Julia Child: The Queen is Dead

By JULIETTE ROSSANT (I had started to write a Happy Birthday note to Julia Child for last Thursday, August 12, but she died in the early hours the next morning, so now I publish a very different piece today, her birthday.) I never cooked with Julia Child; I did have lunch with her in her ninth decade. It wasn't the first time we had spoken. I had talked to her in the past by phone for my Celebrity Chefs column in the Forbes annual Celebrity 100 issue. The first time, I was scurrying home from jury duty and barely caught her phone call. I scribbled down a great quote about Emeril Lagasse. "His is the kind of cooking show that pleases my garage attendant," she told me. "Serious cooks don't enjoy it because it's too much of a performance." (See "Corn Dog Cuisine," Forbes). On a balmy summer day in 2002, I drove up to Santa Barbara with my husband and toddler son. We drove to her apartment at Casa Dorinda in Montecito and waited for her physical therapist to finish with her. I looked around a bit, wondering if there was a kitchen--there wasn't. The previous year, her old kitchen in Cambridge, MA, had been donated and installed at the National Museum of American History of the Smithsonian in Washington, DC. There were hundreds of cookbooks on the shelves, however, each one inscribed to her. Julia joined us on a quiet patio of shady plants and comfortable seats. She still claimed a few inches on me, despite curvature of the spine that had stolen a noticeable portion of her more youthful 6'2". She was very kind to my chattering toddler, while I described to her my forthcoming book Super Chef from Simon & Schuster. As lunchtime neared, we moved the interview down to a seafood restaurant on Stearn's Wharf. I had hoped to eat with her at La Super-Rica Taqueria, made famous in part by her patronage, but she had seafood in mind. The interview produced background material only for my book: Julia was already too physically uncomfortable to focus at length on my topic of empire-building celebrity chefs. In fact, we had rented a full-size car to drive her around in, at the kind suggestion of Len Pickell, president of the James Beard Foundation. Instead, she talked about familiar food themes: the dominance of French cuisine over Italian, the importance of fresh ingredients, the increasing availability of quality ingredients. What I remember most is how she dealt with fans. An elderly couple sitting a few tables over caught sight of Ms. Child. They pulled my husband and son aside during a walk around the restaurant and asked them for advice about how to approach her. My husband agreed to let them know when I had finished the interview, and over they came, asking for her autograph. Ms. Child beamed at them, gave them her autograph, and received their thanks graciously for her TV shows, which were so important to them. Watching Julia in action put TV Chefdom in perspective for me. While Emeril & Co. at the Food Network may have created an Entertainment aspect for Food, Julia's only real successor on that network is the gracious Sara Moulton, who has carried the network for years as their quieter, solider backbone. Not too surprisingly, Sara got a big leg up in Food thanks to Julia. Two other successors to Julia Child are super chefs in my book, Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger. They were launched on Television by their inclusion in Cooking with Master Chefs (see Super Chef, pp. 153-4). Julia called them "a pair of lively teachers," which is a great compliment coming from perhaps the greatest TV cooking teacher of all time. Being with Julia Child at lunch meant talking about food. As Jacques Pepin mentioned the day of her death during an interview on The News Hour: "There was no two Julias - the one on television and the one in real life; she was just the way she was on television -- unpretentious, ready to help, ready to have fun and interested in great food but simple food to be partaken with friends, and to be shared with family, friends with a glass of wine. That was her." She told me that she did not like spicy food from the Middle East, which I mentioned as a cuisine I know well and enjoy, or from India and other such regions. Rather, she liked food that enhances ingredients, not masks them. Julia's final advice was simple and practical: eat well, in moderation, and without snacking. Links: PBS's reference page for Julia Child New York Times reference page for Julia Child of August 2004 France's Legion d'Honneur is awarded to Julia child in 2000 Salon interview with Julia Child in 1999 Dan Akroyd sketch of Julia Child on SNL in 1979 1920-1993 papers of Julia Child at Radcliffe College