Colorín Colorado

SHOULD THEY HEAR THIS? - The day they came for the interview, I woke up too early, thinking about Bernard Loiseau. This happens when I'm nervous-not thinking about Loiseau, specifically, but thinking in my sleep, waking up mid-thought.

- CAMILLE BORDAS

The thought was in fact a memory. I write fiction now, mostly, but back in the nineties I worked for a magazine in New York, one that sent me to France to profile Bernard Loiseau, after he earned his third Michelin star. I was picked because I was half French and spoke the language, not because I was good. But I wanted to be good, and writing a profile was a major step for me, so I did a lot of research on Loiseau. I concluded that interviewing him would be easy: the guy was funny, passionate, generous in his answers. The piece would write itself. A piece that wrote itself was dubious to me, though, even as a mostly inexperienced young writer. I needed to introduce conflict, I thought, something abrasive, get Chef Loiseau off balance.

I asked him about food, of course, but then I quickly jumped to questions of ambition, of jealousy and envy. Those were the kinds of things that were on my mind at the time. I was seeing too many people around me sign book deals and make connections while I was stuck cataloguing everyone else's successes in hundred-words-or-less reviews for our culture pages. That was my story back then: twenty-four years old and already bitter. I don't remember exactly how I phrased it to Bernard (he'd asked me to call him that), but I remember the sentiment, I remember wanting to get this honest man, this man who'd done nothing but work hard and make it to the top, to talk shit. I wanted to know if he was angry at another chef's success, if there were dishes that others got famous for which he thought were crap.

"Do your readers need to know this?" Loiseau had answered, the way he'd answered all my questions-not taking a split second to think about them.

"Pardon me?"

"Your readers should they hear this? Do they want to know this?"