The French Chef in America
Page 31
“a part of the iceberg that doesn’t show”: Mary Daniels, “A Supercook and Her Superman,” Chicago Tribune, August 20, 1972.
“JP” or “Pulia”: JC to the author. Also numerous JC and PC letters, Julia Child Papers.
Charles de Gaulle’s decision to relocate the Les Halles food market: JC and PC, “Proposal” for documentary film, Julia Child Papers, n.d., 1967.
rejected it as too expensive: From Greg Harney to JC, re “Julia Child in Paris,” July 21, 1967.
As Paul explained in: PC handwritten draft of a letter to Herb Caen, “Historique of White House Red Carpet,” January 20, 1968, Julia Child Papers.
In a letter to Lady Bird Johnson: RJL to Mrs. Lyndon B. Johnson, October 18, 1967.
“essentially an 18th-century gentleman’s mansion”: PC to RM, August 25, 1967.
completely renovated the rickety building: Michael Beschloss, “Harry Truman’s Extreme Home Makeover,” The New York Times, May 9, 2015.
The cramped space: PC to RM, August 25, 1967.
“You do not serve barbecued spareribs at a banquet”: Emma Brown, “Obituary: René Verdon, White House chef for the Kennedys, dies at 86,” The Washington Post, February 3, 2011.
Henry Haller: Marian Burros, “White House Chef to Leave in Fall,” The New York Times, June 7, 1987. Also, Richard Norton Smith, “Henry Haller,” President Gerald R. Ford Oral History Project, The Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, March 31, 2010.
“Many Americans who dislike President Johnson”: PC, “Cordon bleu White House: From a Guest Who Went Behind the Scenes,” The Economist, April 13, 1968.
Foreign ambassadors and deputy ministers led American governors: White House Press Release, November 14, 1967. Also, “A State Dinner for Queen Elizabeth II,” PBS Program Information, July 7, 1976.
President Johnson quoted Abraham Lincoln: Betty Beale, “Johnson’s Sato Toast Answers Criticism,” Evening Star, November 15, 1967.
A story in the Washington, D.C., Evening Star: Ibid.
Paul Child struck a more bemused tone: PC, “Cordon bleu White House: From a Guest Who Went Behind the Scenes.”
Even before it was televised, in-house reviews: PC to RJL, April 27, 1968.
“With world conditions as they are”: RJL to JC, 1967, quoted in Dana Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 222.
“the house built on friendship”: JC to the author.
“God, it was great!”: JC to SB, December 1967.
“smelling all these breads”: Noël Riley Fitch, Appetite for Life, 336.
“If the tumor is malignant”: Susan Schindehette, Karen Schneider, and Anne-Marie O’Neill, “Victors Valiant,” People, October 26, 1998.
“Left breast off”: Marilyn Mellowes, “Julia Child,” PBS American Masters, in reference to JC date book, February 18, 1968.
“They just sewed me up and I went home”: Schindehette et al., People, October 26, 1998.
“No radium, no chemotherapy, no caterwauling”: Fitch, Appetite for Life, 337.
“Death and degeneration sat on my chest”: PC to CJC, April 22, 1968.
“didn’t really bother me”: Meg Whitcomb, “Life Started Cooking at 50,” 50 PLUS, February 1980.
“What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You”: From the series Feeling Good, hosted by Dick Cavett, a series for adults produced by the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW). Press release: “Julia Child Speaks Frankly,” August 25, 1975.
She flicked the butt out the window: Fitch, Appetite for Life, 337.
Judith Jones encouraged this idea: JBJ to author.
“Too bad, but it is a thing we can’t hurry”: JC to SB, July 10, 1967.
“Its courage, its perfection, and its imagination”: PC to CJC, December 26, 1968.
“Tonight you are our guinea pigs!”: Mary Roblee Henry, “The Wonder Child,” Vogue, June 1969.
“The concentration of both Mary Henry and Marc”: PC to CJC, December 26, 1968.
“Julia has so sedulously protected her”: Ibid.
2. THE FRENCH CHEF
Avis DeVoto called to say: This is not a direct quote, but a composite, drawn from: the author’s conversations with Julia; MLiF, 212; and JC, “AD Revisits Julia Child,” Architectural Digest, July/Aug. 1976. To see the kitchen itself, visit “Julia’s Kitchen” at the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., or online (http://amhistory.si.edu/juliachild/jck/html/textonly/visiting.asp).
