Appetite For Life_ The Biography Of Julia Child Part 7

The Marshall Plan, not the USIS, received the generous budget from Was.h.i.+ngton, and though Al Friendly and his other Marshall Plan friends promised help with USIS funding, Paul squeezed very little from them. In an interview about their diplomatic service in France, Julia later said, "The USIS was kind of a stepchild, and we were not really considered part of the brotherhood. We were always down around rank four, so we didn't have to do any emba.s.sy things. We were free to live a normal life." Sylvie Pouly, who was Paul's "smart and stable" a.s.sistant from 1949 to 1951, remembers that Julia did not do any official entertaining (the emba.s.sy did that), but she did invite Paul's colleagues to dinner. The young French woman was impressed with the numerous copper pots and the refrigerator in Julia's kitchen. She also noted that Julia was "always in a good mood" and had a "marriage of love." Several in Paul's office remember him talking about Julia's desire for a career, including a young woman named Janou, the reference librarian for the USIS.

TO EAT LIKE A G.o.d IN FRANCE.

Julia and Paul explored a different quarter of Paris each weekend, including its bistros and restaurants. Though the Guide Michelin Guide Michelin was their bible, they did some independent testing, placing the names and addresses of their favorite places inside Julia's datebook. In the back she listed the wines and their good years. They noticed that most restaurants, like the ones they visited in China, had potbellied stoves with stovepipes going across the ceiling and out the window. was their bible, they did some independent testing, placing the names and addresses of their favorite places inside Julia's datebook. In the back she listed the wines and their good years. They noticed that most restaurants, like the ones they visited in China, had potbellied stoves with stovepipes going across the ceiling and out the window.

They enjoyed poulet gratine poulet gratine at Au Gourmet in the rue des Canettes and tripe at Pharamond near Les Halles, took d.i.c.k Bissell to Au Cochon de Lait, returned frequently to La Truite, located off the rue Boissy-d'Anglas near the American Emba.s.sy, owned by the same family who owned La Couronne in Rouen. Michaud remained a favorite, as did Escargot d'Or, where the first week they lunched on a dozen escargots with a half bottle of Sancerre, followed by at Au Gourmet in the rue des Canettes and tripe at Pharamond near Les Halles, took d.i.c.k Bissell to Au Cochon de Lait, returned frequently to La Truite, located off the rue Boissy-d'Anglas near the American Emba.s.sy, owned by the same family who owned La Couronne in Rouen. Michaud remained a favorite, as did Escargot d'Or, where the first week they lunched on a dozen escargots with a half bottle of Sancerre, followed by rognons Bercy rognons Bercy in wine and mushroom sauce with a half bottle of Clos de Vougeot, followed by in wine and mushroom sauce with a half bottle of Clos de Vougeot, followed by escarole salade escarole salade, and finished with cafe filtre cafe filtre. They thought they had discovered Le Grand Vefour and its chef, Raymond Oliver, and its sommelier, Monsieur Hennoq, until they caught a glimpse of Colette there. "I remember the estouffade estouffade at Le Grand Vefour. It is a dish made by hollowing out a loaf of bread and rubbing it with creamy b.u.t.ter, then baking it to a golden brown and filling it with at Le Grand Vefour. It is a dish made by hollowing out a loaf of bread and rubbing it with creamy b.u.t.ter, then baking it to a golden brown and filling it with crevettes crevettes [shrimp] in cream and b.u.t.ter." They had "truly elegant" gratins of sh.e.l.lfish at Laperouse, beer and sandwiches at La Closerie des Lilas, and oysters and wine at the Bra.s.serie Lipp after a cold day prowling Montmartre. And it was almost always to the Deux Magots for drinks or after-dinner coffee. [shrimp] in cream and b.u.t.ter." They had "truly elegant" gratins of sh.e.l.lfish at Laperouse, beer and sandwiches at La Closerie des Lilas, and oysters and wine at the Bra.s.serie Lipp after a cold day prowling Montmartre. And it was almost always to the Deux Magots for drinks or after-dinner coffee.

