Cooking for Picasso (21 page)

“God, Céline!” Gil said in exasperation. “It's not
hard
. Just concentrate, for fuck's sake.”

I was now sorry I'd told Gil anything personal in response to his cozy little questions about my “goals”; he clearly wasn't averse to using such information as a weapon. I began thinking about how I'd like to roast this rooster of a man. When one of his staff appeared in the doorway with a message for him, and Gil stepped away momentarily to listen, Aunt Matilda murmured to me, “Congratulations. You got the first F-word out of him. I knew he couldn't hold back forever.”

“Big tough guy! He doesn't scare me,” I said sourly. Until now I'd been so focused on my mother that I hadn't noticed I'd signed on to a cooking class with just the kind of aggressive, cocksure, in-your-face man whom I normally wanted nothing to do with. All the bluster and bullying invariably evoked residual memories of my dad.

Gil was making another sweep past my section now, and, unable to bear seeing me screw up again, he seized my hand in his big paw and manipulated my fingers as if I were his puppet, forcing me to break the egg properly. I was surprised to feel how tough and scarred his fingers were; yet they moved with the dexterity and precision of a jeweler. Miraculously the eggshell opened perfectly.

Then, as the egg slid out, he let go, like a man who's been holding on to your bicycle but now quietly releases you to pedal away on your own. The slippery egg landed with a quiet
plop!
in the copper bowl, while I still held the shell, which I could now throw away in triumph.

“Wow,” I said, impressed in spite of myself.

“Wow yourself,” he said with a nod. “Do it again. And again.” He moved away, calling out, “Clean up your work-stations as you go, people!” So, we spent the morning making eggs. We boiled. We fried. We poached (with vinegar in the water). We scrambled, first with butter, then oil, to compare taste and texture. We flipped omelettes in the air (mine landed right on my forearm). We made eggs
fines herbes
with parsley, thyme, chives, marjoram. And we discovered an herb called borage, whose leaves had a cucumber taste and got chopped up into delicate hard-boiled-egg sandwiches. The herb's deep blue flowers were beautiful and edible.

“Medieval ladies used to float borage flowers in the wine cups of their knights, to give them courage,” Gil announced with a knowing nod and a wink.

“This guy just thinks the world of himself,” I muttered to Aunt Matilda.

“I like him anyway,” she replied, as if she'd already assessed Gil's assets and liabilities.

Gil then announced that we were now taking a field trip to a farmers' market in Antibes. He led us outside where, in the brilliant sunlight, the gardeners were hard at work at the longer end of this L-shaped
mas,
pruning and watering all the beautiful flowers and herb shrubs that lined the curving paths along the terraced spa, pool and restaurant with its big gravel parking lot.

“This way,” he said, briskly trotting us down a winding path that snaked past the oldest section of the
mas
—the shorter end of the “L”—where construction workers were doing the renovating. We could hear the shrill whine of their drills amid all the other banging and hammering.

The sight of their progress energized Gil even further, if that were possible. “The crew has to get as much work done as they can before the summer season officially begins,” he explained, waving back to the construction supervisor, a man in a hard hat who was shouting at his men. “What a job it is! The previous owner was a very traditional French dairyman who lived to a ripe old age but never changed a ruddy thing around here
.
”

We were all herded into a white van, which lurched down the great winding front drive and then around several traffic circles in Mougins, before we finally picked up the highway that took us down to the elegant coastline and the town of Cannes, where beautiful hotels faced the beaches.

“Look, there's the Carlton Hotel, where Grace Kelly and Cary Grant went to the beach in
To Catch a Thief
!” Aunt Matilda exclaimed, nudging me in the ribs with her pointy elbow, as she craned her neck and snapped pictures madly. She had popped on a big straw hat and movie-star sunglasses. The view of grand old hotels, stylish cars, palm trees, striped umbrellas, the sea nibbling at the shoreline, and a few intrepid sailboats lazily crossing the harbor all contributed to a sense of luxurious pleasure.

We zipped onward to the peninsula of Antibes that jutted out to the Mediterranean Sea. Two main towns clung to this peninsula—on the west coast lay Grandmother Ondine's hometown of Juan-les-Pins; but our destination was on the east coast, in the actual town of Antibes.

