Free White Truffles in Winter by N. M. Kelby Page B

Well.” Escoffier stood. Straightened his vest. “Please tell the staff that today’s menu is in honor of my own personal triumph, the success of the meal that I made for our Miss Bernhardt and the esteemed Gustave Doré, my now former teacher.
    â€œIt will be Noisettes d’Agneau Cora Dressés dans les Coeurs d’Artichauts and Pigeonneaux Cocotte .”
    The boulanger looked confused. “Artichoke hearts and pigeons?”
    â€œIt seems appropriate, does it not? A pigeon is a sucker and the Coeur d’Artichaut is a man who falls in love with every girl he meets.”
    The man laughed and hugged Escoffier as if he were his own son.
    â€œC’est la vie,” he said. “Enjoy your heartbreak now, while you can. One day soon a woman will come along and you will become an old married man like me with too many children and too little sleep.”
    â€œYou have bread to make.”
    The boulanger winked, tapped the side of his nose. “Our secret,” he said and then went back to his work.
    Escoffier washed his face, gathered his topcoat and hat. “I will return before the luncheon service,” he said. The light was still on in Doré’s studio and so he walked up the stairs and leaned against the door. He could hear the chipping of chisel on marble. The muffled sounds of laughter.
    He stood for a long time, listening. When a champagne bottle popped and then all grew quiet, Escoffier knew it was time to go home.
    Later that morning, two notes arrived for him. The first was from former French Minister Léon Gambetta requesting a private salon for a meal that night. The menu was to include a saddle of Béhague lamb and the utmost secrecy.
    The second was from Sarah.
    Both eventually would come to haunt him.

S ARAH’S STUDIO WAS NOT AT ALL WHAT ESCOFFIER HAD expected. It was not a hot square box of a place like Gustave Doré’s. It was a top floor flat in a small odd building that sat in a courtyard just beyond the Boulevard de Courcelles. It looked more like a greenhouse, with several rows of windows and a glass-paned roof. And it was filled with people—all of whom, oddly enough, had striking yellow hair.
    Yellow as pineapples, Escoffier thought. He was not expecting this familial scene and felt foolish standing there with a large hamper of food and a chilled bottle of Moët.
    â€œIt is as if I am drowning in a sea of butter, is it not, my dear Escoffier?” Sarah laughed. She wore white trousers, a jacket, and a white silkfoulard tied around her head like a washerwoman. A cigarette hung from her mouth. She looked beautiful, careless and cunning.
    â€œDrowning in butter. I cannot think of a better way to die,” he said, and she leaned into him and kissed him on both cheeks as was the custom, and yet his face went hot.
    â€œWell, I can,” she whispered. “But there are children present.”
    At the center of the room there was indeed a child, a small girl whose golden curly hair formed a halo around her angelic face. She was dressed as cupid wearing only a diaper and holding a small bow and arrow, a quiver on her back. She was obviously posing for Sarah. She had her head tilted to the right and her eyes toward the heavens. Escoffier had never seen such a beautiful child before. It would be difficult to do this creature justice in marble, but he had to admit that Sarah was well on her way. The sculpture she was working on captured the girl’s innocence and also her mischievous air.
    â€œThis is young Nina,” Sarah said. “She was sitting in the balcony last week. I was on stage and could not keep my eyes off her—which is a dangerous thing for an actress. I could have fallen into the orchestra.”
    An older woman with a straw-colored rope of hair—Escoffier assumed it was Nina’s mother—smiled at the thought of the beguiling Sarah tumbling into the timpani. But the man next to her—his