You can listen to our podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify each week. Follow this link if you're listening on Apple News.
Ever dreamed of swapping your current life for a brand new one in Paris? That’s what Jane Bertch did, who chronicles her own journey, including opening a French cooking school, in her new memoir The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time. Lale chats with Jane about the lessons she’s learned (culinary and otherwise) from her years spent in the French capital, her tips for shopping the city’s many boulangeries and fromageries, and all the characters she’s met along the way.
Lale Arikoglu: Hi there, I'm Lale Arikoglu. In this episode of Women Who Travel, I'm talking to a guest who left Chicago to work in Paris as a banker, and then ended up establishing a cooking school back in 2009. She's Jane Bertch, and she's just written the memoir It's The French Ingredient: Making a Life in Paris One Lesson at a Time.
I was in Paris six weeks ago. I hadn't been in 10 years. It was so wonderful to be back in that city. I feel like every time I'm there it's this wonderful combination of familiarity because some of it just never changes, but also a lot was new. I would love to know what it was like for you when you moved there. Was there a culture shock?
Jane Bertch: It was the end of 2005, beginning of 2006, and there absolutely was a culture shock. I think when you arrive in a city to live and to try to function and to set up a life versus organizing cultural events and going to restaurants, it's a very, very different story.
LA: Why did you move there? What were those early months like?
JB: I moved here because I was working for a bank and an opportunity came up to move to Paris, which I'd swore I would not ever come back to Paris because my first visit was a little unsatisfactory. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb. I couldn't understand the fascination with this city.
LA: Wait, elaborate a little bit more because I've heard that before. Paris is a hard city to crack.
JB: Yes, yes. There's a very difficult language barrier. People speak a lot of English now. When I was here, I feel like that's a big change. When I first moved here, finding people to speak English was challenging. Trying to speak French with my very, very poor pidgin French, it did not always go down well.
LA: Where were you living?
JB: When I first arrived, I was living in the 16th Arrondissement, and that was the place that anyone working in banking, there's a lot of cultural undertones in this city about where you live or where you went to school and anybody working in banking would likely have lived in the 16th Arrondissement, which was either filled with bankers or older women and their dogs.
LA: It's actually funny, I was staying in the 17th when I was there a couple of months ago and walked through the 16th a lot, and that's definitely the vibe. It's not too far from the Champs-Élysées.
JB: Exactly.
LA: If you are a visitor, if you're a tourist, you're probably going to walk through that area, right?
JB: Exactly. Exactly, yes.
LA: Can you describe a little bit what the streets look like and the buildings? Just paint me a bit of a picture.
JB: Well, very residential. The 16th, as you get deep into it, is very residential. This is where you've got these big beautiful Hasmonean buildings, extraordinary apartments. There's certainly a different type of pocketbook that lives there. It's very upscale, very elegant. These are very well-heeled people, affluent who can afford these wonderful big Hasmonean apartments.
LA: Okay, so you've landed in this very beautiful, very moneyed, sounds like a slightly insular neighborhood in Paris. You're finding your feet and definitely there's some culture shock. You write about it in your book. Could you share a little bit about that?
JB: Yes, I can. I'm just going to read a small passage. "Paris laughed at me almost immediately. First, it was winter. I'd never been to Paris in the winter. I'd always associated Paris with sidewalk cafes and picnics in the park, but when I arrived, it was nearly unrecognizable from the Paris of the warmerseasons. The days felt impossibly short with just eight hours of sunlight, constant rain and inescapable bone chilling damp, and those beautiful Paris buildings had turned a dingy dishwater gray.
"Second. This was the first time I'd been to Paris alone without my mom or my girlfriends by my side. I felt conspicuous. Did everyone know I was an outsider? Was everyone looking at me with disdain or was that my imagination?
"Third, it was immediately apparent to everyone, including me, that I did not speak passable French or anything remotely close to it."
