Le Cordon Bleu

Le Cordon Bleu. Ask anyone. Ask a cab driver, for heaven's sake. The most famous cooking school in the world. Le Cordon Bleu. Julia Child went there. LE CORDON BLEU.

And you'll get a look of dismay from the cab driver. Never heard of it. Ask another cab driver. The Cordon what? You really can't believe this. So how did you grow up hearing about the Cordon Bleu when even the taxi drivers don't know where it is. You've signed up for a class, for god's sake. It's today. At the Cordon Bleu. LE CORDON BLEU. BLEU. BLEU. Rue Delhomme. 15th arrondisment. Vite. Vite.

And then you remember. Karin and Jeremy. When you were in high school. In a rural town that had more cows than people. They found a French restaurant nearby, called The Postillion, run by a woman named Madame Cluny. They raved about the food. They never invited you, but you could just imagine. Then they tempted you more by introducing you to caviar. Good caviar, not the runny lumpy stuff that seems to be painted with squid ink, but the really really good stuff. They added stories about Jeremy's mother bringing over a dressmaker from Paris every year. They went to Paris on their honeymoon. They spoke French. And you, a little high school girl in the middle of a corn field, fell in love.




So here you are at Le Cordon Bleu. There's Julia Child's picture on the stairway wall. Young graduates are having their pictures taken with famous chefs. They serve you breakfast. You all go to the Boulevard Raspail Market. They serve you lunch. And then they cook. The chef is a charming, handsome Frenchman who has a sly sense of humor. You want to have his baby. The translator, a young woman from Australia, has the job of a lifetime, hanging out there and learning stuff. You want that job.

The chef begins. He mashes fingerling potatoes with $150 worth of black truffles. You gasp. He puts the potatoes into a ring mold so they hold a pretty shape. Then he bakes cod, for heaven's sake, and then removes each flake of the fish as if it were a rose petal and scatters it around the top of the potatoes. You gasp again. Then he assembles asparagus with mouseline sauce, which come to find out is hollandaise sauce to which you add great gobs of whipped fresh cream and then go directly to the emergency room. The dessert, home made French vanilla ice cream with brandied baby bananas, ends this fantasy day. You crawl down the stairs with creeky knees and a full tummy and try to get back to your hotel for a short gourmet nap.

And then you tell everyone in the hotel what you did that day. You took a class at the Cordon Bleu. And they are all jealous. And it is worth it.