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By Root 294 0

have shared with me. Do you understand, Sweet Sunday Man? My Mesdames, like the French, prefer their salad after the main course, something tart and piquant to heighten the sweetness of what is to come. That, Sweet Sunday Man, is why Americans think French desserts are barely sweet enough when eaten on their own. Think of a dessert as an ensemble player who should never be forced to perform naked and alone. Speckled with the seeds of vanilla beans and ribboned through and through with chestnut purée, crème renversée à la cévenole elevates the humble baked custard to a state of grace. As Anh Minh would say, "If you don't believe in God, then how do you explain the chestnut?" GertrudeStein and Miss Toklas undoubtedly agree. When the first strong winds of winter blow, my Mesdames drive to the Bois de Boulogne and stand underneath the chestnut trees singing "Angel, angel!" When my Mesdames return home to the rue de Fleurus, crème renversée à la cévenole is what they hunger for.

"GertrudeStein judges a cook by his desserts, and I judge a cook by everything else," Miss Toklas had informed me during my interview. I have found this statement, like all of Miss Toklas's statements, to be unquestionably true. Believe me, it has not been easy for me to work for these two. Miss Toklas is a Madame who uses her palate to set the standard of perfection. In order to please her, her cook has to do the same, an extremely difficult feat. Her cook has to adopt her tongue, make room for it, which can only mean the removal of his own. That is what she demands from all of her cooks. Impossible, of course, and so eventually they have all had to go. I have stayed this long because I am experienced, qualified in such matters.

Once she became my Madame, the first thing Miss Toklas asked me was whether I had a recipe for gazpacho.

"Yes."

"Did you learn it in Spain?"

"No."

"Then it is best to forget it."

"Oh."

"Here at 27 rue de Fleurus," Miss Toklas began, "there are four kinds of gazpacho. We will begin with the gazpacho of Malaga. You will need four cups of veal broth, prepared the night before. Be sure to add two cloves of garlic and a large Spanish onion to the bones as they steep. A large ripe tomato, peeled and seeded, cut into cubes no larger than—let me see your hands—no larger than your thumbnail. One small cucumber no thicker than half the width of your wrist and..."

Our first lesson continued in this manner until my Madame declared, "Mix thoroughly and serve the soup ice-cold. Exquisite. Tomorrow," she promised, "the gazpacho of Segovia." Miss Toklas closed her eyes as she said "Segovia," which told me that it was exquisite as well.

I ran through the complete list of ingredients in my head: veal broth, tomato, cucumber, garlic, onion, sweet red pepper, cooked rice, olive oil. I opened up my mouth to ask, "What about the—"

"Salt is not essential here," Miss Toklas interrupted. "Consider it carefully, Bin, before using it." A pinch of salt, according to my Madame, should not be a primitive reflex, a nervous twitch on the part of any cook, especially one working at 27 rue de Fleurus. Salt is an ingredient to be considered and carefully weighed like all others. The true taste of salt—the whole of the sea on the tip of the tongue, sorrow's sting, labor's smack—has been lost, according to my Madame, to centuries of culinary imprudence. It is a taste that Miss Toklas insists is sometimes unnecessary, as in the gazpacho of Malaga, and other times, as in the gazpacho of Segovia, it is the hinge that allows the flavors of the other ingredients to swing wide open. "In my kitchen, I will tell you when salt is necessary," my Madame said, concluding the real lesson for that day.

Working with this Madame, I could already tell, would not be easy. She is an attentive Madame, which frankly is the worst possible kind. What about the other one? I thought. Two attentive Mesdames, and I am out of here in a week, I remembered thinking.

I know, I know. It is this other Madame who interests you more, Sweet Sunday Man. But what you do not seem to understand