“I want the dining table in the middle of the room”: JC, “The Kitchen Julia Built,” The New York Times Magazine, May 16, 1976. Also, JC, “A Cook’s Tour of Her Kitchen,” Chicago Tribune, July 18, 1976.
“a supremely comfortable house to cherish”: JC, “AD Revisits: Julia Child,” Architectural Digest, July/Aug. 1976.
TV Guide visited: Edith Efron, “Dinner with Julia Child,” TV Guide, December 5, 1970.
“They walk about”: JC, “A Cook’s Tour of Her Kitchen.”
“like living in the country”: Dorothy Shore Zinberg to author, June 11, 2014.
Craig Claiborne launched Mastering: Craig Claiborne, “Cookbook Review: Glorious Recipes,” The New York Times, October 18, 1961.
“With the Kennedys in the White House”: JC to the author. Also, Sharon Hudgins, “A Conversation with Julia Child, Spring 1984,” Gastronomica: The Journal of Food and Culture, summer 2005. (Originally published as “What’s Cooking with Julia Child,” Stars and Stripes, European Edition, September 27, 1984.)
“Get that tall, loud woman”: JC to the author.
Julia typed a memo to WGBH: JC memo to WGBH, “A series of TV programs on French cooking,” April 26, 1962.
“Because the French have treated cooking”: Ibid.
“I careened around the stove”: MLiF, 242.
“high-wire act”: Ibid.
a viewer named Irene McHogue: Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 190.
Julia called it The French Chef: PC “diary concerned with the French Chef expedition in France,” May–June 1970, Julia Child Papers, 34. (For an explanation of this diary, see notes below for Chapter 4, this page).
“how to make cooking make sense”: JC memo to WGBH, re “A series of TV programs on French cooking,” April 26, 1962.
This reverence: Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 104.
between 1948 and 1955, nearly two-thirds: Originally in Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), referenced by Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 83.
The earliest TV cooking shows: Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 67–69.
“the people who cook better than any other”: Ibid., 64.
the rubber-faced comedian: Ibid., 64.
Most of the hosts were women: Ibid., 50.
“It will taste even better this way”: Quoted in Joan Barthel, “How to Avoid TV Dinners While Watching TV,” The New York Times Magazine, August 7, 1966.
“That’s beautiful!”: Cited by Marc Muneal, “Julia Child’s ‘The French Chef’ by Dana Polan,” Studies in Popular Culture 34, no. 1 (fall 2011): 152–54.
“Through your efforts, our stores”: Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 100.
“educational TV’s answer”: Barthel, “How to Avoid TV Dinners.”
“To do that is not easy”: JP to the author.
An important, if little-remarked-upon: Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 10–11.
“rubies on velvet”: Barthel, “How to Avoid TV Dinners.”
“Julia was revolutionary”: JBJ to the author.
“It was the first time”: RM to the author, May 28, 2015.
“It was absolutely beautiful”: PC to CJC, April 17, 1965.
“I’m tired of gray food”: Efron, “Dinner with Julia Child.”
The first nationwide broadcast: From Ed Reitan, “The Day a Black and White World Changed into Living Color: January 1, 1954,” Novia.net [website is no longer active] (http://novia.net/∼ereitan/rose_par
ade.html [website is no longer active]).
If black and white denoted: Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 217.
wrote a heartfelt memo: Ibid., 214.
After reading the memo: Ibid, 215.
“Home economics [is] a person”: Curtis Hartman and Steven Raichlen, “The Boston Magazine Interview: Julia Child,” Boston, April 1981.
WGBH (which allegedly stood for “God Bless Harvard”): Polan, Julia Child’s The French Chef, 202.
She tried to persuade appliance makers: Ibid., 135.
“Just last week I was offered”: Whitcomb, “Life Started Cooking at 50.”
“How many copies are you planning to print?”: JBJ to the author.
“Crazy!”: PC scribbled note, January 15, 1971. Julia Child Papers.
3. VOLUME II
One afternoon in 1969: Patricia Simon, “The Making of a Masterpiece,” McCall’s, October 1970.
“No one knows us here”: Ibid.
“Less talking”: Ibid.
baptized Simone Suzanne Renée Madeleine Beck: Simone Beck, Food & Friends, 8.
Zulma had a lifelong influence: Ibid., 4–5.
“What a big chassis”: Ibid., 91.
George Artamonoff: JC, MLiF, 115.
“French cooking out of cuckoo land”: Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle, and Simone Beck, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Also, “Everyone’s in the Kitchen,” Time, November 25, 1966.