“Look alive now, and follow me!” Gil boomed as we dismounted from the van onto a busy road in a densely built town. I glanced around, trying to get my bearings. Immediately he marched us through a warren of streets that were small and narrow, even crooked, and crammed with ancient buildings and mysterious shops. “This is the ‘old town' section of Antibes. We're going to market. Open your eyes, but more importantly, use your nose! Use every sense you've got. Remember, this is the land that inspired Picasso, Matisse, Goethe and Browning and even bloody Nietzsche. Now it's your turn to be inspired because
you're
cooking tonight.” He continued at a breathless pace, marching us beyond the touristy shops, to an enormous iron arcade with a bustling hubbub of food stalls.

“This farmers' market is where the best chefs load up their pantries for the villas and yachts of the richest clients in the world,” he proclaimed as he steered us from one awe-inspiring stand to another while jostling with savvy regulars. When we reached the fish stall, it was impressively piled high with the catches of the day.

Abruptly Gil stopped and whirled around to face us. “If you could pick only one fish dish you'd like to learn to cook while you're here, what would it be?” he demanded, rocking forward on the balls of his feet like a tennis player about to launch a serve. Most of us froze on the spot.

“Bouillabaisse,”
Aunt Matilda volunteered, nodding at me, having just seen this recipe in Grandma Ondine's notebook. I was glad now that I hadn't told her about Picasso; she was not by nature a secretive soul and she might have blurted it right out, here and now, to the entire class.

“Ah!” Gil exclaimed. “A true Provençal meal and definitely a challenge worth pursuing. All together now, let's hear each one of you say it,
bouillabaisse,
” he exhorted, cocking his head expectantly.

“Bweeya-base,” everyone chorused hopefully.

Gil sighed mightily. “Historically speaking, there are at least forty varieties of seafood that you can use for this meal. And a proper
bouillabaisse
must contain at least five to a dozen kinds of fish.”

“Golly,” said Magda, looking worried for the first time.

“Say hello to a
rascasse,
the world's most venomous species of fish, which can sting you with its killer mucus,” Gil announced with relish, holding up a spiky orange-and-white scorpion fish.

“You're just teasing, right?” Lola said worriedly. “Am I right?”

Gil had already moved on, selecting an assortment of more familiar, fleshy fish. “We'll do a variation on the basic Marseilles version of
bouillabaisse
. People up and down the Mediterranean all do it a bit differently,” he explained enthusiastically. “The Spanish call it
sabeta
and they use more peppers.”

I perked up, for he'd just echoed exactly what I'd read in Grandmother Ondine's leather-bound cookbook. Many of her recipes—all written in French of course—had notes at the end for future improvements. For the
bouillabaisse
she'd written what I'd translated as:
Nota bene: More peppers next time.

Gil paid the fishmonger and we carried our bulging bags of food back to the parking lot, where his French kitchen assistants were lounging by the side of the van enjoying a quick smoke. At the sight of Gil they sprang to attention, stubbed out their cigarettes and expertly gathered all our bags, quickly putting the fish and other perishables into silver coolers full of bagged ice.

“Okay, class, my staff will take these fabulous groceries back to the
mas
. The bus will return here to pick you all up,” Gil announced. “You may use this time to gather-ye-souvenirs-while-ye-may.”

A sudden strong breeze leapt up, causing several identical banners along the road to flap and snap overhead like the sails of a boat. We all glanced up: against each flag's black backdrop was the extraordinary face of Pablo Picasso, his dark eyes looking down on us with a piercing gaze that was both compelling and unsettling. The Riviera, I knew from my guidebook, always had a Picasso exhibit somewhere. This one was called
Picasso: Between the Wars and Between the Women
.

I gazed up at his image. His balding head made his high forehead seem even higher; his nose gave him a pugnacious air, yet his lips had a curl of amusement.
You're on my turf now,
he seemed to say.

“Just don't go to the Picasso exhibit,” Gil said, “because I've already booked you guys into a terrific private tour next week! But there are plenty of other museums, historic sites, a ton of shops, and most importantly—lots of brilliant cafés and bistros. So make sure you eat lunch.” He began handing out euros and vouchers for our meal.

