Myriel (from Germany) and Catherine (from Canada) were taking cooking classes in the afternoon, as well as French lessons in the morning. Catherine was taking private lessons, so was not in the groups you’ve seen so far. Myriel and Catherine participated in the preparation of our dinners. Normally, the cooking classes are given in English, but for this small class, and by request of the students, these classes were given in French.

A linguistic note: the word chef came into English twice, from French. It means "chief" in French, and in old French, its initial sound was hard, like the CH of "church". In English, the vowel shifted, and it became "chief". Some time after, the CH sound in French softened, to become like the SH of "show", and chef came into English a second time, in the sense of "chief cook".