I was at a dinner at the French Culinary Institute hosted by the Seafood Choices Alliance, an organization that's trying to inform the public and restaurateurs about how to make good seafood choices. Their main concern is the impact overfishing and aquaculture is having on the environment and on natural fish populations. It's a difficult and complex issue, because the status of various fish populations and aquaculture practices are as slippery as the fish themselves, and it's difficult for the average consumer, even if so inclined, to keep up. They're at www.seafoodchoices.com.

Jacques Pepin was not there for the entire event; he teaches at the school and stopped by for dinner after a long cooking demonstration for about 100 people. I was silenced and awed as soon as the group sat down to dinner, though, by the man sitting next to me, the executive VP of the FCI, Alain Sailhac, who promptly offered me and another woman a tour of the school.

After about two courses had been served, Jacques Pepin arrived and went to chat with another table. But to eat, he joined Mr. Sailhac at ours. When he sat down next to me he turned to me and said hi. All I answered in return was hi. Ugh. At first he said he only wanted bread and butter, but when the final dinner course arrived, from Michelle Bernstein, chef of Azul in Miami, he dug right in, clearing his plate and wiping up the sauce with bread. The Miami chef told us of a last-minute reservation by Jacques Pepin to her restaurant a while ago; she spent the entire afternoon planning and shopping for a special menu, ensuring the table was ready, etc. Then who should walk in and claim the reservation but a large Cuban man who said he was Jacques Pepin. She made him wait at the bar for two hours for a table. Mr. Pepin explained that this man has been impersonating him for five years, and not just to get the celebrity chef treatment at restaurants. He teaches cooking classes under the name and is now trying to copyright the name "Chef Pepin" for a line of spices or sauces or something. His name isn't even Pepin; it's something entirely different. The real Pepin is fighting this copyright; he wants to feel free to use his own name in the future.

The food was good, too. The first hors d'oeuvre I had was a dungeness crab cake with a sweet corn sauce. They provided the recipes in a booklet but were kind of sneaky; they left out all the best finishing touches, like the corn sauce, the soft pillow of polenta that supported an hors d'oeuvre of sardines with pine nuts and raisins, the homemade pasta under the oxtails and halibut.

But instead of waking this morning with the exquisite memory of last night, I often find in these situations that I am mortified by my lack of social grace the night before. One chef last night said that every once in a while she looks around her restaurant kitchen and wonders if she's going to be found out, if someone is going to rush into the kitchen, pointing a finger and calling her an imposter. I felt such a jolt of recognition when she said that. The difference is that she obviously is a chef, and a very good one (her dish last night, which included my first bite of braised oxtails, a revelation, was by far my favorite - I experienced one bite that made the next sip of wine burst with such fruity brightness that I begin to understand why people can become obsessed with the liquid stuff), while I had no business being at that dinner last night. I have never been to France, have not dined in French restaurants, had nothing to offer these larger-than-life French chefs who found themselves in my dull company. I don't even have business cards to offer when they're kind enough to ask. I must make myself more interesting; I feel dwarfed. How have I wasted nearly 30 years? What do I have to show? Why can't I just chalk this up as one of those new experiences that will make me a whole person, instead of agonizing over my inadequacies?