anticipation. By the end of the process the three of us were fast friends, and I had a gorgeous, user-friendly website. I couldn’t imagine who would go there, but now at least I could put a ‘.com’ after my name. I was somebody!
I now had a key marketing tool in place to test with the restaurant group, who had asked if I would host more of their managers. Naturally I agreed, and when they came back to me with questions about myself, my work, the school, where they could stay (I had posted photographs and information about my chosen four places on the site), I sent them to susanloomis.com. The response was miraculous; I didn’t have to spend any more time answering questions, and when they arrived they were fully informed about my work, the cooking school and me.
I felt extremely fortunate to be trying out the new kitchen on these restaurant managers who would, I was sure, be as open and easy-going as the first group had been. That group had loved working in the makeshift kitchen; this group would have all the advantage of working in the finished kitchen. If there were a few stumbles or some head-scratching about where to find this or that, it wouldn’t matter.
By the time they arrived I’d augmented my equipment. A friend of mine, Barbara Tropp, a wonderful Chinese cook who lived in San Francisco, sent me a dozen great, lightweight chef’s knives. I found some very good quality copper pans at a shop near Louviers for ridiculously low prices, and purchased multiples of the most useful sizes. I’d augmented my utensils and cutting boards, and I’d found beautiful long white aprons as well. I was all ready to go.
There were sixteen managers and I paired them up to cook. I couldn’t believe how well we all fitted in the kitchen: there was room to work, room for me to circulate among the couples and guide them, room to arrange the cheese tray off in a corner, to roll out pastry, to open wine. Not only was there room, but the lighting Michael had installed could be modulated to fit the occasion. We went from laboratory bright while preparing the meal to cosy intimate while we stood around the tidied-up island with our aperitifs, a fire roaring in the background.
From cooking in the new kitchen to eating in the dining room, everything worked so well, so smoothly and so effortlessly. No one could possibly know all the planning, dreaming, and plain hard work that had gone into the smooth flow of food from kitchen to table. I was so proud of Michael, and I knew that our cooking school was going to be a well-organized and luxuriously comfortable success, thanks to the setting he had provided.
Filled with confidence, I scheduled a class for the following spring, and hoped it would fill. I knew I had to do some marketing, so I had a brochure printed up that explained the school, and sent it out to friends, colleagues and the editors I’d worked for over the years, hoping they would all get behind the project and spread the word. I announced the opening of the school on the website, then I crossed my fingers. Meanwhile, we had to celebrate the kitchen and ‘pendre la crèmaillère’, or ‘hang the soup pot’, the French expression for a house-warming. Everyone we knew had become intimately acquainted with this massive project, and they all wanted to experience the results. I invited our friends, our neighbours, Fiona’s various babysitters, Joe’s friends and their parents, who had kept an eye on progress while they dropped off or picked up their children, until we had at least fifty people on the guest list. The party was to be casual, and I wanted it to be a surprise for Michael. I made lots of appetizers, among them a favourite of Michael’s: wild boar rillettes. My vegetarian friend Babette had offered to come cook with me, and when Michael saw her in the kitchen helping me with the rillettes he began to suspect that something was afoot, but he said nothing.
Babette and I also made tapenade, anchovy toasts and strips of air-cured ham wrapped around chunks of feta and fresh sage. Because this wasn’t a sit-down affair, I decided I would make thin crusted pizza with many different toppings, from olive oil, sea salt, rosemary and garlic, to Sicilian tomato sauce with capers, and onions with bacon and cream. For dessert I slathered dough with crème fraîche and sprinkled it generously with brown sugar and cinnamon. Our neighbour, Patrick Merlin, diverted Michael with an invitation for a drink at his house.
Joe was in charge of lighting the hundred candles out front in the courtyard, and as our friends arrived I set them to other tasks – making sure the music was organized, arranging platters, putting away coats. Some washed dishes and put things away.
I’d asked everyone to bring something sparkling, without being specific. Had this been the States, I suspect that offerings would have ranged from boxes of glitter to sparkling items of clothing, but here in France it meant one thing and one thing only: champagne. I assigned five men to open bottles, and instructed them that the minute Michael and Patrick came in the front gate they were to pop the corks.
I’d told Patrick to bring Michael at 8.30 p.m., and by then all our friends were assembled and everything was ready, but there was no Michael nor Patrick. I called Patrick. He’d forgotten about the party because he and Michael were having such a good time drinking whiskey, listening to music, talking. Fortunately he lived three minutes away and, much chagrined, said they would leave immediately. I alerted everyone and it went just as planned: the minute Michael walked in the door, corks popped and flew, and he was as surprised as if someone had put ice cubes down his shirt. It was a terrific party, one of our best.
I had a group signed up for a class in May 2001, and it would be my first, official class. By this time I had a terrific assistant, Kerrie Luzum, who has degrees in cooking and nutrition, as well as years of restaurant experience. She lives in Paris and comes out two days a week to help in the office and the kitchen.
I planned that first week over and over and over, with Kerrie making phone calls to set up farm visits and wine tastings, restaurant meals and visits to artisans. Establishing the mix of recipes that we would all make during the six hands-on classes was the most difficult part of planning, and the most important. I take my role as cooking teacher very seriously, and I want people to leave my classes not only with a reinvigorated passion for cooking and a sheaf of recipes they can’t wait to make at home, but with confidence in their technique and a keen understanding of how to balance flavours. To that end I was up at all hours tweaking the menus, changing recipes, testing details until I came up with a perfect mix which incorporated the right blend of techniques, methods and ingredients. When the recipes were finally printed and bound, I realized why it had felt like so much work – I’d produced a small book.
I look forward to the classes as a whole, but the Sunday evening when guests tap gently on the old, wavy glass of the front door for the first time is almost the best part, for it is like a reunion. We’ve never met anyone before they arrive, but the communication and arrangements that have gone into making this moment a reality mean that we are, on some level, already acquainted.
I’ve thought, planned, and cooked my way to this first meal with each guest in mind, sparing no detail so it will be perfect. Like all the recipes and meals that we encounter during our time together, this first is based on what is best and freshest at the market. It’s a fête, too, because Michael and I – and the others who help out at On Rue Tatin – are just as excited as anyone that our five days together are beginning.
We greet each other, we share the meal I’ve prepared, we linger over dessert, then the participants leave with their recipes in hand. They return to our home the next morning, put on their monogrammed On Rue Tatin aprons, and cook their way up to lunch.
After the first evening, the weeks speed by in a blur of cooking classes and meals at home, visits to artisans and restaurants, wine tastings, cheese tastings and drinks outside in our courtyard, in the shadow of Nôtre Dame in Louviers. I can never believe, when the last meal rolls around, that another week is ended: it always goes by so quickly. Yet it has been long enough to bond with great people, to get involved; not only to instruct but to learn and share.
I imagined many things when we decided to go ahead with lunches, then with a cooking school, but what I didn’t anticipate
