“One recipe at a time. Let’s deal with Ursula over here, and then we can worry about Lamb Chop.”
I sucked in some air and turned to the appetizer instructions. “Step one. Turn octopus inside out like a pair of chaussettes and then beat it until pliable.” I looked up at Gabe. “What are chaussettes?”
Gabe typed the word into his Google Translate, our new best friend, and said, “Socks?”
“Turn the octopus inside out like a pair of socks? And then beat it until pliable? This sounds so barbaric. I don’t really have anything against this particular octopus. Maybe if it killed my family or betrayed our country I’d feel differently,” I （kinda） joked.
We were so busy trying to figure out how to begin that we didn’t notice Chef Audren at our station until he started beating our octopus mercilessly with a mallet, shouting, “C’est comme ?a! Comme ?a!” The octopus bounced around the countertop, and my eyes bulged more and more out of my head with each and every blow.
Chef Audren turned to me and held out the mallet. “Okay, ma chérie, your turn.”
“Oh, um . . . don’t you think it’s been through enough?”
“Non, non! Encore! It needs to be soft like butter.” He wrapped his hand around mine, which was still apprehensively holding the tenderizer, and together we started hitting the rubbery body until it looked like a deflated version of its former self.
“Bravo! Now it goes into the pot,” Chef Audren ordered.
Once he left the station, Gabe looked at me, eyes wide, and said, “Remind me not to piss you off. Once you got going, I wasn’t sure you were going to stop.”
“It actually was a cathartic stress reliever once I put the idea that I was smashing the heck out of some poor sea creature out of my mind.”
“A poor, tasty sea creature, we hope. It will not have suffered for naught,” he said consolingly.
“Okay, but next time, you get the mallet.”
“Deal.”
We struggled just as much through the next two courses, our giggles eventually turning into grunts of frustration, and the five-hour workshop was beginning to feel more like a day and a half. But it was our final course, the dreaded chocolate soufflé, that almost made us abandon ship.
Chef Audren explained the process thoroughly, emphasizing that the most difficult part about baking a successful soufflé is to not overwhip the egg whites. Apparently, if you do, they don’t have the elasticity needed to expand in the oven, which is the most common reason it would collapse—and according to the chef, that was a serious no-no. A sunken soufflé was almost a sacrilege, so I tried to listen to all of Audren’s instructions before diving in. Meanwhile, Gabe had already started pouring things into bowls and whisking ingredients to and fro.
“I don’t think you’re doing that right. You need to add the sugar in slowly and mix it in in small batches, like a quarter of a cup at a time.”
“I don’t think it makes much of a difference,” Gabe said as he continued to dump the entire cup of sugar into the fluffy egg whites, their shape collapsing under the weight of the granules.
“Yeah, I kinda think it does. Didn’t you listen to Chef Audren? He said that the egg whites need to stay lifted and fluffed in order to ensure that it stays inflated while it bakes.”
“It’s cooking class, not rocket science. I don’t think it’s as technical as all that. Besides, I’m sure it will taste great regardless of if it looks like a pillow or a pancake.” He grunted as he continued to whisk the egg whites together with the sugar.
I raised my hands in defeat. “Okaaay, but if Chef Audren starts to freak out because our soufflé looks like some roadkill found on the side of the Champs-élysées, don’t blame me.”
I let Gabe take the lead on the soufflé, opting to step aside rather than argue. I grabbed a few sprigs of mint and started to chop the herbs with the new knife skills we practiced, making sure the tips of my fingers were tucked in like Chef Audren had showed us. When he came around, he peeked into our mixing bowl and instructed, “Plus moelleux,” with a gesture of his hand lifting higher and higher and continued his inspection of the other students’ work.
Gabe reached for his phone again, typing as he spoke aloud. “Moll-eee-yuhz . . . fluffy? Did he say more fluffy? How am I supposed to fluff this thing any more than it already is?”
“I . . . I don’t know. Like I warned, the sugar was too heavy when you poured it in all at once. I don’t know if you can undo it now.”
“Well, I certainly can’t undo it now that it’s already in there. Ugh, I’m sure it will be fine. We should just pour the mixture into the bowls and get cracking.”
“I think they’re called ramekins,” I corrected.
Gabe glanced at the clock on the wall and huffed. “Well, let’s get whatever they’re called into the oven. I think I’m starting to feel a bit done with this.”
Yeah, five and a half hours when you don’t know what you’re doing is not as fun as one would imagine. And it was clearly starting to get to Gabe, who seemed to be growing more impatient by the second. We were getting snappy at one another, and I could sense a very noticeable shift in mood. Our afternoon was somehow deflating faster than our half-assed soufflé.
When we pulled the ramekins out of the oven thirty minutes later, the sweet smell of dark chocolate cut some of the bitterness left behind from our baking battle royale, but unfortunately, our saggy soufflé still left much to be desired. The sunken top was split by a deep crevasse that should have been towering high with delectable molten raspberry filling bubbling underneath. Instead, it looked like a blob, wholly unappetizing and burned around the edges. We each took a bite, and though it was hard to believe, it tasted worse than it looked, and sadly, we ended up tossing the whole mess into the nearby trash can.
When the class finally came to a close, Gabe and I were mentally and physically exhausted. As we exited the school and strolled back in the direction of Le Marais, the sun was already setting and thick clouds shadowed the sky. In the close distance, the Eiffel Tower stood majestically lit, sparkling like a beacon for all of Paris to see. Gabe flagged down a taxi, and we zipped through the streets of Paris awash in the glow of the setting sun and were back at our B and B in under twenty minutes.
Gabe climbed out of the cab and turned to me to offer me a hand, looking as if he’d been through a few rounds in the ring. “I’m beat. Want to head back to the room and chill out for a bit before dinner? I think the restaurant where I made our reservations is pretty close to here.”
I scanned the city, still bustling with life. For as much fun as cooking class had been, it had been a lot of time inside, and I wanted to just take a moment to drink in the sights and sounds of the city I’d dreamed of visiting my whole life. “You know what, I think I’m going to take a walk before I head back. But you go, relax. I’ll be right behind you.”
“Want me to come with you? I’m sure I can muster up a second wind,” he said, even though his eyes looked heavy and his posture a bit droopy.
“Don’t muster anything. Go back and relax. You look exhausted. I’ll probably just grab a coffee myself and walk along the Seine for a bit. We’ve been cooped up in that hot kitchen all day. I could use some fresh air and maybe some time to run my lines for the final audition.”