Cours Maintenon Soup

As a sophomore in high school, I attended a girls' boarding school in Cannes, France called Cours Maintenon. It was run by an impressive and intimidating headmistress named Madame Blay (pronounced like the tyrannical captain of HMS Bounty) whose steely authority we flouted at every opportunity and whose punishments we often deserved. I learned geometry in French with the difficult bits being translated by another American girl who had already taken geometry and was fluent in French - to this day I pronounce hypotenuse with an accent nicoise, not that I have occasion to pronounce it often.

The food at Cours Maintenon was plain but delicious and abundant - even French girls of roughly teen age are well fed. We had fresh bread and divinely creamy butter and jam with tea for breakfast, what an American would call dinner at lunchtime preceded by phys ed and followed by an hour's nap, and a lighter dinner. I have never eaten so much in my life and I actually lost weight - what is it about the air of France that even Americans can take part in the French Paradox when they live there?

Anyway, one of my favorite dishes was Potage Parmentier (Po-taj Par-mon-tee-ay), a wonderfully simple leek and potato soup that filled up all those adolescent tummies and was cheap and easy to prepare. Literally, the hardest part of this recipe is making sure you have all the sand rinsed out of the leeks.

I learned a great tip for doing that from my hero, Jacques Pepin; after removing the tough, dark green leaves, slit the leek from halfway up the root end to the tip with a sharp knife, cutting it nearly in half. Repeat the slit to cut the leek nearly in quarters, then run it under freely running water - all the sand will rinse out.

All you do then is pare and slice a pound of potatoes, chop up the white and light green parts of a pound of washed leeks, add 8 cups of water and a tablespoon of salt and simmer the whole thing for about 40-50 minutes, then blend in a blender. The French would probably use a food mill so as not to make the soup quite so smooth but I don't have one so tant pis (too bad!) !

Stir in a little cream before serving, if you like a richer soup, and sprinkle the top with chopped chives, green onion or parsley and a grating of pepper, and voila! you have lunch or a great starter soup for your next dinner party.

Whenever I sip this soup, I am 15 years old again, living on the French Riviera and plotting how to sneak out of school at night to meet Andre.