We heard a sudden roar as one of his assistants arrived on a motorcycle. The guy was young and French and had apparently driven the bike over for Gil, who seemed to expect it and went walking over to take it. Gil peered at the big wristwatch on his arm. “All right, everybody. Be back here by three o'clock sharp. Everyone got the
mas
's number on your phones? Good. Call if you get lost. But if you miss the bus”—he drew his finger across his neck as if slitting his throat—“then you're out of the class.”

He clapped his hands loudly, startling a flock of pigeons hovering hopefully. “Time's a-wasting, so get on your marks, set, and—go!” he said, tapping his wristwatch. Relieved and released, we broke off into excited clusters, not really sure where to go but feeling we ought to put visible energy into the situation. Gil had already hopped onto his fire-engine-red motorbike, and now he zoomed off.

Joey broke the ice first. “Flickin' great Ducati,” he said, impressed by the bike. With his Chicago accent, it sounded more like
Duh-cawh-ti
.

“Betcha he's got a girl in town to help him work out all that energy,” Lola drawled wickedly. “After all, it's
siesta
time on the Med.”

“That's Spanish, dear, not French,” Ben pointed out in a gentle but pained attitude.

“Sweetie, it's all the same behind the shutters, no matter whatcha call it,” Lola replied, as she and Ben, and Joey and Magda, headed directly for the town and its shops.

Meanwhile Peter was giving Aunt Matilda a sly look. “Care to have a go at the casino?”

What a perfect pair
, I thought as she nodded enthusiastically.

“Want to join us for lunch, Céline?” Aunt Matilda asked.

“You guys go ahead. Think I'll do a little shopping,” I fibbed, feeling Picasso's eyes staring down at us, as if he were reminding me of my true purpose in coming to the Côte d'Azur.

I was still clinging to my theory about why my mother had been so keen to return to the Riviera, based on what she'd said at Christmas. Certain words of hers now resonated in my thoughts, loud and clear:
Grandma told me that Picasso once gave her a picture.
What if Mom
had
chosen this guided tour as an excuse to come back and take one last look at Grandma Ondine's café—and maybe to search for her lost Picasso painting?

A long shot, perhaps. But up and down this Blue Coast, gamblers were dealing with tougher odds than this every day. Invigorated by all the energy emanating from these surroundings, I was now ready, willing and able to take a chance for Mom.

In fact, last night I'd gone online and tracked down a shop in Antibes where I could rent a bike. Now, feeling excited, I hurried over there, hopped onto a sturdy bicycle, and rented a GPS for cyclers. It told me precisely how to cut across the peninsula of Antibes—straight to that little town on the other coast called Juan-les-Pins, where Grandmother Ondine once lived.

“
Y
OU HAVE REACHED YOUR DESTINATION,”
my GPS announced after leading me into the heart of Juan-les-Pins—a bustling but smaller town with jazzy clubs alongside simple, tiny eateries, all mixed in among souvenir and clothing shops, yet not far from elegant old hotels and residences. Baffled, I found a small low-walled turnaround at the end of a main road where I could park my bike and lock it on a rack.

Then I set off on foot, heading for the smaller enclaves of narrow streets, secretive and sequestered, with no visible numbers on the buildings. The stone houses were huddled together, casting a cool shade, their first-floor windows shuttered tightly against prying eyes like mine, so impenetrable that I began to worry. For all I knew, Grandma's café could have been razed to the ground.

Hastily I dug into my bag, pulled out Grandmother Ondine's notebook and consulted the letter she'd sent Mom that was tucked in a back leather flap. The words
Café Paradis
were embossed on the envelope and so was the street name, which was how I'd gotten this far. The printed drawing on the letter's stationery gave me a fairly good idea of what Grandmother Ondine's café looked like.

I took it out now and studied it more closely, noting how the triangular dining terrace, with its pretty striped awning saying
Café Paradis,
was angled against the charming building, making it distinctive. I walked on, and then, right around the corner, I thought perhaps I'd found it. A small neighborhood café occupied the ground floor of a honey-colored limestone house, and had a triangular terrace.

But something
was
different, I thought. Then I saw that it was because these tables had umbrellas over them, instead of that big striped awning that said
Café Paradis
on it. Still, this
could
be it.

I sat at a table and used one of Gil's vouchers to order lunch. The waiter studied it, then showed it to the maître d', who shrugged and nodded. My fellow diners looked like locals, with only a smattering of tourists. There was no menu; you got the lunch of the day, served in simple dishes of pale yellow pottery trimmed with bright blue, and little roosters and hens decorating the outer edges.