“This is certainly one of the great collaborations”: ADeV, typed notes, “Some Scattered Notes on a Visit to Bramafam-Pitchoune,” December 17, 1966, to January 3, 1967.
“I feel I was the prime mover”: Beck, Food & Friends, 226.
“Writing does not come easily”: Margaret Sheridan, “The Visionary Editor Behind Our Great Cookbooks,” Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1981.
Mrs. Jones was born Judith Bailey: JBJ interviews with the author. Also, Andrew F. Smith, ed. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America, vol. 2 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 394.
“Ms. Jones may not be the mother of the revolution”: Julia Moskin, “An Editing Life, a Book of Her Own,” The New York Times, October 24, 2007.
“include a good honest recipe”: JBJ to JC, May 12, 1967.
no one in France bakes bread: JC to JBJ, May 22, 1967.
“bread should lie directly”: JC to JBJ, December 12, 1967.
“We used wet whisk brooms”: PC to CJC, July 10, 1967. Also, JC to SB, July 10, 1967.
It took something like two years: MLiF, 254.
Beard on Bread: JBJ to author. Also, JBJ to JC, March 8, 1971.
Yet, Simca had developed: Beck, Food & Friends, 216–19.
“Knead that dough!”: Ibid., 216.
“Non! We French—we never make”: MLiF, 224.
“Disgusting!”: JC to the author. Also, Whitcomb, “Life Started Cooking at 50.”
“I am worried by your growing attitude”: JC to JBJ, January 22, 1970.
“I am distressed that you think”: JBJ to JC, January 29, 1970.
“I am sure there is nothing wrong”: JC to JBJ, January 19, 1970.
An early point of tension: JC to SB, October 18, 1967.
“Julia and I work very well together”: Jean Hewitt, “Simone Beck, the Cookbook Author Without Television Show,” The New York Times, November 12, 1970.
“seven hundred and twenty-nine layers”: JC interviewed by John Callaway, WTTW, Chicago, PBS, 1978.
Judith Jones attempted to make: JBJ to the author.
“I shall make several more”: JC to SB, January 31, 1967.
Knopf had received a steady stream: JBJ to the author. Also, Nancy Nicholas of Knopf to JC, December 31, 1969; and JBJ to JC, March 8, 1971.
“You’re only as good as your worst recipe”: Julia to the author. And in Sheridan, “The Visionary Editor Behind Our Great Cookbooks.”
“I have no desire to get into another big book”: JC to SB, February 13, 1969.
“Petites Remarques et Modifications, si possible”: SB to JC, January 1, 1970.
In the margin, Julia scribbled: Ibid.
“Lettre avec Commentaires Indispensables”: JC to SB, February 1970 (“GATEAU LE SUCCESS; J. comments on Simca Comments of Feb. 18, 1970.”), Julia Child Papers.
“This is entirely MA*D”: JC note to herself, n.d., 1970.
“I’m feeling terribly the pressure”: JBJ to JC, January 16, 1970.
“it is like a sweat shop around here”: JC to JBJ, February 3, 1970.
“Under no circumstances”: JC to JBJ, February 1, 1970.
“It may not be the book”: JC to SB, December 14, 1969.
4. THE FRENCH CHEF IN FRANCE
“This elaborate, expensive”: From “To Press a Duck,” The French Chef, Season Two, 1970.
La Couronne: MLiF, 16–19.
“I feel Nature is restoring”: Laura Shapiro, Julia Child, 130.
“Never again am I going to get”: JC to SB, April 17, 1970.
“I have felt that we needed something”: JC to Robert Larsen, program manager, WGBH-TV, December 12, 1966.
Julia proposed a luxe: Ibid.
Julia’s true agenda: MLiF, 273–74.
It was Shana Alexander: Much of the detail about “The French Chef in France” shoot comes from the meticulous “diary concerned with the French Chef expedition in France,” kept by Paul Child in the spring and summer of 1970. It runs ninety-seven typed pages. The diary can be found in: “Paul Child to Charles Child and Freddie Child, May 1970: typescript re. filming in France,” box 8, folder 86, Julia Child Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe. PC, May 5–June 17, 1970 (hereafter: PC, “FCiF” diary), 10.
For $40,000: JC to SB, April 17, 1970.
“Cooking with us is NOT”: PC, “FCiF” diary, 12.
The Pan Am jet: Ibid., 33–34.
“Remember, France is halfway”: Ibid., 31.
