Cooking for Picasso (20 page)

“It's so different from anything I've seen you do,” she said quietly.

“Oh, well, the critics will say I've gone back to my Rose Period,” Picasso said ruefully.

“What does that mean?” Ondine asked.

“Absolutely nothing,” Picasso answered. “It's what they're born to do—chatter like squirrels. Then the dealers will convince some cautious businessman, who'll buy it to decorate his new house so he can tell his friends,
Here's my Picasso! Don't worry, it's not one of the ugly ones!
”

Ondine stood before the portrait, her hands clasped. “Oh, how can you bear to sell this painting to people who only want it because you're famous?” she asked softly. “If I made this I would never let anyone take it away, unless I knew that they loved it and understood what makes it beautiful.”

Picasso looked truly touched. “Fine! It's yours,” he said impulsively, with a sweep of his hand.

Ondine was thrilled. “Really?” she asked, awed. “I would love to have it! It would bring me luck, I am sure.”

“Ah,” he said sagely. “But—what
kind
of luck?”

“When will it be finished?” she asked eagerly.

“Tomorrow, perhaps,” Picasso said vaguely. “And now,
chère
Ondine, I'm hungry. So, feed me!”

W
HEN
I
AWOKE ON MY
first morning in the South of France, at first I couldn't remember where I was. The windows were shuttered, the room was dark, and I was still fuddled by the time zone change.

But Aunt Matilda solved this by jumping out of her bed, thrusting her long, narrow feet into spa slippers and padding over to the window to fling open its quaint shutters. Instantly, our room was flooded with brilliant sunlight and the heady scent of flowers borne on a mild but persistent breeze.

“Mmmm,” I sighed from my bed, eyes still closed, “
what
is that wonderful scent?”

“Jasmine, I believe,” Aunt Matilda said, peering out to the shrubbery below. “Some of the best perfumes in the world are made from these flowers! Oh, get
up,
Céline. Look at the view!”

“I saw the view from the airport ride yesterday,” I mumbled sleepily. We had been picked up by the hotel minivan and driven along the coastline before climbing high up into the hills of Mougins. “Blue sky, blue sea—no wonder they call it the
Côte d'Azur
. And no wonder Mom wanted to come back to the French Riviera! The real question is, why would she
ever
have wanted to leave it?”

“Well, it's one thing to be a tourist. It's quite another to be a local gal working and growing up here. Small towns are the same the world over,” Aunt Matilda said philosophically, turning away from the window. She was wearing an old-fashioned nightgown, trimmed with lace on the collar, front and cuffs. She reminded me, dimly, of Mary Poppins. “For instance,” she continued, “on the plane I was reading my Picasso book, and I found out that his housekeeper in Paris was a jasmine-picker from this very town, Mougins! You might not think jasmine smells so wonderful if you've been picking it all day. So who
wouldn't
want to work for Picasso instead?”

When I heard the name Picasso,
that
got me out of bed, for it reminded me of why I was here. I found my mother's predicament so deeply haunting and unbearable to think about, that the only way I could fight off the gnawing sadness in my gut was to stay focused on carrying out her mission for her. From my map I could see that it was about a thirty-minute drive to Juan-les-Pins, where Grandma's café was located. As soon as there was a break in the schedule I'd go there.

“You can shower first,” Aunt Matilda said. “Let's not be late for our first day of class.”

We hadn't met Master Chef Gilby Halliwell yet; that was going to happen today. Last night we'd been greeted by the concierge, a lanky Frenchman named Maurice who gave our class a tour of this chic Provençal boutique hotel, a
mas
or large L-shaped farmhouse whose older wing was in the final stages of renovation. We'd been given a supper of lobster and zucchini ravioli in a citrus and caper sauce, served on a terrace overlooking impeccably landscaped grounds and terraced fields.