Although Michaud's has since disappeared, a number of the restaurants that Julia listed in her datebooks of this period are still serving meals under the same name fifty years later: Chez George, Marius (rue de Bourgogne, just steps from the Childs' flat), Pierre, Prunier, Pharamond, and Laperouse. Paul frequently expressed grat.i.tude that "Julie loves Paris so much." She is a "darling, sensitive, outgoing, appreciative, characterful and interesting woman!" he wrote Charlie and Freddie early in 1949. "Well, let's face it: I'm a lucky b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

Though restaurants may have originated in China, they flourished in modern times in France after the French Revolution, when chefs who had worked for the aristocracy went into business for themselves. The word "restaurant" originated both from "to restore" and from the French term for fortifying soup. French taste dictated the scale and suitability of the proportions, the sculpture, and the presentation of the food, the ritual of the tablecloth and winegla.s.ses-every detail of the selection, preparation, flavoring, and timing of meals. The amount of bread crumbs on the tablecloth spelled out the crisp quality of the bread. Gastronomy in France is reserved for the fine arts and sciences, and the art of the table is accorded a reverence akin to religion.

The city surrounded and embraced the river, Paul pointed out to her, unlike Boston, where the great homes turned their backs on the basin. These elements of French taste at table and in architecture were discussed and evaluated with Paul. Julia's response was ecstatic, both in appet.i.te and in the way she dressed. She now wore a suit and hat and regularly had her brown hair permed. "The artistic integrity of the French," Edith Wharton pointed out, "led them to feel from the beginning that there is no difference in kind between the curve of a woman's hat-brim and the curve of a Rodin marble."

"What I remember most is the elegant but genuine cordiality of the restaurants," said Julia. And the subtlety of tastes. If food is linked to human behavior, so the reasoning of cultural anthropologists goes, then French "subtlety of thought and manner is related to the subtlety of its cuisine," just as the reserve of the British is attributed to their "unimaginative diet" and the German stolidness to heavy food. As the German expression for pleasure goes, "happy as G.o.d in France."

With her continuing studies at Berlitz, her market shopping, and her menu reading, Julia was ama.s.sing a large vocabulary of French food. Because the French had codified cheeses (325 varieties!), wines, foods, and cooking techniques, many of their words were already a part of her vocabulary: menu, sauce, fruit, salade, mayonnaise, celeri, bifteck, meringue, raisins, paprika, hors d'oeuvre, dessert menu, sauce, fruit, salade, mayonnaise, celeri, bifteck, meringue, raisins, paprika, hors d'oeuvre, dessert. She discovered a language saturated with food imagery: creme de la creme creme de la creme (top of society), (top of society), gate-sauce gate-sauce (beginner). (beginner).

Although Julia would later say they had little money and ate out only once a week, according to her datebooks their first months in Paris were filled with restaurants. They set aside the $100 from her family income and used it to dine out. They could eat in a good French bistro for a dollar. Fifty years later she would exclaim, "I was so fortunate! This was before the nutrition police had reared their ugly heads; it was still the old French cooking with b.u.t.ter and cream." And: "There were no nutritionists in Paris then, thank G.o.d!"

Markets in Paris were a sensuous delight. Julia stared at pig's heads, sniffed sausages, poked fish, salivated over baskets of mushrooms, and practiced her French with the fat market people in wooden shoes, black ap.r.o.ns, and red faces who yelled at each other over the cacophony of market sounds. The carts and tables were piled high with mussels, squash, leeks, and chrysanthemums when she first arrived in Paris. The cabbages were as green as those in China. The spring brought endives and mandarins, and the summer provided strawberries, green beans, and tomatoes. Because each growing season was limited, the arrival of the first tomato or the first strawberry was celebrated. Little could be preserved anyway, for most people had only an icebox. No wonder she remembered that she was "in hysterics for months." France's national pa.s.sion became hers.

