Read Online White Truffles in Winter by N. M. Kelby - Free Book Online Page B

than the clouds, as one finds in real life, the painting would bore.”
    Escoffier turned around. The milk cream skin, the elegant long neck set in relief against a Belgian lace collar and black velvet waistcoat. Monet’s sun paled in comparison to her. Sarah Bernhardt. Her perfume, a musky rose, enveloped him. And yet a moment later, the crowd swelled around her and she was gone as if she never came. Even the scent of her had vanished.
    Idiot.
    He should have said something, anything. Escoffier had hoped for this moment for such a long time. When Sarah came into Le Petit Moulin Rouge, he stood behind the velvet curtains of the dining room and watched as she ate. Hers was the only ladies’ hand in the dining room that he could not bring himself to kiss. Nor could he meet her eye. One cannot approach a goddess .
    And so he sat in the darkened theater at all her performances, memorized the lines, and relived them in his dreams.
    For so very long he wanted to meet her alone and thought of standing outside of the stage door or somehow leading her away from her dinner companions, but all of that seemed offensive, reckless—the type of behavior that lovesick fools engaged in.
    And yet the goddess had come and gone and he was silent. Fool.
    Or maybe it was just a dream.
    He told no one of this meeting. To a man like Escoffier—a small man who worked in whispers, whose fleeting miracles were made one plate at a time—Bernhardt seemed well beyond his grasp. But there she was, whispering in his ear. He could still feel the warmth of her lips; could still hear her words, and that voice, weeks later. It made him sleepless.
    And yet, he was just as famous as she was.
    At the time they met, Escoffier was thirty years old and had already revolutionized fine dining in Paris. Not satisfied with the overly rich and elaborate classics Marie-Antoine Carême had set forth, faites simple was Escoffier’s mantra. He served only the finest of ingredients and only in season. Excessively complicated sauces became elegant reductions. The gesture replaced excessive gilding. Food was pared down to its essence and so became a mystery to be eaten, not just admired.
    Before Escoffier, all fine meals served were à la française with several dozen dishes served at the same time. Elaborately garnished soups, pâtés, desserts, fish, crèmes, meats, stews, and cheese were stacked high on shelves as a centerpiece to give the impression of great wealth. By the time the guests arrived at the table, most of the dishes were cold and spoiled. Some were several days old and rancid. Food was something to admire, not eat.
    But Escoffier’s food was served very hot, so that the diner could embrace the aroma, and à la russe with dishes being eaten one at a time in a series of courses, fourteen in all.
    Elegance and, in turn, eroticism were the underlying principles. “Let the food speak where words cannot.”
    He was a quiet storm that swept over the tables of Paris.
    She must have known who I was, he later thought. But the next time Escoffier saw Sarah in the dining room, her eyes seemed to look through him. Sarah was the darling of the Comédie-Française, after all. She was, by her own design, unforgettable. She slept in a silk-lined coffin and once attempted to have a tiger’s tail grafted to the base of her spine. She was born “Rosine Bernardt,” and later added the “h.” Her mother was a Jewish courtesan and her father was unknown—at least, that was one story from the press.
    It was also reported that Sarah was an American of French-Canadian descent who, as a girl, worked in a hat shop in Muscatine, Iowa. At the age of fifteen, she fell in love with the theater and made her way to Paris by taking on a series of lovers.
    There were other stories, of course, most of which she created herself.
    When it came to the Divine Miss Sarah, as Oscar Wilde had called her, confusion was