The Man Who Ate Too Much by John Birdsall

Author:John Birdsall
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
Published: 2020-09-02T00:00:00+00:00

In September, they sent postcards to everyone they knew. It showed a cartoon James, in chef’s toque and long apron sheathing his enormous bulk, carrying a steaming roast goose on a platter. “JAMES BEARD and ANDRE SURMAIN are happy to announce the opening of a COOKING SEMINAR meeting once a week . . . at our offices and test kitchen, 249 East 50th Street, New York City.”

They began with forty paid students and invited a few members of the media to attend for free. At the last minute, James and Ruth simplified the first session, to make it friendlier for novices: an hors d’oeuvre spread, chicken three ways, corn bread, salad, a layer cake. “Not exciting but the right thing for a beginning class,” James explained to Helen. “For some reason I am looking forward to the classes because of the fact I am such a ham I guess.”

One of the students for that first session was Perdita Schaffner, who almost never cooked. “You will be fascinated to hear that the James Beard–Surmain cooking school is a terrific success so far,” John Schaffner reported to Helen. “It is particularly so for one Perdita Schaffner, who made her first layer cake on her first lesson, along with learning five hundred other things.”

The day after the class was Schaffner’s birthday. Perdita asked James whether she could buy the cake she made, to take home to her husband. The cake, glorious with candles and a beaming Perdita to present it, was beautiful and delicious. James’s restlessness, his false starts and frustrations, melted away when he was teaching. He’d found his stage, the spotlight he’d been seeking for thirty years. He’d become the master of ceremonies for a complex orchestrated performance that felt easy and natural. A show that made everyone happy.

“I think the class is going to do wonderful things for Perdita,” Schaffner told Helen, “and Jim’s method of teaching is apparently so sympathetic and disarming that all of her fears and lack of self-confidence have vanished quite away. I know she is looking forward with all of the eagerness of a child to a party toward the next lesson. I do think this is quite wonderful, don’t you?”

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