She bought staples such as cigarettes, chocolate, and soap at the American PX and Normandy cream, b.u.t.ter, and cheese from the cremerie cremerie and and fromagere fromagere in the rue de Bourgogne. The cheese shop, Julia remembered, "was run by a buxom blonde who could tell me whether the cheese should be eaten tonight or for lunch tomorrow." There were small individual shops for meat and bread, and wine, but in these days before supermarkets, there were only open-air markets for a variety of fresh produce. She walked up the Boulevard St.-Germain to the market in the rue de Buci or, "if I had enough energy to walk, I would cross the Champs de Mars to the largest market on the Left Bank." She quickly learned she had to establish a relations.h.i.+p with the vendors to get the best produce: "I learned human relations in France," she would say. in the rue de Bourgogne. The cheese shop, Julia remembered, "was run by a buxom blonde who could tell me whether the cheese should be eaten tonight or for lunch tomorrow." There were small individual shops for meat and bread, and wine, but in these days before supermarkets, there were only open-air markets for a variety of fresh produce. She walked up the Boulevard St.-Germain to the market in the rue de Buci or, "if I had enough energy to walk, I would cross the Champs de Mars to the largest market on the Left Bank." She quickly learned she had to establish a relations.h.i.+p with the vendors to get the best produce: "I learned human relations in France," she would say.

Paul joined a men's gastronomic club. Through Pierre Andrieu, its adviser, they went to choose some good wines at the Foire de Paris, where they sipped Armagnac, brandy, champagne, and Sancerre, Bordeaux, and Alsatian wines. "It was an expensive excursion ... and we were feeling very jovial indeed," Julia wrote a friend. "About two weeks later cases upon cases of wine arrived at our apartment, so much that we had to buy two wine racks for the cellar; we had quite forgotten what we had ordered."

Across the river was Les Halles, the belly of Paris, a living organism of fruits, vegetables, animals, and fowl, where every restaurant in Paris bought its produce. And Les Halles aux Vins, the vast hall of wines at the east end of the Left Bank's Boulevard St.-Germain, was a collection of vendors whose wine stained the streets and filled the air of this quarter of the 5th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt. The sheer magnitude overwhelmed her, but she studied the names of the foods and wines.

Though she still had not mastered The Joy of Cookings The Joy of Cookings recipes, Julia continued to cook and entertain. She prepared toast and two fried eggs each morning, a simple lunch (she would greet Paul's return "with a whoop," he said), and a more elaborate dinner if they were entertaining. They had a maid for a month but hated her cooking, disliked the time regime, and decided to economize. Thereafter, twice a week they had a recipes, Julia continued to cook and entertain. She prepared toast and two fried eggs each morning, a simple lunch (she would greet Paul's return "with a whoop," he said), and a more elaborate dinner if they were entertaining. They had a maid for a month but hated her cooking, disliked the time regime, and decided to economize. Thereafter, twice a week they had a femme de menage femme de menage named Jeanne "la Folle" (the crazy woman), who urged them to buy a cat to get rid of the mice. Julia adored Minette, who ate the mice and one day brought a bird in from the roof and ate it on the Persian rug. Thereafter they would be devoted cat lovers. named Jeanne "la Folle" (the crazy woman), who urged them to buy a cat to get rid of the mice. Julia adored Minette, who ate the mice and one day brought a bird in from the roof and ate it on the Persian rug. Thereafter they would be devoted cat lovers.

Spring brought green fuzz to the chestnuts on Paris's trees and peach blossoms to the Mowrers' country home in Crecy. Paul and Julia enjoyed picnics, visiting friends, and trips with Helene Baltrusaitis. "We would walk along the banks of the river on the quais," recalled Julia. "We were great picnickers, even picnicking on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower (before there was a restaurant there). It was lovely." Her datebook reveals she had lunch or tea or drinks or dinner with friends nearly every day. Among her guests their first year in Paris, including the Mowrers and Baltrusaitises, were May Sarton (poet and longtime friend of Paul visiting from New England), the Bicknells (visiting from London), d.i.c.k Bissell, Life Life reporter and photographer Helen Morgan, painter Buffie Johnson, French art critics Roger Caillois and Philippe Verdier, as well as nephew Paul Sheeline and his wife, and her good friends the Chamberlains. Sam Chamberlain was a great cook, writer, and photographer, and was accompanied by his wife, Narcissa, with whom he would soon publish reporter and photographer Helen Morgan, painter Buffie Johnson, French art critics Roger Caillois and Philippe Verdier, as well as nephew Paul Sheeline and his wife, and her good friends the Chamberlains. Sam Chamberlain was a great cook, writer, and photographer, and was accompanied by his wife, Narcissa, with whom he would soon publish Bouquet de France: An Epicurean Tour of the French Provinces Bouquet de France: An Epicurean Tour of the French Provinces.

