeezed the remaining peas out of the bag and into the pan.

“Nice save,” David said, trying to clean off his shirt, but succeeding in making the stain larger. He glanced at Chef Louis. “Chicken stock. He’s adding a box of the chicken stock.”

Frannie poured the chicken stock into the pan, and followed Chef Louis’ remaining instructions. Chef Louis finished his soup by using a hand-held blender to purée the contents of his pan into a green soup, ending with a dollop of sour cream on the top. He washed his hands in the sink and began walking around to tables, checking on everyone’s creations.

At Marie and Ralph’s table, Chef Louis fawned over their pan. He fished a clean spoon out of a supply in his chef’s coat, and asked them for permission to try to the soup. “My dear,” Chef Louis said to Marie after taking a sip. “You are a wonder. This soup is heavenly. I can tell you have been cooking for a long time, and are quite proficient at it. You have a gift.”

Chef Louis started towards Frannie and David’s table, but Frannie held up a hand. “We’re not quite done yet!” she exclaimed.

Chef Louis’ brow furrowed, and he moved on to Donna and Dale’s table. “Look at this young couple,” he said. “Filled with new love, these newlyweds are. Your soup looks amazing.” He asked to sample their soup, and gave them a few suggestions on adding different spices.

Frannie and David sat back in their chairs and looked at their pan as Chef Louis approached their table.

“Why is your soup that ghastly color?” Chef Louis asked.

“We…improvised a little,” David said.

Chef Louis leaned over the pot, smelling the soup. “I think it would be best if you improvised less.” He looked at David’s shirt. “Hmmmm,” he said, and walked back up to the front of the room.

“He didn’t try our soup,” Frannie said. Everyone else had poured their soup into small serving bowls and were eating. David grabbed a spoon and took a sip of their soup.

His face was impassive as he put the spoon down on the table.

“Well?” Frannie asked.

“It’s kind of…crunchy,” David said. “And it tastes a little like buttered popcorn.”

Frannie suppressed a giggle. “So we made movie theatre soup? I like it.” She dipped her spoon in, took a taste, and made a face. “Interesting.”

David set the pan aside as Chef Louis described their next dish.

“In a restaurant, I would make pommes dauphine with this dish,” he said. “It is a potato dish, but it is too difficult to deep-fry at individual tables. It’s also much too dangerous for those of us with personal space issues.” He glanced at David before continuing.

“I have personal space issues?” David asked.

“Don’t worry,” Frannie said. “You can invade my personal space any time.”

“So we will be making pommes duchesse as a replacement,” Chef Louis said. “Because our time here is limited, I have already cooked and peeled the potatoes for you. They will not be totally authentic, but will give you a good idea of French cuisine.”

“Pommes is potatoes in French, right?” David asked. “When I saw the menu, I thought we were going to make royal duchess potatoes. I think what Chef Louis is describing are just fancy mashed potatoes.”

Chef Louis instructed them to heat butter and cream in a pan.

“Oh, no,” Frannie said, rummaging through the remaining ingredients on their table. “We don’t have any butter left. We used all the butter in the soup. I don’t think we were supposed to use all the butter in the soup.”

“That’s probably how we got the movie-theatre, butter-flavored soup,” David said. “Don’t panic. We’ll think of something.”

David leaned over to Ralph. “Hey Ralph, do you have any butter to spare? We seem to be running a little low.”

“Rudder?” Ralph said, cupping a hand behind his ear to hear. “I’m sorry, we’re not on a boat. We’re in a cooking class.”

“Butter,” David said louder. “Can we use some of your
butter
?”

“Are you having trouble?” Marie said, expertly whisking the butter and cream together. “Ralph never cooks at our house. He just samples. It’s one of our secrets to a happy marriage.”

Ralph nodded. “I tried making pancakes for the kids when they were little. It was a disaster. We were scraping egg off the floor for weeks.”

“You don’t mind doing all the cooking?” Frannie asked Marie.

“Not at all,” Marie said. “I stayed at home and ran the house while Ralph wrote at the newspaper until they made him retire. It’s worked out quite well.” She looked up at Frannie. “You don’t stay home?”

“We both work,” Frannie said. “David has his own painting business and I’m a paralegal. Our jobs are flexible, so we can spend family time and share responsibilities at home.”

“Hmmmm,” Marie said. “I don’t think that would have ever worked for us. We’d have too many socks on the floor. And the only skills I have are cooking, knitting, and raising kids.”