LA: What you're describing in that passage is ... You're quite funny about it, but it must have been quite lonely. I'm interested to know as this is something that I personally have gotten very comfortable doing, but there was a time where I found it hard, and as I think everyone does, is were you taking yourself out to eat and were you dining alone in Paris?
JB: I did not have the courage. This is going to sound so ridiculous. I couldn't figure out where the grocery stores were because they're all random with these names that don't look like grocery stores.
LA: And yet, you fell in love with the food in Paris.
JB: I did.
LA: You did start eating because you left your career in banking to start your own business.
JB: Yes.
LA: Which was a culinary one.
JB: Yes.
LA: We're going to get really into food in Paris now.
JB: Excellent.
LA: What led you to making that leap, and how long had you been in Paris when you decided to do that after what sounds like a rough start?
JB: Oh, I've been in Paris for almost four years, and my rough start was a blessing because the one thing I've really come to love and appreciate about my French comrades, once you break that nut, they are so faithful and they're loving and they want to see you succeed. I'd finally gotten past that and started to fall in love with this country and the way people operate. Of course the food, which is such an important part of that.
LA: Can I ask how you cracked the French nut? How did you make your friends? How did you crack them?
JB: Time. That is the one secret ingredient in France is time and how sacred it is. Time to get to know people, time to invest in relationships, time to have dinner where you're not bothered with the bill. You almost have to beg for it. Time to have coffee with friends. It's time. It was just time. They don't eat out, they dine. I had learned to appreciate that.
LA: Time, and that it was a cultural thing that you then learned to respect and get into the groove with.
JB: Yes, which still to this day, I am who I am and Americans are, a huge generalization, but I'll say it about myself, can feel very rushed. I want to get things done. I don't want to feel like I'm losing time doing something. But I think on the other side of that sword is the beauty of taking time to do something, not losing it, so I really had to change the way I thought.
LA: I love what you said about not rushing to pay the bill in restaurants because I do think that that is a cultural difference. I know that the UK sits somewhere in between France and America, but I'm like, "Why are you always rushing to get out of the restaurant like you're on a conveyor belt here?" Oh my God, I love nothing more than just sitting in a restaurant and chatting.
JB: Yes. In the US, it's 40 minutes in and they're giving you the bill. But it's also people's expectations, they want to get in and out.
LA: I think there is a lot to be learned, but tell me a little bit more about the ways of life that led you to decide to stay and then start your business.
JB: I just love the way things operate here. I love the emphasis on relationships. I've come to appreciate that what is so important about my business are relationships. Being 100% transparent, 20 years ago, would you have asked me: “Will I have a cooking school in Paris?” I would've thought you had two heads. It actually came out of a crisis, which sometimes wonderful things come out of a crisis. I needed to make a change for myself, and the idea of cooking with others just felt like a wonderful experience. It was an idea that came out of the blue. What better country to do it in, but France, where they hold it so sacred.
LA: What was the crisis? Can you share a little bit more about that catalyst?
JB: Within a very short timeframe, I lost three significant people in my life. It really made me question, what am I doing and why am I here and where do I belong? I frankly wasn't sure where that was, but sometimes the best thing to do for me in a crisis is to dream and imagine. When I started to do that, the idea of La Cuisine just popped up like a little light bulb in a cartoon.
LA: It sounds like at the beginning you were not eating much or eating probably terribly, but you cracked it. What was your Proustian moment? Was there a Madeline that you tried and then couldn't stop thinking about or just the light bulb moment where you ate something and you thought, God, this is it. I'm going to dedicate my life to this food that isn't mine, culturally.
JB: Yes, there was one thing, it was a white nectarine or maybe it was a white peach. I had never seen one. I grew up in Chicago where our fancy cheese was sharp cheddar and pepper jack, and now I'm in a country where there's all these wonderful cheeses and fruits and I tasted a white nectarine. I'm going to say it was a nectarine. It was so sweet and beautiful. It was small and ugly, but it just had a sweetness in the juice that shocked me.
LA: Where did you try it?