In a 2009 blog post: Daniel Berger, “Julia Child Joyeuse Revenante” (“Julia Child’s Happy Ghost”), October 12, 2009 (http://www.mtonvin.net/2009/10/12/julia-child-en-revenante/). Berger’s post was written in French, which has been translated by the author to the best of his limited ability.
“It comes over us again”: PC, “FCiF” diary, 58.
“Julia and Paul were guided”: Berger, “Julia Child Joyeuse Revenante.” Written in French and translated by the author.
“Is that rigor mortis?”: JC to fishmonger in Marseille, in “Bouillabaisse,” The French Chef, Season Two, WGBH, 1970.
The Chablis was: Berger, “Julia Child Joyeuse Revenante.”
Lyon enlisted Simca: PC, “FCiF” diary, 79–80.
“You are like Brigitte Bardot”: Ibid., 81.
“We do feel that a lot of what we are filming”: JC to ADeV, June 12 and June 20, 1970. Also, JC to JBJ, June 11, 1970.
“We have, like Pollyanna”: PC, “FCiF” diary, 87–88.
“We will be off at once”: Ibid., 96.
5. THAT’S IT
“I am not going to be put out”: MLiF, 281.
“Augghhhhhh!”: From JC to author. Also, JC to JBJ, June 28, 1970; JC to RJL, July 2, 1970.
“It is without rival”: Raymond Sokolov, “Queen of Chefs,” Newsweek, November 9, 1970.
“No serious scholar”: Gael Greene, “Julia’s Moon Walk with French Bread,” Life, October 23, 1970.
“who learn to drive”: Nika Hazelton, “Genghis Khan’s Sauerkraut and Other Edibles,” The New York Times Book Review, December 6, 1970.
“The French Chef Faces Life”: From WGBH promotional material. Cited by the Julia Child Foundation, timeline: 1970 (http://www.juliachildfoundation.org/timeline.html).
“I really don’t know how to explain”: Terrence O’Flaherty, “What’s More, She Can Cook,” San Francisco Chronicle, October, 1970, Julia Child Papers.
Judith Jones met a doctor: MLiF, 282.
the entire piscatory chapter: JC to SB, March 5, 1970. Also, JBJ to the auth
or.
“we may have a tetralogy”: JBJ to JC, February 8, 1967.
“You must polish up”: JC to SB, July 9, 1972.
Even those who adored: Beck, Food & Friends, 277–78.
“She wouldn’t listen”: MLiF, 287.
The tipping point: Ibid., 287–88. Also, JBJ to the author.
Jean-François Thibault: Phone interviews with the author, May 18, 2004; December 17, 2014; and e-mail of December 17, 2014. Also, Jean-Max Guieu, notes e-mailed to the author, “Just a few words concerning Simca. And Julia,” December 17, 2014.
Simca declared: Beck, Simca’s Cuisine, vii.
Judith Jones helped: JBJ to author. Also, JBJ to JC, November 16, 1970.
Simca’s Cuisine “should be a very nice book”: JC to ADeV, May 18, 1971.
“I was struck by how little emphasis”: JBJ to SB, January 21, 1977.
On May 4, 1971: JC and PC, 1971 datebooks.
“Actually Paul and I are both”: JC to RJL, June 6, 1971.
“I don’t feel this year’s shows”: JC to JBJ, June 6, 1971. Also, June 29, 1971.
a den of Fellini-esque debauchery: Stones in Exile, a documentary film written and directed by Stephen Kijak; released July 12, 2010.
Mick Jagger called it: TimeisonOurSide.com: “Exile on Main Street” (http://timeisonourside.com/lpExile.html). Robert Greenfield, “Making Exile on Main Street,” Rolling Stone, September 8, 2006. Also, Robert Christgau, Grown Up All Wrong: 75 Great Rock and Pop Artists from Vaudeville to Techno (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998), 81.
“We can do it”: RM memo to Michael Rice, WGBH, “RE: Julia’s Cooking Demos,” April 19, 1974.
“I have doubts”: David Ives, WGBH, memo to PC, JC, RL, Michael Rice, Sylvia Davis, “RE: MORE PROGRAMS FOR JULIA IN 1974,” August 20, 1973.
“10 Possibilities”: PC handwritten list, n.d., Julia Child Papers.
“I personally will never do”: “Close-Up: Julia Child, TV’s Master Chef,” Life, October 21, 1966.
“I’m tired of French cooking”: Woodene Merriman, “When Christmas Comes, So Do the Cookbooks,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, November 14, 1978.
“tangents, comments”: Child, From Julia Child’s Kitchen, ix.