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Grand-mère grinned. ‘Yes.’
‘I’d like that,’ said Elodie, eyes shining.
Grand-mère was serious about teaching her to cook.
‘So when I was young, I learned the way a lot of young women learn – from my mother who learned from hers and so on. But what I’m going to do differently with you is start you off the way I learned when I went to work for the old owner of the restaurant, chef Du Val.’
Elodie did a double-take. ‘You went to work for the former owner?’
‘Oh yes. He was getting older, you see, and needed more help and I knew about home cooking but nothing… professional. He gave me an education in the process. What I discovered, though, was that a lot of what I knew – sort of by instinct and years of cooking – had a reason, an explanation. Like knowing instinctively when a dish needed something acidic, or salty or more aromatic to round out a flavour, you see?’
Elodie did not, but she nodded anyway.
‘So the first thing to being a good chef is what – do you think?’
‘An imagination?’ Elodie guessed, thinking of what she’d just said, and also about how her grandmother could turn simple everyday produce into dozens of tasty dishes.
‘Yes, I suppose,’ she said with a laugh. ‘But what I was going to say is that the first thing to know is a little boring, but necessary – it’s called mise en place – everything in place. This is about ensuring you have everything you need before you begin. Gathering your ingredients and your tools. So today we’re going to make a simple country stew, something to warm the bones. Follow me.’
Elodie followed Grand-mère into the pantry where she gathered vegetables from her store, choosing onion, carrots, sweet potato and tinned tomatoes, and from the shelves, dried lentils, and herbs that she’d dried in the summer from her potager – thyme, basil and oregano – and laid them all out on the large wooden table. When Elodie got to work dicing an onion, Grand-mère exclaimed in awe as she tucked her thumb away and chose the biggest knife on display to chop faster and more efficiently. ‘How did you know to do that?’ she asked, rushing forward to still her small hand.
‘I watch you do it every day, Grand-mère,’ said Elodie.
Grand- mère grinned. ‘Touché. But watching is not the same as doing.’ She raised an index finger, and showed Elodie a patch of scar tissue. ‘I got this from going too fast – so go slow so that you can go fast.’ This was one of Grand-mère’s life mottos, she was to find.
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means slow and steady wins the race – whereas if you go too fast and say, slice a finger off, well, you’ll end up taking twice as long, you see?’
Elodie grinned. ‘But I could just be fast and careful.’
‘I’d appreciate just careful, first.’
Elodie shrugged, though she vowed one day she’d chop even faster than Grand-mère.
By the time the rich lentil stew was perfuming the air, rousing Pattou from his slumber, Grand-mère was making plans for them to make the five basic sauces, and telling Elodie about the famous French chef, Escoffier, who had created them all. She ruffled her blonde hair and said, ‘Ma petite, you’ll be the best chef in Provence, in no time.’
