It was 1998, and I was a young sous chef at the Café Moustache. The soufflé, a magnificent golden dome, rose to an impossible 14 centimetres. The head chef, a terrifying Burmese named Madame Gaspard, carried it herself to table six.
At the threshold of the dining room, it sighed. Then it fell. The room went silent. Madame Gaspard stood motionless with a collapsed pudding in her paws, and I knew my career was either over or beginning. I fled to the walk in freezer, where I wept into a block of cold cream. When I emerged, she said only, ‘Again.’ I have said the same word to every apprentice since.
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