AS THE AUTHOR notes elsewhere in Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer, from which this piece is excerpted, there are enough recipes in the first volume of Mastering the Art of French Cooking “to keep a person occupied, not to mention two people, for a lifetime of dinner parties,” so she never expected to buy the second volume. And at the time (the early eighties), she had met writer Frances Mayes, who was still living in San Francisco and who had her own copy of the second volume, which she offered to lend (along with her charlotte mold) to Jeannette any time she wanted it.
Mayes and Ferrary signed up to join a cooking class taught by Simone Beck, one of the three original authors of Mastering, at her house in Provence, where they also had the opportunity to meet Julia Child at a cocktail party. “Julia greeted us with such embracing enthusiasm,” Ferrary writes, “there was no time to be awe-stricken, and no need. Meeting her felt like a reunion with someone I’d known but hadn’t quite met, a mere formality that had been overlooked until that moment.”
Of all the many interviews and articles written about Julia Child, I am partial to this story, a chapter in Out of the Kitchen (John Daniel & Company, 2004), a warm and wonderful book that deserves to be better known, and in which Ferrary shares stories of her Brooklyn childhood and recounts her beliefs and values (sometimes contradictory), all of them having to do with food.
JEANNETTE FERRARY teaches food writing at Stanford University and the University of California Berkeley, and has been a columnist for the New York Times and a book and restaurant reviewer for the San Francisco Chronicle. She is also the author of M. F. K. Fisher and Me (Thomas Dunne, 1998) and is coauthor, with Louise Fiszer, of six cookbooks, including A Good Day for Soup (Chronicle, 1996) and A Good Day for Salad (Chronicle, 1999).
“YOU MADE WHAT for Julia Child’s lunch?”
I couldn’t believe my ears. The chef had been given the opportunity to prepare a box lunch for Julia Child. It was supposed to be casual and unfussy, just a little something before her afternoon appearance at Macy’s San Francisco. He packed it in a football-sized gift box tied with blue ribbons and was delivering it to the sort of backstage dressing room where Julia, her sister Dorothy, and I were waiting. I only hoped they hadn’t heard what he said. I took the boxes from him—there were three of them, one for each of us—and slid them onto a table by the door. Then I realized he was kidding; he must be kidding.
“Come on, tell me. What’s in them?”
He looked frazzled, an appropriate response for someone who had invested all his creative energies into the challenging but intimidating task of whipping up a box lunch for Julia Child. He also looked annoyed.
“I told you. Tuna fish sandwiches.”
Maybe he hadn’t realized which Julia Child he’d been asked to make lunch for. He’d slapped together a couple of sandwiches for some ordinary Julia Child, an earthling who hadn’t helped change the course of America’s eating habits in her twenty-five years—it was 1985—of cookbook writing and television cooking shows. Surely he knew not what he did—or didn’t do, as the case may be. Or perhaps the strain had been too much for him and he’d completely lost his mind. His eyes looked a bit jumpy, now that I peered more closely. Proof of his derangement surfaced almost immediately as Julia, attracted by the commotion, turned to greet him.
“Oh, hellooo, you’re the chef, aren’t you?” came the chortly tones, full of welcome and gratitude. The billowy abandon of her teal rayon blouse swarming with flickery white splotches contrasted with the workhorse immovability of a navy gabardine skirt. Cinnamon-orange hair, the same color as her lipstick, made thick, loopy curls across her forehead. She was smiling and talking, the metallic music of her voice pitched halfway between some kind of horn and a reed instrument not yet invented.
She shook the chef’s hand, commending him for going to all the trouble, advising him he shouldn’t have. She was right about the latter.
“I hope you like tuna fish sandwiches,” he blurted out with no shame or embarrassment, clearly out of touch with reality.
“Why, yes. We love tuna fish, don’t we, Dorothy?”
“Wonderful. I thought you would. Especially when I saw this magnificent specimen.” He went on to describe how he’d gone down to the fish market at dawn, poking and slapping a dozen different fish before deciding on the nice fat one he brought back to poach for these sandwiches.
I felt foolish for thinking any chef in his right mind would present Julia Child with a StarKist chicken of the sea. Meanwhile Julia never flinched. She’d already dived right in, unperturbed about whether her sandwich had begun with a can opener or a court bouillon. (I remembered M. F. K. Fisher telling me, in her unique mélange of praise and condemnation, “Julia will eat anything.”)
Over lunch, whenever I started to discuss the day’s program, the tuna kept getting in the way.