JB: I wasn't in some big high-class grocery store. I was just on a street market and I stopped and it was summer, and I thought that looks interesting. I want to try it. It was revolutionary.
LA: Did it set a course of events rolling or was it a little bit more abstract than that in the moment?
JB: It was probably more abstract, but it was just this appreciation. I've eaten so many peaches and nectarines and grapes and strawberries, but to have that moment where you taste something and you think, my God, that's so wonderful in its own imperfect way. It wasn't beautiful like we have in the grocery stores in the US. It was a little wonky looking, but it was so delicious and it made me think, where's this come from and who's grown it? Maybe, looking back now, that started my interest in French food.
LA: Coming up, how to shop at a fromagerie and a snapshot of one of Jane's market tours.
How did you get from that bite of that nectarine to running your cooking school?
JB: I know that sounds so improbable, doesn't it?
LA: But you got there. There was a line.
JB: I know. Yes. How did I get there? Again, started dreaming, started imagining what would this school look like, and then I found the name La Cuisine, which is just the kitchen. Sometimes I think when you take time to pursue a dream, you'll find little bits of cobbles that will then create a path forward. I know it's going to sound absurd, but I decided to leave the bank in May. It was May 2009. By July, I had registered the business. By October, we were open.
LA: That is-
JB: Isn't that crazy? But luck and circumstance and, of course, perseverance.
LA: Now, you often take class tours of how to shop in French markets, and I'm sure people are sampling those nectarines, some version of it.
JB: Yes.
LA: How do you take them around the market?
JB: France is a city of artisans, so you must remember that even on an open market, you have people that have brought in the produce that they've picked out of the grounds themselves. This is their livelihood. They're really invested in it. The first thing I tell people is engage with the person in front of you. If you're shopping on the market and you're going to buy peaches, they should ask you, "What are you going to do with them? Are you going to eat it right now? If so, that's a different peach that I'll give you if you're going to eat it in four days or if you're going to cook a pie with it." That's exciting for people to share. Be curious, be inquisitive, and that will open up a whole world for visitors when it comes to French food.
LA: You mentioned the cheeses. I mean, not to continue to trash over America in this episode, but the cheese situation here is not great. It's better, and you can find some great cheeses, but-
JB: Okay, good.
LA: But what you were describing growing up in the Midwest sounds familiar from living here. If you're visiting Paris, how do you shop in a fromagerie? I mean, I bloody love cheese and I wouldn't really know where to start. I think I'd find it quite an intimidating space.
JB: Yes, a lot of people do. There's so much going on, you don't know where to start, but there is a method to the madness. Most times a fromager will have the cheeses arranged by the milk. We have cow, we have sheep, we have goat. Already you go in there knowing that most of the cheeses are going to be like that, and then of course they're just arranged by production. But again, talk to your fromager. Tell them whether you like strong cheese, smelly cheese, hard cheese, and they can help you pick a selection of cheeses.
France is built on the back of small businesses. When you go in a lot of these businesses, you're going into an extension of their living room. When you greet them, I wouldn't walk into your house without saying, "Hello." These are family businesses where they're very proud of their products, and if they don't make them, they have artisans that they've worked with for years. I think if you show interest and respect for their trade, they'll captivate you for hours talking about things to please you.
LA: Is there a dish that you most love to order in Paris?
JB: Absolutely. I'm a steak and potatoes gal, so maybe this takes me back to my Chicago roots. I love a good steak with pepper sauce, steak au poivre and a side of frites, french fries. I'm in my happy place, just nice and simple and a nice glass of red wine, and I'm just as happy as anything.
LA: I've got to ask. How do you get the steak done? How are you ordering it?
JB: I order it à point, à point, which is at point, so right in the middle. It's still pink, still pink, but it's not saignant or it's not bleu, so to speak.
LA: A medium rare.
JB: A medium rare.
LA: So, medium rare. Okay.
JB: Yeah, absolutely.
LA: Noted.
JB: I mean, I have good friends that if they're cooking steak at home, they'll cook the heck out of that thing. It will be like shoe leather. They go to a restaurant. They won't dare order anything less than à point because they'd be embarrassed as a French person to order a well-cooked steak.