“Those are wonderful skills,” Frannie told her. “And I’m sure you have many more.”

“I did work at the beer factory for a few months when times were really tough when we were young,” Marie said. “I suppose capping beer is a skill.”

“I’ll give you five bucks for some of your butter.” David said to Ralph.

“Sold,” Ralph said.

Money was exchanged for two tablespoons of butter, and Frannie and David started working on their potatoes.

Marie concentraed on her own potatoes, humming while she cooked. Ralph had seized the moment to close his eyes for a moment, and his chest rose and fell evenly as he napped.

Donna and Dale whispered into each other’s ears, sitting close, laughing quietly. David commented to Frannie that personal space rules obviously did not apply to the newlyweds.

Frannie had some difficultly squeezing the potatoes out of the pastry bag onto a baking sheet, but with David’s help, they lined up six blobs of potatoes. Thanks to the commercial-sized ovens, everyone’s potatoes were baking.

“Now we will work on our ducks,” Chef Louis said, satisfied that everyone’s potatoes were baking. “Ducks are not overtly romantic, but we will do our best. And remember, everything French has a certain romance about it.”

“I hope we don’t need butter for the duck,” Frannie said, glancing at their dwindling supplies. “Marie only has a little left, not enough to share.” She glanced at Donna and Dale. Dale had an arm around Donna’s back and was rubbing her shoulders in small circles.

“I don’t know how the French can bring romance into our marriage,” Marie asked, prodding Ralph awake. “We’ve been married fifty-one years. We’ve done pretty well without the French. Besides, we’re both German.”

“We go out on dates together twice a month,” Frannie told her.

“Dates?” Marie said. “Aren’t you two married?”

“We’ve been married over twenty years,” David said.

Marie and Ralph looked blankly at them. Marie cleared her throat and Ralph scratched his head. “Why on earth would you go out on a date when you’re already married? Isn’t that the point of dating? To try people on for size and then get married. Then you don’t have to date anymore.”

“A few years ago we were finding it difficult to spend time with each other,” Frannie said. We’re busy with our jobs and the kids. We felt like we didn’t know one another.”

“So you go to dinner together?” Ralph asked. “Then maybe a movie?”

“We do all sorts of things,” David said. “Last summer I even took her fishing.”

“Well, you young people certainly have some ideas about things,” Marie said. “I say you go with whatever works for you. Ralph and I here like to spend some quality time
away
from one another. Otherwise we drive each other crazy.”

“I play poker with the guys every Thursday night,” Ralph said. “Although we can only make it until eight o’clock or so before we start to nod off. And we have to break every ten minutes so guys can go to the bathroom. Aging prostates, you know.”

“I play bingo at church each Tuesday,” Marie said. “Ralph used to go with me, but he couldn’t hear the numbers so he’d miss half his winnings.”

“We go to church and doctor’s appointments together,” Ralph said. “And we go to funerals since so many of our friends are dropping like flies. Do those count as dates? I’d say funerals count as dates. You even get a meal thrown in for good measure.”

David looked up and saw that Chef Louis was already starting his duck dish.

“Crap,” David said. “We’re going to fail duck too.”

Marie had been cooking while they were talking. Frannie grabbed a clean saucepan and turned on the heat.

“We have sugar, water, vinegar, duck breasts, spices, wine, eggs, chocolate, and whipping cream,” she listed off. She peered at the wine bottle. “Well, we don’t have any more wine, actually. I think under the soup stress we polished it off.”

David and Frannie looked at Marie’s pan and up at Chef Louis’ demonstration table.

“Let’s look at this logically,” David said. “We have two dishes left. Duck and chocolate mousse. We used up all the onion and garlic in the soup,” David said. “Looks like everybody’s got liquid in their pans. Let’s put in some water and vinegar. Why don’t we add some spices, too?”

“Maybe we should ask someone for direction?” Frannie asked.

“Bah,” David said. “Who needs directions? We don’t even need a map. We can wing it. You know our philosophy. We’re never lost, we’re taking the scenic route.”

“Hmmmm,” Frannie said. “I don’t know if that applies specifically to duck.”

“Let’s be adventurous and try,” David said. David and Frannie huddled together, adding ingredients to their pan until they caught up with the rest of the class.

A heavenly aroma floated from Marie’s pan, a rich wine scent with a hint of garlic and chicken broth. Donna and Dale had finished their dish, and were back to snuggling.

“Maybe we should put some chocolate in,” Frannie said, looking down at their own pan. “Chocolate’s good in everything, right?”