“Isn’t this just marvelous?” This a reference to the way the chef—“such a nice young man”—had cloaked the sweet chunks of fish with a creamy aioli that was “marvelously tart” and studded with chopped fennel instead of “ordinary old celery.” As for the sourdough, fire and smoke trapped in its crusty ridges and curves, he must have taken the loaves directly off the baking stones: that was the consensus. A lull between sandwich and dessert gave me my chance.
“Is there anything in particular you want me to say out there?”
No, she was sure whatever I said would be fine.
I felt surprisingly at ease myself about the day’s event, except for a disconcerting incident with the Macy’s PR person, who had just whispered an infuriating instruction that Julia didn’t know about. Whenever I interviewed Julia for an article, she always made it seem like we were friends, chatting. On a publicity tour for her previous book, Julia Child and More Company, she’d come to San Francisco to do a cooking demonstration and book signing, also at Macy’s. I joined the welcoming committee at seven in the morning at her hotel, the Huntington on Nob Hill. With an amused grin, she watched the parade of sleepy-eyed but fit-looking businessmen emerge from the elevator in shorts, look at her sheepishly—even MBAs recognize Julia Child—and trot across the street for their morning jog. At the store, Julia and her entourage had been led down an alley and into some sort of service-entrance back door, presided over by a neckless security guard who eyed Julia suspiciously.
“Who is that woman?” he asked, his eyes following her every move. I was tempted to answer, “Why, that’s the Lone Ranger,” but I wasn’t sure he’d see the humor in it, considering the hour.
One of Julia’s friends and assistants, Rosemary Manell, had already started pulling rabbits and onions out of grocery bags, assisted by Pam Henstell from Knopf, the book’s publisher. After taking a few pictures for my article, I offered to help, truly honored when Julia handed me a head of garlic and asked me to mince it finely. Determined to do an impeccable job, I carefully pried out two or three cloves. I rubbed them between my fingers in a massage-like motion, trying to coax off the papery covering. Instead of slipping off smoothly like a satin robe, it just crinkled and crumbled. What did come off glued itself onto my fingers; the rest of it didn’t budge. Using my fingernails, I scraped and clawed around the stubborn little cloves to no avail. Still attempting to appear unruffled and competent, I reached for a nearby paring knife and began carving the surface of the clove, finally whittling it down to the size of an olive pit. This I cut into three or four slices on the bias, not unimpressed with my own handiwork. I became aware that Julia was standing perfectly still, watching my every move. Play your cards right, Julia, I was thinking of saying, and I shall reveal my secrets of garlic sculpting.
“Jeannette?” she called out as if it were a question. “What are you doing?” There was a suggestion in her tone of voice that there was a right way to mince a garlic and this wasn’t it by an order of magnitude. I could protest that the method had definitely not been included in Simone Beck’s course at L’École des Trois Gourmands, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
Shaking her head as if in disbelief, she grabbed another clove and slammed down on it with the flat side of a giant saber, smashing it to a pulp. Then she worked the blade over it until it was practically liquid. As for the papery stuff, it lay on the chopping block in tatters.
“Thanks,” I said, gathering up the remaining cloves. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
She just laughed, unfazed by the crescendo of crowd-gathering sounds just outside the auditorium. Someone was adjusting the overhead mirrors so that those in the back could see her sautéing mushrooms and green onions and the garlic that Rosemary had kindly rescued me from. Once the doors were opened—the floodgates might be a more accurate term—people swarmed in. Most were women, all ages and descriptions, all with the same look of awe on their faces. As Julia’s first squawky words trilled their way across the reverently silent throng, the group complexion softened into smiles, then grins and wide, throaty laughs. They were eating out of the palm of her hand and they weren’t even eating.
After the demo, she signed about a million books and then she wanted to visit the cookware department. As we stepped into the elevator, a few people recognized her instantly. Hardly able to contain their excitement, they poked their friends or whoever was closest, rolling their eyes in Julia’s direction, mouthing their message: “That’s Julia Child.” When the elevator opened, Julia noticed an in-store post office, walked over, and stood in line. Her height alone made her a presence, so it wasn’t long before the person in front of her turned his head discreetly to take the mea-sure of whatever was looming over him. He immediately began to babble.
“Oh, it’s you. Oh my goodness. Julia Child. Please,” he said, stepping aside with a bit of a flourish, begging her to go ahead. Seconds later, all the others became aware of the stir and then each of them in turn stepped aside in a kind of domino effect. She would have none of it.
“No. I’m in no hurry. Absolutely not,” she protested, directing everyone back into line.
A few weeks after this event, she wrote me a postcard: “It was fun being with you that day, and I hope we can renew the experience with or without garlic!”
