The lady's in a hurry

This is a story lifted from Kitchen Notebook. Lucy is an expatriate American woman who is living in Lyon with her French husband and their son. She writes floridly like a woman for women and she uses a lot of French words.

This story is titled The Lamb Chops.

The pickings were slim at the market. Shopping is more like a farmer's market, not an American  supermarket. The vendors like to take a break after summer harvest and before autumn harvest so there is virtually nothing to buy.

I was going to be teaching a class where we just cook together through to lunch time, based on what I find. I dropped my son off at school and only had 45 minutes before class. I had to be quick. I walked the length of the market and reached the end. Nothing. Nothing looked fabulous this morning. 

She had noticed before a surge of early autumn vegetables and had been looking forward to using those ingredients, particularly beets and watercress. That was her plan but when she went through the market all those things were gone.

My egg people being gone was a serious problem. These are the only people who consistently give me fabulous eggs. I am talking about eggs laid yesterday, the ones that plump up into perfect ovals when poached. I had to start asking people about their eggs, and got shaky answers each and every time. "Tuesday" said one, looking off over my shoulder just long enough for me to know, without a doubt, he was telling a story. I finally settled on some eggs, wasting precious minutes. 

She needed tarragon but a previous shopper took the whole lot. None left.

She rolled her eyes and so did I. This continued all the way back down and I realized I had done the whole market I still didn't have a starter. 

Time was wasted and now she must change her whole plan.

I decided to shift my poached egg dish to a starter and go with a meat dish. Côtelettes d'agneau en aïado, which is aromatic herb marinated lamb chops I like to do with three sauces, a fabulous garlic sauce similar to an aioli but cooked, a buttery plumped reduction sauce from lamb stock, and a sweet onion and predominantly chervil based green sauce using Claire's secret olive oil. I got closer to the meat stand where the idea for the chops came from but saw he was one of those circular saw butchers that wear lab coats, the ones that use power saws, producing cuts addled with ugly to deal with bone schrapnel. That would not do. 

Not do! Clinging to her idea of lamb chops she will leave the outdoor market and make her way to a familiar butcher nearby. Thank God for the regular guys.

"Bonjour madame, do you have any lamb chops?"
"Yes, we do. Honey, the lady wants lamb chops."
"How many?"
"Eight." I was thinking that would be fine. Eight lamb chops.
"Coming right up!" he called. I had 20 minutes at that point to finish this transaction and get down to the kitchen, open up, and print out recipes. I heard him bumping around downstairs. I looked at my watch and smiled at the butcher's wife.

She told the wife that she's teaching class in twenty minutes and they both laughed.

Then silence.

"The lady's in a hurry!"

The butcher came up with a lamb on his shoulder and started to carve into the lamb. He removed the cuts that he needed to get to the chops.

"The lady's in a hurry, the lady's in a hurry" he sang, removing a shoulder, the heart, trimming and slicing with what looked to be a small razor sharp paring knife. He brought down a hack saw and pulled no more than two strokes to get through one bone, cut out the strip of ribs, and trimmed the end with a cleaver. His tools hung from the gorgeous hooks that looked like miniature metal bulls horns lined up in neat rows above him.

She recalls her previous butcher used those same hooks to hang meat when he broke down the animal. But this butcher uses them for his tools. He showed her a sample and asked if that's what she wants. She told him she prefers the smaller chops. "Can you give me the cute little ones that look like a miniature côte de boeuf?"

He went back in and came out with a gorgeous trimmed lamb chop. I asked for some nice and thick and some nice and thin. I like it when I can stand the thick ones up on their end and the thin ones kind of lean along the side. Perfect. 

She noted the price was not that much higher than what she pays the producer. Apparently she transported to her workshop as they do in science fiction because the next sentence picks up in front of her rentrée.

The whole class was gathered in pairs along the street, waiting for me, although class would not start for another 5 minutes. I ushered them all in and we all had a cup of coffee while I printed the recipes. It came out that one of the students who had registered at the last minute was celiac, so instead of an autumn tarte, we went with some vanilla bean enriched îles flottantes for dessert. We had a delightful morning. The eggs were probably at least 4 days old, but I will take that up with him tomorrow.

Eggs four days old! OMG. They didn't puff up like they should.

Those îles flottantes things are a glass or bowl of creme Anglaise with an island of floating meringue.

Duckduckgo images [iles flottantes]