I'm in a cooking school all day, so I'm sampling food because I'm nosy and I want to make sure we're doing good stuff. But what I do love is to cook a special meal. Again, that's a wonderful time to bring people together for holidays that are important to me, like Thanksgiving, which is a sacred holiday I hope to always celebrate with friends.
LA: Are you bringing French friends around the table for Thanksgiving?
JB: Yes, and they are obsessed with it. To get an invitation to Thanksgiving is so coveted, you cannot even imagine.
LA: I love that. I feel like it's almost like Thanksgiving is the one time of year where Americans let themselves have the French approach to food.
JB: Exactly. Where you just eat all day and talk, and then eat your leftovers. It's a wonderful holiday. It's my favorite.
LA: Wouldn't it be crazy if I just did it all the time?
JB: Wouldn't that be wonderful?
LA: After the break, making macarons, croissants and French sauces at Jane's school.
I want to talk about your school.
JB: Yes.
LA: There are so many classes and so many different types of things to master. There's macrons, there's croissants, there's sauces. What are the most popular and also the hardest, and the ones that are the hardest for you to master as well?
JB: I'd say the most popular, croissant by a landslide. Summertime, definitely the French market because then you also get a cultural tour, so people love that. I think the hardest ones where you find people who are possibly more technical would be the sauce class. They're not there for frills. They really want to learn something. We're not doing cooking classes, we're doing memories, which is a hard balance to get. We're talking to lots of different people, different levels of experience. But you do find people with more technical experience tend to like to do the sauce class.
LA: Who are some of the characters that walk through your door?
JB: Oh, we get so many. We're so lucky. I would say very heavy North American. All of our classes are in English, but we get people from all over the world. On the weekends, we get lots of Europeans, so it's such a wonderful mix of people. We're not meant to be cultural ambassadors for the world, but when you have a kitchen filled with people from all walks of the world, all religious beliefs, all different colors, shapes and sizes, and for that three hours, people are standing next to people they've only ever seen on the news, and perhaps not in a good way, that's just a wonderful moment. That's what food does. When you're cooking with people, you learn so much about them. I mean, everybody wants to tell you how their grandmother did something. Isn't that wonderful to discover someone new through food? Which, food is history.
LA: How many people walk into that kitchen and say they want to be Julia Child?
JB: A few. A few, but I think most people just walk in and they want to have a community experience. They want to be with a group of hopefully like-minded travelers. They love French food, they love culture.
LA: It's very funny to me, given how treasured Julia Child is here, that the French don't know much about her, or at least allegedly. Was it difficult for you as an American to convince people that you were opening a cooking school for French cuisine?
JB: Absolutely. France is a country of expertise. They value that. They live it. They have awards for it. No matter what your profession is, being an expert is very important. Here we have Jane from Chicago, doesn't speak French well, knows nothing about food and knows nothing about being an entrepreneur, decides she's going to open a cooking school. It did raise a few eyebrows. I don't know whether some people took pity on me or they wanted to be close enough to see would this actually happen.
LA: You must have known that you thought you might have been able to pull this off. What gave you the confidence and the skill in regards to French cooking?
JB: I didn't have a lot of confidence in myself. What I had confidence in is that I don't like to fail, and I have confidence that I work hard and I try to find a solution. That's the magic sauce is trying to believe in yourself even when you don't. For me, when I don't have confidence in what I'm doing, I spend a lot of time trying to learn it. For me, the sweet spot is sometimes not knowing what the heck I'm doing because then I'll get in and I'll really study it and I'll try to master it.
LA: Your school is named La Cuisine Paris.
JB: Yes.
LA: I think you said it's not quite grammatically correct.
JB: Yes.
LA: Which I imagine rubs some people up the wrong way.