That wasn’t the only time I’d seen Julia since meeting her at Simca’s in 1978. I enjoyed writing about her gastrobatics, her jolly nature, and her contagious humor. She was eminently quotable: “If cooking is evanescent, well, so is the ballet”; men were often better cooks because they have a “what the hell attitude.” And her advice to cooks, perhaps even more relevant to writers: “Above all, have a good time,” she counseled, but “keep your knives sharp.”
I’d written an article about her appearance at a benefit for the Children’s Garden in San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts; I’d reported on the evening she and René Verdon cooked dinner at his San Francisco restaurant, Le Trianon, as a benefit for KQED, the public television station. I’d even interviewed her about her favorite San Francisco restaurants: “… Once we went to Mike’s Chinese Cuisine on the advice of Jack Shelton. I think it was over on Geary. We thought it was extremely good.” She also mentioned, in passing, Campton Place, Le Trianon, L’Étoile, and Masa’s, which “we found very ethereal.”
For me, Julia embodied and resolved the enigma concerning women and food. She did so-called women’s work and she liked it. Not only that but she derived success and fame from it, maybe even fortune. She’d harnessed her interest in food into a viable career if not a full-fledged mythology, and at an age when most women, and especially most men, aren’t venturing into a new and extraordinarily public territory. She was almost fifty when Mastering was published, fifty-one when she first appeared on TV as the French Chef.
These accomplishments had seemed the perfect subject for an article for Ms. Magazine. Aware that there was a certain undeniable irony about Ms. Magazine honoring a woman’s achievements in the field of cookery, I was confident the editor would see this as an opportunity to say that true liberation means a woman can pursue any field she chooses, even cooking!
The editors didn’t see it that way. “Very nice but not particularly feminist” came the hand-scribbled verdict clipped to my returned manuscript. I was embarrassed by the Ms. rejection because, like so many women who greeted the very first issue, in 1971, with a sense of triumph and who had subscribed instantaneously, I considered the magazine my own. It spoke for me. It ranted and raved for me. It was strong enough and smart enough to counter all the demeaning and belittling and devaluing that went on in Playboy and Esquire and Penthouse put together. I couldn’t explain the editors’ appraisal, so I decided to send it to Julia, along with a copy of my review of her book, Julia Child and More Company, which had just been published in the San Francisco Bay Guardian. She wrote back that she “loved both those articles.… I thought the one rejected by Ms. was especially good and also very amusing. You certainly write well!”
And so, as Julia, Dorothy, and I sat there eating our tuna fish sandwiches, I was glad Macy’s had asked me to interview her that day. The event celebrated her newest venture, a series of videotapes in which she explained and demonstrated basic cooking techniques, garlic mincing undoubtedly among them.
Nestled beside me was my own newest venture, a copy of The California-American Cookbook, just published by Simon & Schuster. I had already autographed this copy to Julia Child and had been waiting for the auspicious moment. And then, a few moments before, there had been this nasty business with the rules-are-rules, scowl-infested Macy’s PR person. This was the same Macy’s PR person who had promised that if I did this interview, it would be worth more than mere money, a commodity she insisted was in short supply at Macy’s. I wasn’t too savvy in the ways of book promotion, but I assumed one could do worse than to introduce one’s new book in front of the Child-revering masses within buying distance of Macy’s bookstore. Just a few sentences, I’d been told, but enough to give the audience the flavor of the book. This moment in the sun would, she whined apologetically, more than make up for the paltry sum Macy’s was paying for doing the interview and might even result in the book’s first avalanche of sales. Visions of cookbook-ravenous women stampeding down the aisles to lay claim to a copy of The California-American Cookbook had just stopped dancing in my head.
“You are not to mention your book today,” the Macy’s PR person commanded in scolding tones, her brow a landscape of petrified frowns. “This event is about Julia Child’s new videotapes and we don’t want anything to detract from that.” When I protested that this was a breach of our agreement, she turned on her heel with a little smirk as if to say if I was dumb enough to trust Macy’s, I had only myself to blame. I was wondering if any jury would convict me if I murdered her there on the spot when I noticed the gleam in Julia’s eyes, her whole face in bloom. She was looking at my book.
“How beautiful!” she said, flipping through the pages. “You must be thrilled.”
“Oh, I, well, yes, actually, and we, my coauthor and I, we autographed this copy to you.”
“Thank you so much. Wonderful. Simon and Schuster, very good people. Tell me, how did you come to do the book?” I explained that I had not been enthusiastic when my agent first mentioned my writing a cookbook because, although I embraced any opportunity to write about food, I didn’t consider myself a cook who could whip up two hundred original recipes. Julia nodded an all-too-understanding nod, possibly recalling my garlic butchery of a few years before. I kept scanning her face for signs of incipient yawning as I related probably too many details about developing a book about California’s historical romance with food. As for the recipes, I’d chanced upon an article in the New York Times about a woman named Louise Fiszer who taught cooking in her own little cooking school/cookware shop in Menlo Park, about twenty minutes from me. I was captivated by the style and spirit of her recipes and the way they seemed to convey the kind of California message I wanted to write about.
