Going to pastry school in New York City was a magical experience in a lot of ways. One aspect of that was that some of the people I got to learn from were so skilled and talented that what they could do bordered on sorcery at times. I’m not exaggerating. Jacques Torres did a chocolate demonstration and he was chatting with us and cracking jokes the entire time and seemingly without even paying attention, he whipped up a chocolate showpiece that looked like it belonged in a museum. Ron-Ben Israel did something similar, but he turned a tub of premade fondant into ribbons that literally looked like silk to decorate a cake.
Another genius wizard that I had the pleasure and honor of meeting and getting to know a little was Chef Alain Sailhac. His Wikipedia page provides a little insight into some of his accomplishments, which include everything from James Beard awards to the first-ever four star review from the New York Times to the $30,000-per-couple fundraising dinner he cooked for Barack Obama.
Chef Alain, as we all called him, was a vice president and Dean Emeritus at my school. He didn’t teach any full classes while I was there that I know of, but he was often present, peeking his head into classes, popping in to see what we were working on, and the like.
Three of us that used to eat lunch together sometimes started chatting him up in French one day. One girl was from Switzerland and the other was, like me, just an American trying her best. Chef Alain’s English was certainly better than my French, but he beamed in appreciation of the effort.
When chefs did “demos,” or demonstration cooking sessions, they were not held in a classroom kitchen, but on a stage in the school auditorium so more people could attend. We got to help out with these, and when Chef Alain was visiting our class one day, he revealed that he was going to be doing a demo that week. I volunteered immediately. I didn’t care if I would be helping to prep ingredients or just standing there in case he needed anything. I just wanted to be there while he was cooking.
“Très bien!” he said with a smile. “And you can bring dessert for the people. Make something French!”
There was only one acceptable reply.
“Yes, Chef!”
Holy shit.
I was fine with standing at attention on stage and taking his dirty bowls or doing whatever else he needed. I was not anticipating making “something French” to accompany the work of one of the greatest French chefs the world has ever seen. I was living in a tiny little short-term rental wedged in between Soho and Chinatown with a kitchen that was hardly built for preparing a large amount of…anything, really. Dinner for one could be a tight fit to prep or to fit in the oven.
But I certainly wasn’t going to let him down. I needed something distinctly French. Something I could make in several batches. And preferably something that I could get done ahead of time.
Because I am insane and I often make things difficult on myself for reasons I don’t fully understand, I decided to make macarons. Which can be notoriously finicky to make under the best of conditions, let alone under the ones with which I’d be dealing.
Hell, I didn’t even have my mixer with me. Which is good, because, while I love it, it would have taken up about half the available space in that particular kitchen. So I marched off to Williams-Sonoma and quickly convinced myself that owning a second, smaller, high-quality mixer would come in handy after I was done with school.
I still use my older, bigger one about 99% of the time today.
But anyway…with that, a recipe I had learned in class, and unwarranted optimism, I had what I needed to whip up a bunch of macarons. If I remember correctly, it was a two or three day process. I went with two kinds—one filled with a dark chocolate ganache, and the other with a simple raspberry filling. I didn’t know exactly how many people would attend the demo, so for a few nights I just cranked out as many as I could after class. I thought they were pretty good.
Demo day came and there is no way to do justice to what Chef Alain made. You know that end of the asparagus that you snap off and throw away because it’s nasty and basically inedible? Yeah. That was his MAIN INGREDIENT in an insanely delicious, creamy asparagus soup. It blew my mind. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t gotten to taste it, but he turned that woody, tasteless bit of what is generally considered literal garbage and turned it into a Michelin-star quality soup.
And he liked my macarons!
“These are very good,” he told me after trying one. “You could sell these for three or four dollars.”
I knew that this man would absolutely not mess around when it came to providing his thoughts on any kind of French cuisine, so that really meant a lot to me. Everyone in attendance gobbled them all up after the demonstration, so clearly chef was right…they were actually good. He appreciated them even more when he learned about my struggles to knock them out in my tiny home kitchen.
I learned on social media from some of my other chef-instructors that Chef Alain died on December 1 at the age of 87. I’m lucky that I got to spend a little time with him. He was a kind, wonderful person and a world-class chef.
The only way I can think of doing something to honor him is to talk about him here. And perhaps to bake something special for Christmas in his honor.
I’ll make something French. I think he’d like that.