Wine School

In the fall of 1985 I was learning to cook at the old Cordon Bleu in Paris, still under the direction of the surly Madame Brassart, before its makeover and transition to its brand new headquarters. Keith was one of my classmates. Tall and lanky with a soft Texas drawl, he’d find a seat next to me during our demonstration classes and interrupt my note-taking with only-in-Paris anecdotes like the neighbor who let his dog poop right in front of their entrance, or the old lady who elbowed past him in the bakery line, or the sour guard in the Louvre who scowled at his attempt to speak French. Then he would proceed to mock me for wasting my time watching the preparation of Faisan en Daube a la Gelee, Daube of Pheasant in Jelly, a complicated dish that involved stuffing the pheasant with truffles, foie gras and forcemeat, cooking it in Madeira, and immersing it in game jelly to serve as a cold appetizer. He could not fathom a room full of students, there for a desire to learn about French cuisine with eyes fixed to the large mirror hanging above our instructor’s stove, unaware of the food carnival on the streets of Paris. No amount of shushing would shut him up. “Why, I didn’t come all the way from Dallas to sit a classroom!” he declared. Eventually he would slink away to go buy his own pheasant and stuff it with nothing but a few sprigs of thyme, and make his own game stock with the feet and discarded bones. Sometimes, I’d get a call late in the evening: “So, Miss Persia, did you learn anything today?” And I would chide him for wasting his daddy’s money and skipping classes.

One morning Keith came to our pastry class with a brochure from a place he had stumbled upon while he was roaming the streets and we were whisking egg whites for chocolate mousse. The Academie du Vin, a little school founded by an Englishman, Steven Spurrier, offered introductory courses in French wine. “Wanna learn something about wine, Miss Persia, or are you going back to San Francisco to tell them you can stuff a duck, but don’t have a clue what wine you’d serve with it?” Although these smug remarks unnerved me, Keith was right. Only I didn’t have his unlimited funds to while away the hours in tea salons and cheese shops, when back home, my mother worked graveyard shifts at the hospital to pay my tuition. Fortunately, it was the golden age when the dollar fetched ten francs, so even on a tight budget, I could spare the sixty five francs for a six-week course.

And so it was that a few nights a week we met at the Madeleine metro and walked along the narrow streets behind the monument to our school—a former locksmith shop adjacent to Mr. Spurrier’s wine store, Les Caves de la Madeleine. Eight of us sat on tall stools along a curved bar while his partner, Pamela, conducted elementary lessons in comparative tasting and grape recognition. There were baskets of good bread and platters of cheese at room temperature, carafes of water, dozens of glasses and an empty ice bucket. I brought a notebook, Keith didn’t. He asked a lot of questions and spat noisily, but there was no way I was going to spit anything in a bucket. She poured, I drank, and soon I would have a hard time balancing my notes, a wine glass, the crusty baguette with camembert, and my pencil, which fell to the ground one more time and Keith reached his long arm to retrieve it while giving me a sidelong glance, amused to see this other side of me that was no longer eager to be the perfect student. When it was time to go, he stood gallantly nearby and watched me wrap myself in my coat, then walked alongside, down the steps to my metro stop, making sure I didn’t tumble forth. “One of these days, Miss Persia, I’m going to teach you how to spit.”

One night we came in from the rain and took our places along the bar. If you were walking by, you would have paused to look inside at the row of devoted backs leaning forward, at our raincoats piled on a coat stand by the door, rows of glasses hanging upside down like chandeliers, and wine bottles with cream colored labels lining the wall. You would have been drawn in by the glowing intimacy of that warmly lit space. We would have made room for you.

That evening, Pamela said she had a surprise for us. Little did she know that every lesson had been a surprise for me. Until then, grapes were green or red, sweet or sour, and sometimes I liked to stuff ten or so at a time in my mouth. “Tonight, you will taste liquid gold.” I’m definitely not spitting that out, I thought. “But,” she continued, I will also introduce you to a magical marriage of flavors.” She poured a Sauterne, pronouncing Chateau d’Yquem with such reverence that we fell silent. If you’re a connoisseur and wondering about the vintage, keep in mind that I was twenty three and prior to this I had been in college drinking boxed Chablis. Those days, no one felt compelled to brag about their wine expertise. She explained about the “noble rot” that causes this blend of semillon, sauvignon blanc, and muscadelle grapes from southern Bordeaux to become raisined, that the color turns from yellow to copper, and with care, will age beautifully well beyond a century. We cradled our glasses and sniffed, anxious for the first sip but waiting for the nod from our instructor. My first thought was this wine was made by bees because what I tasted was cool honey. Then she reached below and brought out baskets of levain bread and platters of blue cheese and encouraged us each to take a morsel of Roquefort and follow it with the chilled Sauterne. We did. It was the first time I understood the meaning of “unctuous” and “rapture”. We sighed, we smiled, we leaned toward each other, our kinship sealed forever in that quiet moment. No one spat. I dropped my pencil and left it there. Pamela looked very pleased.

Weeks later, Keith and I would stop mid-sentence and say “Remember the Roquefort?” or sometimes just, “Remember?” and left it alone—neither of us willing to break the spell. I retrace my steps to this small turning point in my education when I gave myself permission to leave the classroom and wander the streets. I didn’t skip lessons, but spent hours in between, poking around, following a scent into a butcher shop where terrines of duck and rabbit cooled on marble, and a simple s’il vous plait would often lead to samples of cheese, pates, the first cherries. I came home one night with a celery root, an apple, a wedge of Roquefort, no more than four ounces, and assembled a tart in my closet kitchen using a chunk of day-old bread. I called Keith and two other classmates from Spain to come for dinner. The Spaniards brought a chunk of Serrano ham they had carried from a weekend home, and the Texan brought a half bottle of Sauterne. “You shouldn’t waste your daddy’s hard earned money!” I protested. He ignored me.

Celery Root and Apple Galette with Roquefort

Serves 4

1 celery root peeled and sliced 1/8 inch thick

2 apples, Pippins, Sierra Beauties, or Golden Delicious, peeled, cored, and quartered

Kosher salt, black pepper, honey

4 ounces unsalted butter melted

2 tablespoons lemon juice or cider vinegar

Half a loaf of chewy country bread

3 ounces Roquefort cheese

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss the apples and celery root with a little salt, fresh ground pepper, 2 tablespoons of honey, 2 tablespoons of butter, and lemon juice or cider vinegar. Spread evenly in a roasting pan, cover and bake 20-25 minutes until the celery root and apples soften. Remove the cover, increase the heat to 400 degrees, and bake an additional 10 minutes to brown.

Turn the oven back to 350 degrees.

Butter a 9 inch pie dish. Slice the bread 1/8 inch thick and line the bottom and sides of your dish, fitting the slices snugly against each other. Brush the bread with melted butter. Spread an even layer of the apple and celery root, crumble half the Roquefort on top, and repeat with another layer of apple, celery root and cheese. Place the remaining slices of bread on top. Brush with butter and press down lightly.

Bake 25-30 minutes until golden brown. To serve, you can slide a knife around the edge of the pie dish and turn out on a platter, or serve wedges directly from the dish with a hearts of butter lettuce salad.