I called Louise at her shop and she invited me over. We got along instantly, intrigued by the many parallels in our lives. We both came from Brooklyn, only miles from each other; we were two weeks apart in age; we both had recently bought a newfangled contraption called a computer that neither of us knew how to use.
Once we started to develop the book proposal, we worked beautifully together, dividing tasks, respecting each other’s opinions, resolving differences, of which there were incredibly few, if any, with no hurt feelings or wounded egos. We even learned, because it was essential to our project, how to work on the computer using the brain-straining word processing system called WordStar. Our agent received wildly enthusiastic responses to our proposal from several New York publishers—or more correctly put, he masterminded those responses by creating a bit of a frenzy and cultivating a bidding war mentality. To seal the deal, Simon & Schuster offered us a contract for $50,000. Not bad for 1983 and two unknown authors of their first book.
Strictly speaking, it was my third book proposal, the first being “The Last-Minute Epicure” with Frances Mayes. The second was a cookbook concept I developed with—or in spite of—Judy Rodgers, a young cook at the Union Hotel in the small Northern California town of Benicia. She insisted she had no time to work on the book proposal per se, so she gave me a sheaf of her menus which I used to create the table of contents. After I finished the proposal and began to receive enthusiastic responses from publishers, Judy decided she didn’t want to do the book after all. It was too American, too Californian. She was afraid that a book about contemporary cooking would typecast her, that she’d lose credibility as a French chef before she even had any. I was crushed at the time, although I realized that if the book proceeded as it had to date, it would be a one-sided coauthorship.
“And so,” Julia asked, bringing me out of this annoyingly vivid reverie, “is your collaboration with Louise a good one?”
“Yes. The best,” is all I said, with a smile prompted by recalling my friend Frances’s summing up of the situation: “The fact that it didn’t work out with JR almost makes you believe in God.”
“Well, this is a beautiful book indeed. You and Louise should be very proud.”
A few minutes later, we walked onto Macy’s makeshift stage greeted by the thunderous applause of a crowd that packed the airplane-hangar-sized room. I gave my little speech about Julia’s impact on all of our lives and her venture into the new world of videotaped cooking lessons. When I passed the microphone to Julia, the walls seemed to be caving in from the room-rattling temblors of applause.
Holding up a copy of one of the videotapes, she waved to the cheering masses. The decibel level decrescendoed only when she started to speak. That’s when I realized it wasn’t a videotape she had in her hand: it was my book.
“Come on. Don’t be shy. Show everyone this beautiful new book. This is Jeannette’s new book, The California-American Cookbook,” she called out, reading the cover to the audience. “It’s full of absolutely marvelous recipes.”
More clapping from the obedient Child-adorers, a bit subdued and possibly even confused (Jeannette? Who’s Jeannette?), but an ovation nonetheless. On stage left, Macy’s PR scowler was gnashing her teeth. I bestowed upon her one of my sweetest smiles.
Before Julia finished her talk, the audience was already furiously buying sets of her videotapes and mushrooming toward the stage to have her autograph them. I had to act fast. I pulled a big white apron out of a shopping bag and laid it before her.
“Would you please sign this to my four-year-old daughter, Natasha?”
“Of course,” she said, scrawling all across the front, in bright blue ink, “To Natasha. Bon Appétit. Julia Child.”
“Does she like to cook?” she asked, intently dotting all three i’s.
It was a logical question, considering the circumstances. It didn’t seem to require deep philosophical reflection. But it made me wonder if I should be giving my daughter an apron after all, if this was one of those things that were “very nice but not particularly feminist.” Would I be reinforcing the traditional girlie messages, blurring for Natasha the distinctions I’d tried to make clear for myself? Ideally I didn’t want my daughter even to know that there was a time when women couldn’t do whatever they wanted; and even though that time was still very much with us at her four-year mark in 1985, there were indications that her generation might feel its constrictions less strongly. Their talents and potential might flourish, if not unhampered at least less encumbered. That is, if they weren’t confused by gifts of aprons and other such symbol-laden trinkets.
As I tucked the apron back into the bag, I took a last serious look at it. For a second I was startled. How could I have missed something so obvious? Of course this apron would make a fine present for my daughter, for anybody’s daughter. Its message was not “Stand by the stove” or “This is your life” or “Anatomy is destiny.” Far from it. Its message was “Bon Appétit.”