My panic attack in a 5-star restaurant in Lyons.original post 4/13/07 ART&Poetry by author Before our son was born, and because we were teachers and had the time, my husband and I traveled extensively through Europe. Nine summers. I could say, “filler-up” in French,Portuguese, Italian, German, Spanish; but don’t ask me to now. That part of my brain has become a gray viscous puddle.As much as I enjoyed my travels through France, I was always under stress. I studied French for eight years, read the classics, blah, blah, or as Seinfeld would say, “yadda, yadda, yadda,”
I would drag old textbooks with me and study conjugations at night because I was terrified of making a mistake.  That doesn’t fly in France.  So you can imagine my humiliation when in Rouen, I think, I was buying postcards in a museum of locks and asked for “tous les cartes,” “instead of toutes les cartes.” I thought they would lock me up on the spot.
I mean, just shoot me, right there. The lowest menial worker, the toilet patrol lady can knife you with the tongue of correction.So that was my mindset.  Joy and fear.  To me France was like a footnote to Marat de Sade.
Pleasure and pain.  Feed me truffles and just whip me.

We splurged on dinner at master chef Paul Bocuse’s Restaurant, outside of Lyons.
I actually had a panic attack; the onus of ordering was on me. Some fool was smoking a huge cigar and it hit me between the soup and first palate cleansing sorbet. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t smell, I couldn’t taste and I thought I was going to barf. All for $150 per person.

Here is my verbal photograph and art piece. We were on this trip in the early ’80’s; as you can see, I lived to tell the tale of a dinner that scared me like a Friday the 13th slasher movie.

Birthing At Bocuse
©11/01. ART and Poetry

I

The scene

Chez Paul Bocuse, a 5-star event

just outside of Lyons

serves one hundred-fifty dollar dinners

of endless courses:

soups that wear a pastry chef’s hat,

swimming pools of butter with drowning snails,

goose paté from ripened, grain-fed, white honkers,

wine and more wine,

and the intercourses;

sorbet between this and that,

cheeses and breads,

carts of custardy pastries

and superior chocolates

from Maurice Bernachon.

THE chocolatier of Lyons.

This is THE place.

The place where I seared my mouth on the soup,

and feared I was going to use the wrong fork.

The place where I assented

when le garçon recommended

La specialité de la maison:

Chicken cooked in a

pig’s bladder.

II

Reconsideration

But now I have second thoughts

as my head reels from:

the fog of cigar smoke,

the murmuring around me

of the incomprehensible andproper French,

the wine,

and more wine.

My nasal interior rebels and swells

leaving my lungs spasming for air.

I AM HAVING A PANIC ATTACK.

Into my consciousness creeps a vision of

comfort and safety:

America.It’s Golden Gates:

McDonald’s.

I have been transformed into

a soldier who is about to meet the enemy:

MY DINNER.

Then fight to the death,

en garde!,

at this very table;

I wonder:

is a chicken cooked in a pig’s bladder

armed with a bayonet?

III

Religion

Oh God, please help me,

Next time I promise to stay home,

Stick close to the Kosher Deli,

order hot pastrami with those fat fries

the size of

Paul Bunyan’s fingers.

Just don’t let me faint and fall,

at the sight of a pig’s bladder,

face first into my foie gras.

Amen.

 

IV

Labor

I start to take

deep Lamaze, rapid panting breaths

as the huge silver, domed-covered tray is escorted to the table,

by the entourage of waiters.

The tray cover reflects a terror-stricken woman who

is about to lose the first six courses of the meal

on the floral carpet.

Waiter number one raises the cover in slow motion;

My life revisits me in a rapid succession

of cerebral film clips.

There it is, a five-star, smooth, pink mound on a tray,

a pregnant woman’s stomach, without the woman,

THIS is the one hundred and fifty dollar

“chicken cooked in a pig’s bladder,”

(it sounded a lot better in French)

but I don’t see a chicken.

And now my eyes are totally dilated:

breathe, breathe!

Waiter number two takes the cover away.

Waiter number three holds the huge tray,

while waiter number four approaches the

pregnant stomach,

the smooth, pink hump,

surrounded by little diced white and orange vegetables

WITH A KNIFE!

I think: this hump must be in its ninth month of gestation

And then I realize ready or not,

I AM ABOUT TO WITNESS A BIRTH–

Or maybe a murder.

 

V

Birth and Revelation

He lifts a paper-thin corner of pink membrane

with the knife

and knicks it,

as an act of a covenant,

a circumcision?;

it shrivels

like the Wicked Witch of the West,

And reveals:

A chicken.

A regular, normal, Frank Purdue

oven stuffer roaster from which

more of the diced vegetables are spilling.

The chicken, a cornucopia of joy.

The chicken, a familiar vision, at ninety-nine cents a pound.

Le poulet.

Waiter number four, having completed the c-section,

now carves like an experienced surgeon.

 

 

VI

Renaissance (Rebirth)

My breathing has begun to regulate.

My nasal passages are retreating,

permitting oxygen

into my lungs, aorta, extremities.

My being relaxes,

the six previous courses are no longer a threat

to the carpet.

I look to heaven with thanks.

Birthing can surely make one hungry.

 

You can see Paul Bocuse making the actual dish, thanks to youtube! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6H0oFCQSiU
La Vie en Rose/Edith Piaf **

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