As I waited there, the dappled sunlight crept across the terrace and sneaked under my umbrella in a friendly way. The first course was a small bowl of curried mussel soup, for which I had no great expectations. But when I ate it, I couldn't help a small gasp of pleasure; I never knew a mussel could be so tender. An older man dining at the next table heard me and smiled, then returned to his newspaper.

The second course was a “blue lobster” which seemed more like a big shrimp. It came dressed in a mushroom gratin, accompanied by a row of thin
haricots verts
. I felt as if I were tasting my first string bean and my first lobster and my first mushroom. My mother had tried to tell me about this more than once. She'd said,
There is a thing called “terroir”. It's the soil, water and air where the vine, vegetable, bird or animal put its feet when it grew up. If you take the same vine or seed to another country, it simply will not taste the same, under another land's sun.
I found myself wistfully wishing that Mom could be here with me to enjoy this meal.

The next plate contained a slice of duck
confit
with a sweet-and-sour orange sauce; followed by a delicate salad and a modest-looking assortment of tiny rounds of cheese, one of which was a goat's cheese wrapped in freshly ground pine nuts. I had my own little half-carafe of house wine, a chilled pale rosé with hints of peach and berry. Again and again, I felt my taste buds reawakening—after a long, Rip van Winkle–like slumber of grabbing indifferent take-out food at work. Even though Mom had cooked these recipes, the French ingredients had their own distinct character. And so this meal kept surprising me, enhanced by the atmosphere of salty sea air, a seductive sun, and wine as cool as a hidden stream.

Maybe I was gripped with gourmet delirium, or maybe the wine just went to my jet-lagged head. Whatever it was, I felt emboldened to resume my mission. I'd noticed an alleyway alongside the café, where a few deliverymen came and went, carrying boxes. As I rose to leave, something compelled me to go back there, bypassing the front entrance.

I found a cozy yard where a tiny patio was dominated by an enormous pine tree whose big twisty arms reached out so far, they embraced the whole garden; and its gnarly roots were popping out of the ground, bringing up some patio stones with it.

“Look at the size of that thing!” I marvelled. I had seen a smaller version of such a tree back at the
mas,
when the concierge gave us a tour. He'd said it was called an Aleppo pine.

A small grey cat sat on the stone wall that encircled the tree, and I paused to pet its inquisitive head. When a breeze rustled softly through the pine's boughs like a whisper, I was gripped by a strange familiarity that gave me goosebumps. Was it
déjà vu
? I'd certainly never been here before, yet there was something about that big twisty tree, the low stone wall bordering it, and the silky cat purring beside me.

Suddenly a chef flung open the back door to relieve the heat, and I heard the clatter of dishes being washed. The chef, a short, red-faced, sweaty man dressed in stained whites, was taking a cigarette break. He puffed away, gazing at the sky, until he spotted me, half-hiding behind the big tree.

“Mademoiselle?”
he called out, looking faintly alarmed.

Quickly I went over to him and praised his excellent cooking. Then I explained that my grandmother had once cooked here in this very café.
“J'aimerais voir la cuisine de ma
grand-mère,”
I said as winsomely as I could. The chef was clearly one of those guys who doesn't expect younger women to give him a second look, so he seemed immensely flattered by my interest in him and his kitchen. With a pleased shrug, he threw down his cigarette, opened the door and let me in.

The kitchen was blanketed with hot, moist air. Waiters and cooking staff rushed in and out, dodging around each other in the crowded space, which was smaller and much more modernized than I expected. There was an industrial stove and oven, and shiny open aluminum shelves all stacked with pots and pans, bowls and other cooking apparatus. I saw at a glance that there was really nothing here that could ever have belonged to Grandma Ondine. And certainly no place to hide a Picasso.

The chef ushered me out now to the front of house, a formal dining room, which, while empty of guests, had busboys already laying out white tablecloths and gleaming silverware for tonight's dinner service.
“C'est bon?”
the chef asked. I nodded and thanked him, and he disappeared back into his kitchen. Looking for an excuse to linger, I asked the bartender for an espresso from the great gold machine he had there.

Sipping my coffee, I glanced across the room at a lovely antique framed mirror in which my own image looked a bit ghostly, as if I, too, had stepped out of the past and could disappear right back into it.