With my first forkful of that meal I had an instant sense of our chef's talent; in fact we all stopped chattering to say the same thing:
Wow.
Gil had brightened up a local dish with a wizardly new combo of Provence's very own herbs, spices, lemons and orange peel.

During this meet-and-greet we got to know our fellow classmates, who'd all flown in from far-flung cities, all of us in varying stages of jet lag. They were very much like Aunt Matilda—elderly but vigorous, well educated, comfortably retired but still curious and eager. We were assigned rooms where we bunked two to a
chambre
. The “gentlemen” in our group were housed in the older, far wing of the
mas,
while we “ladies” were upstairs in the already-modernized bedrooms that were elegantly decorated.

“Not too shabby,” Aunt Matilda had commented, looking pleased. Our room had two nice beds with red damask bedspreads, an upholstered chair covered in brocade near a desk piled with books, brochures, and a generous basket of fresh local fruit. I popped into the bathroom, which was flooded with light, and stocked with an array of small, paper-wrapped Provençal soaps and little bottles of shampoo. Two white bathrobes and spa-slipper packets were neatly laid out.

After I'd gotten dressed I felt a bit nervous at the prospect of facing down a Michelin-starred chef. My mother had taught me to have “taste” yet I knew so little about how she actually cooked such magnificent meals. For the first time I had qualms that I didn't really belong here and might look awkward. I thought it would be a good idea to do a little prep with a quick look at Grandma's recipes.

When Aunt Matilda emerged from her shower and went to the closet to select her clothes she asked, “What's that notebook you're reading? You look like a student cramming for an exam.”

“That's exactly what I'm doing,” I admitted sheepishly. “It's a cookbook my mother gave me. It belonged to my Grandmother Ondine. Her best recipes. She had a café in Juan-les-Pins.”

Aunt Matilda crossed the room to retrieve her hairbrush, pausing to glance over my shoulder.

“Your grandmother wrote those?” she said, impressed, reading a few recipes as I turned the pages. “Then you've already got this cuisine in your blood. You'll ace it.”

I was tempted to announce that Grandma had cooked all these meals for Picasso, but I held back, since obviously Mom hadn't told her about this. Aunt Matilda was distracted anyway, eager to join our group for breakfast. “Come on, kid, let's get down into that kitchen and meet the Big Cheese!” she said. “Or should I say,
Le Grand Fromage
?”

The class was assembled in a huge modernized kitchen, all chrome, steel and marble with an impressive array of multiple ovens and work-stations. A buffet breakfast was laid out in a far corner, and all those early-birds had already discovered the mouth-watering croissants,
brioche
and pastry that you can only get in France. A festive, eager atmosphere permeated the place.

“Mark my words, this course won't be a picnic,” warned Magda, a sturdy, cheerful woman with salt-and-pepper-colored hair, who owned a dog-breeding farm in Scotland. “My niece took Gil's professional class in London last season and had to quit halfway through. But she's lazy.”

“I hear he makes grown men cry,” said Joey, a balding old gentleman from Chicago who ran a catering business with his sons. There was a murmur of agreement, because we'd all seen Gil's cable TV program from several years ago,
Can YOU Stand the Heat?,
where it was clear that he didn't suffer fools in his kitchen and could be easily provoked into unleashing his fearsome temper.

“Well, they say all good chefs are half-mad,” said Peter, a retired wine steward from London whom Aunt Matilda had already “taken a shine to” over sherry last night. A neat, trim Englishman, he had a full head of white hair and well-groomed white eyebrows, and was dressed in an old-fashioned navy blazer with gold nautical buttons, and light-colored flannel pants, an impeccable silk shirt and tie, and a red handkerchief in his pocket, as if he were going yachting today instead of learning how to cook.

“Heads up!” Aunt Matilda said. “Here he comes.”

I saw a tall figure standing just outside the kitchen doorway. Our master chef had paused to give instructions to his kitchen crew. My classmates instinctively huddled closer together to collectively assess the man.

