Je t'adore, Tante Marie

Remember how I was going to move out to the Bay Area and get my start in the food industry by working at Ramekins? And remember how my job ended after the holidays, and then my boyfriend came to visit, and then my family came to visit, and then we went to Hawaii, and then Eliz came and we ate our faces off?

All that is over now, and I am left with an open stretch of time (well, one month) until my lease runs out and the parental payroll dries up and I am forced to get my act together and get a real job (shudder). Or go to cooking school.

Before doomsday arrives, I would like to have something to show for myself besides a gut and an ulcer. To this end, I have been pursuing the chance to write restaurant reviews for the Sonoma Sun. I drove up there yesterday to meet with the staff and sign the paperwork, but was told as soon as I walked in the door that the paper no longer has enough space to continue running dining-related content. It seems that my fabulous food writing career has taken a nosedive shortly before takeoff. However, the Sun is graciously allowing me to write two pieces that will be published when space permits, so tomorrow night I will be dining at Taqueria Los Primos in order to generate enough fodder for an article.

In other news, I had a tour and an interview at the Tante Marie Cooking School in San Francisco this afternoon. I really just wanted the tour, but it seems that most cooking schools will manage to wrestle an interview out of any unsuspecting individual that walks through their doors. Sensing that an interrogation was imminent, I made a point of wearing my special sparkly eyeliner to dazzle and bewitch the interviewer. I think it worked, because at one point she said that she could see a passion for food in my eyes. Little did she know it was just Bonne Bell silica.

Tante Marie was adorable. It’s tiny; just 16 students taking a six month program that costs as much as, say, a brand-new Japanese sedan. There are two smallish kitchens, and when I arrived the class was learning how to make caramel. On my way out, I spotted a divine-looking plate of Florentines. I have to confess, my thought process went something like this:

1) “I wish I could eat one of those Florentines.”
2) “If I enrolled here, would they let me eat some of those Florentines?”
3) “Maybe I should enroll here.”

They probably don’t offer tours on fish-gutting day, or during the gamebird-plucking-and-deboning lesson; outsiders with fat checkbooks are only allowed in when a big, sumptuous platter of fresh candy and cookies has been placed near the front door and the smell of caramelized sugar hangs seductively in the air. The strategy works, and it has caused me to repeatedly fantasize about My Life as a Cooking School Student all afternoon. I’m sure it would be enormously hard, but in the fantasy there are no sore feet, no irksome classmates and no gargantuan tuition bills. Just me and a perfect Hollandaise.