Ghislaine Arabian

[Ptipois]

Well I'll let Pti speak for herself, but I'm not sure that's what happened.  To continue the train metaphor, I think Ego's food represented the last car through the switch, Madame A. sat down to engage him (as well she should), and she was largely oblivious to the train wreck behind her in the kitchen (as well she should not have been), perhaps caused by a loss of gas or perhaps inexperience or who knows?  After reading about the brilliance and failure of American generals in WWII, it is clear that whichever, the leadership was clear and you were in or out based on as little as one battle.  I do not think we've heard the last of this woman.

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I won't be so magnanimous as you, John, and I think Pork Belly is right. I am practically sure that the stalling of the kitchen activity was aimed at catering to Anton Ego, momentarily excluding all other orders, and was perfectly intentional. Madame's unhurried, serene attitude tells it all. Another clue is Claude Lebey writing that the bistrot is "best of its kind", which implies he was pampered in the same manner. What we have seen at work is, unmistakably, a phenomenon of a kind I have witnessed a number of times while working in the vicinity of those old-fashioned, spoiled critics.

No accident was involved; there was nothing of the hectic, feverish atmosphere that irradiates through the kitchen door into a small restaurant dining-room (you can even feel it in larger places) when something really goes wrong and what can be properly called a "train wreck" happens.