“Ooh, he's so good-lookin'. I don't know how I'm gonna keep my mind on the cookin'!” whispered Lola, a thin, ultra-tanned rich widow from Dallas with expensively highlighted hair and lots of gold glinting on her neck, arms and fingers.

“He's a big fella, i'nt he?” her tall, good-natured brother Ben added with some surprise.

It was true; unlike many TV personalities who turn out to be smaller and thinner than they appear onscreen, Gilby Halliwell was bigger and beefier, looking healthy and athletic in a crisp white chef's jacket and black pants. The only indication of his celebrity status was the perfect cut of his blond hair. We eyed Chef Gil—as his staff called him—with wary fascination.

My classmates had parsed many details about him over dinner last night. So now I knew that Gil, a working-class English bloke from Manchester, had overcome a troubled youth of petty crime and reform school by apprenticing with an impressive list of French chefs working in London. When he was hired by a posh hotel to update their Grill Room it soon became a trendy success, which, with his appealing goods led to a quirky little British TV show that got picked up in the States by a food channel.

But then he'd burned out just as quickly. There'd been some gossip about why he disappeared from sight for awhile—an affair with a partner's wife, lawsuits, a nervous breakdown resulting in the abrupt closing of his popular London restaurant.

The press reacted to his unexpected departure by writing him off as just another “flash in the sauté pan” as one wag put it. But two years later he surprised the culinary world with a roaring comeback, winning a Michelin star within a scant year of opening this new restaurant here in Mougins, a formidable
gastronomie
hub where the competition for great places to dine was fierce.

And, never one to rest on his laurels, Gil then announced he'd found a silent partner to help him expand this stone
mas
or farmhouse where we were staying into a fully updated hotel, which would reopen later this year. To further publicize his ambitious plans, he was offering these cooking classes.

“All right, boys and girls!” he exclaimed to us as he moved away from his staff and came into our midst. Immediately his raw energy—he practically crackled with electricity—dominated the room, and a sudden hush fell over the group. He quickly checked off everyone's name on his clipboard, formally welcoming us by asking the students about our “goals”. I mumbled something about wanting to learn about my grandmother's cuisine and culture.

We had three “boys” and four “girls” enrolled in the class—ludicrous to call them that, I realized; for it occurred to me now that Chef Gil and I were the only people in this room who were under the age of seventy. He was strutting like a peacock. So damned sure of himself.

“Eyes on me, now!” he said emphatically, putting aside his clipboard and clapping his hands together like the captain of a rugby team. As if we weren't already raptly attentive! “This is the kitchen of my restaurant,
Pierrot
. Here you will learn some basic cookery—and more importantly, the local
At-
ti-tude toward food, which makes Provençal cuisine so fantastic. So now, to your battle stations!”

He gestured at a long, shiny aluminum counter in the center of the kitchen, where his staff had been quietly arranging seven bowls of eggs lined up in front of seven empty mixing bowls, seven folded aprons and seven sets of knives. “It's spring, a time of rebirth. Easter and whatnot, eh? It all begins with the egg,” he said, holding up one. “Today you're going to learn the proper way to crack—and cook—eggs. Like so.”

With a swift move Gil deftly demonstrated how to make a single clean crack using only one hand. “A truly
fresh
egg will break clean, and should never shatter into bits of shells,” he declared, “unless you are a total screw-up. Put on your aprons. Stand at the ready. And now—get cracking!”

The large kitchen echoed with the sound of multiple eggs breaking. Anyone who giggled or chattered was sternly silenced by our master chef as he paced watchfully around the kitchen, ready to pounce on those who tried to cheat by using both hands.

He caught me as I was surreptitiously banging my egg against the side of the bowl in front of me. “Dear-oh-dear,” he sighed. “You say you came here because your French
grand-mère
was a chef from this area. Well, if only poor Grandma could see you now. Do it over.”

Gingerly I picked up a new egg.