Dirt: Adventures in Lyon as a Chef in Training, Father, and Sleuth Looking for the Secret of French Cooking

He tucked his napkin under his chin and murmured to the waiter. “Un grand?” said the waiter. “Un grand,” said Régis, and sixty seconds later a large glass pitcher, opaque with cold, was placed in front of us. Régis became professorial; our lesson was about to commence. “In a serious restaurant,” he said, “one can always have confidence in the house

batches and laid out unrinsed and still warm on lightly oiled sheet pans before being finished in sauce a few minutes later.

We ate fully dressed, in hats and heavy coats, without speaking, ripping into chicken parts with our hands and teeth. There was a mood of intense concentration, minds converging on a single compelling idea. I was surprised to find I was enormously hungry. I chewed and ate, looking only inches past my hands. This is how hunger shrinks the world. Thi