When I'd first hatched this scheme back home, I'd been filled with maniacal confidence that finding Grandma's Picasso would be a simple matter of strolling into town, locating her café and casually ransacking it. Now the whole thing seemed extremely quixotic, to say the least.

But what about the upstairs rooms? I'd seen their windows from the street, decorated with wrought-iron grillwork, just like the picture on Grandma's letterhead. That would be where she'd lived. As I glanced across the dining room, the maître d' wandered into the kitchen, giving me an opportunity to get past his abandoned podium; so that was the moment when I decided it was now or never.

“Where is the ladies' room?” I asked the barman. He pointed to a red
Exit
sign at the far corner of the room. With this excuse I headed that way, where two restrooms had framed signs for
Les Dames
and
Les Messieurs.
As I'd guessed, a short nearby hallway led to a staircase, roped off by a red velvet sash with a sign hanging in the middle of it that said
Private
in three languages.

I glanced over my shoulder, then quickly stepped over the rope and climbed the stairs, my heart pounding with guilt. I paused at the second-floor landing, until I heard the heavy tread of footsteps coming up the stairs behind me.
The only way out is deeper in,
I thought. I scampered up a shorter flight of stairs to the third-floor landing just seconds before a heavyset woman appeared in the hallway below, panting from the effort of carrying something. I ducked into the attic room and froze, listening to the mechanized droning of a vacuum cleaner as the maid dragged it noisily all around the second-floor corridor. She was going to be awhile, which meant that I was trapped on the third floor.

This attic room was being used as a storage area, with old, rolled-up café umbrellas, and wicker chairs stacked in a tower. Other boxes contained extra plates, cups and saucers that looked as if they'd come from a restaurant closeout sale. There was absolutely no Picasso here, nor anything that could have belonged to Grandmother Ondine. It felt lonely, as if an altar's candle had been blown out.

Several minutes passed before the maid below switched off her machine for good and, breathing heavily, went down the stairs taking the vacuum cleaner with her. Cautiously I descended to the second floor, and dutifully peered into a small, very simple guest room: bed, table, lamp, shelves, no closet at all.

I moved on to the master bedroom, which was more opulent, containing a king-sized brass bed and a large flat TV screen mounted on the opposite wall. I kept hearing my mother's voice ringing in my ears:
Grandma did have her little hiding places for her valuables—and I remember a secret storage area under a closet floor, where during the wars her parents hid the café's best champagne from the German soldiers
.

But there wasn't any closet here. The only antique piece of furniture was a large walnut armoire. I discovered it was nearly empty, with just two pristine red terrycloth bathrobes on padded hangers; and on the shelf above were a few spare pillows and blankets. I checked carefully for any trick drawers or secret compartments, but found none. The thought struck me that if Mom was wrong about a closet, she could have been wrong about a Picasso, too. Maybe this whole trip was just a fantasy, after all.

For in the brilliant Riviera light, it seemed as if the present day was obliterating the past; not only Grandma Ondine's world, but Mom's, too. I'd wanted so badly to rescue her that I'd pinned all my hopes on this wild quest. To my surprise, I gave a little sad gulp and my eyes welled up with tears.

It was just reality finally setting in, I concluded. Maybe I had to cross an ocean to face it.

Then I heard a loud, authoritative male voice on the stairs. I glanced around wildly. There was no other exit, so I had no choice. I ducked into the armoire, and pulled its door closed after me.

I barely made it in time. A man entered the bedroom and walked right past my hiding place with such a heavy tread that everything shook a little as he passed—including the armoire with me in it. He must have snapped on the TV, because suddenly the room was filled with loud romantic music sung in French. I thought I heard water running in the bathroom. As the minutes ticked by, I was agonizingly trying to decide if I could slip out and make a break for it.

Just as I was preparing to peek out, the door of the armoire was abruptly yanked open. Blinding sunlight poured in from behind a tall man with a big belly who stood there stark naked, dripping wet.

“La-
LA
!” he exclaimed, taking a step backward in astonishment. He was a bald fellow with a high forehead that made his face look like a fist with eyes. His large stomach was overhanging, and therefore slightly obscuring, the rest of his equipment. He hadn't even bothered to grab a towel from the bathroom; he'd simply made a beeline for the terrycloth bathrobes hanging beside me.