JB: Of course, and I get it all the time with people saying, "La Cuisine de Paris." The kitchen in Paris or from Paris. But, one, I thought the name sounded better, La Cuisine Paris or Paris, and it was easier to search for. For a lot of reasons, La Cuisine Paris, in all of her grammatical incorrectness stands.
LA: She survives.
JB: She survives. She survives.
LA: It sounds like a wonderful journey, but it hasn't been without its challenges. I think you had to get up and move the school at one point.
JB: In the first year of a business, the only people that patronize it are usually your family and your friends that feel bad for you, so you already have the first year woes as a small business. We had all sorts of things that could have gone wrong from weather systems that shut down air traffic to, indeed, one of the biggest challenges, finding that we didn't have the correct lease to do our activity. When you're dealing with food, your business is called a nuisance. A nuisance, that's the formal term. Doesn't that make you feel great that before you even do anything your business is considered a nuisance? So, we had to move within the first year, which was really challenging, and then by luck ended up in the location we are today.
LA: Where is the location now?
JB: Right now we are on the Quai. When you hear the word Quai, which is Q-u-a-i, it means the bank of the Seine. From our windows you can actually see the Seine River, very central. It used to be a nightclub, so La Cuisine has had her past as well.
LA: Good for her.
JB: Exactly. Now she's a cooking school.
LA: She's entered a slightly more distinguished phase of her life.
JB: Exactly. Exactly, yes.
LA: Where does it lie in relation to where you live? What's your routine at school every morning?
JB: I live near a place called Marché d'Aligre, which is behind Bastille. I have a straight shot from my apartment straight to the Bastille, and then on basically the extension of Rue de Rivoli. I take that straight down, and then I head over to the Seine, and I'm there in about 25 minutes.
LA: If you're walking.
JB: If I'm walking. It's a lovely walk.
LA: Describe that walk. Who are you passing in the mornings?
JB: It's a little quiet until I cross Bastille, but then I get onto the main road. My first smell I'll say is the boulangerie that I'm passing. Before I even get close, I know exactly ... I can be totally distracted and know I'm getting close to the boulangerie because I could smell their morning bread coming out. Then I hear the creeks of these wooden cartons as the verger or the vegetable seller is unloading his products and setting up his beautiful stand. Then I continue down and I start to smell cheese. I can smell the butcher because they're starting to roast chickens and prepare for the afternoon. It's a sensory experience, but then so is all of Paris.
LA: We talked about the challenges a little bit and various crises. Most of your, if not all, of your students are from other countries. They're all visitors and travelers.
JB: Right.
LA: The world is a turbulent place at the best of times.
JB: Yes, it is.
LA: Whether it's politically, weather, travel. You've got through the other side of a global pandemic at this point. You're part of Paris's tourism industry. Is it a resilient one?
JB: I've learned so much being in this industry. When you're in tourism, you get to see the country's ebb and flow. Travelers will start to come en masse when there is a middle class and there's economic stability. On the other hand, travelers are also very sensitive to any sort of disruption, which I understand. When there are weather systems that are scary or there's political systems that are scary, you don't want to be 4,000 miles from home worrying about how to get back. Paris has the luxury and is a city that's built on tourism. This city is made for visitors.
LA: Now, you have a memoir out. Can you tell me a little bit about it?
JB: Yes. The French Ingredient is my memoir. It's not a recipe book for food. It's a recipe book on life in Paris, according to Jane, I should say. It's just a book about my experiences moving here, setting up the school. Paris is a wonderful backdrop to tell that story, but it's very much a book that I hope lets people see anyone can do anything if this gal from Chicago can move here and start a cooking school without knowing how to run a business or speak French. Anybody can do anything.
LA: Jane, this was so fun.
JB: Oh, I don't want it to end. You need to come over.
LA: I will be back, and we'll have to come by the school.
I'm Lale Arikoglu, and you can find me on Instagram at @lalehannah. Our engineers are Jake Lummus and James Yost. The show's mixed by Amar Lal. Jude Kampfner from Corporation for Independent Media is our producer. Chris Bannon is Condé Nast's Head of Global Audio. See you next week.