The first trip in France with Helene was a five-day February excursion (what Paul called Julia's "first crack at France-as-a-whole") to Nice, where they visited the vacationing Mowrers. In the spring they took day trips ("picnics") and during school vacations Helene had to take her young teenage son, which made her uneasy because she believed that Paul hated children. But she learned when to keep silent with him and sensed that he appreciated her wit ("our friends.h.i.+p was special"). She was honored when one day he told her the full story of his "very difficult" early life. She remembers often stopping for long periods while Paul waited for just the right light for a photograph: At first we took day picnics, but eventually we traveled all over France together [said Mrs. Baltrusaitis]. We visited every region but Brittany (because it was too far). Julia could never resist asking questions. She is really intelligent and very curious and loved to meet people. Because she was so tall, people were curious about her and made remarks. It was courage and love for Paul to marry Julia, whom everyone noticed. He never wanted to be noticed. It was not just that he was shy, but he loved Julia and wanted the light on her.

For a three-day trip to Normandy in May, the three of them took art critic Philippe Verdier, a member of their Wednesday group, whom Paul found too talkative. That summer they returned to Normandy, visited Chartres, and the Champagne region, where Helene's family had a house in Maranville, a tiny village bordering Champagne and Burgundy. When they stepped on a rusted German helmet in the forest beyond Luneville on the way to Strasbourg, the war seemed not so distant.

Paul took hundreds of photographs and spent weeks and months working on a single painting. While he painted a stained-gla.s.s medallion of and for the Focillon group, Julia worked out a cla.s.sification system for his private and professional photograph files. He designed the first of many annual Valentine's cards to send in lieu of Christmas cards to their family and friends. This spring he completed a painting of a street of Paris and in the summer an aqueduct.

The only time Julia ever thought she might be pregnant was about this time in Paris. "I was delighted," Julia reported fifty years later, remembering that the "feeling" lasted for "about a month." Not until Paul mentioned it in a letter to his brother did Julia realize it was only stomach fatigue, "I was bilious ... too much cream and b.u.t.ter." Though decades later she would claim she was not heartbroken about her failure to conceive a child, her family and friends are sure she was disappointed. Several family members believed Paul did not want children. He was a loving father figure to two nieces and a nephew and to Edith Kennedy's three boys. But years of teaching boys in France, Italy, and then Connecticut gave him his fill of squirming boys. "I don't think Paul was mad to have children," said Julia, "but it would have been very different if it had been his own." In 1988 in McCall's McCall's, Julia remarked, "I would have been the complete mother," and the reporter added: this was her "one regret." A decade later, as if in justification, she exclaimed, "If I had had a child, I would not have had a career.... because I was freelance."

Julia's sister Dorothy arrived April 8, just about a week before her thirty-second birthday and at the peak of spring green, for an extended visit. Julia had written to tell her to leave the family home, buy a diaphragm, and come to Paris to complete her education. She was "wildly enthusiastic," according to Paul, when they settled her into their guest room and then took her on the "JuPaulski standard tourist walk" around the St.-Germain quarter, ending with drinks at Deux Magots. After a Sunday with the Baltrusaitises and Mowrers at the latter's country home, they took her on Monday to the Foire aux Jambons, where Julia and Dorothy (at six feet four inches) collected a crowd. In the months to come she traveled about Europe with friends and became involved with an English-speaking theater group in Paris.

Paul's photographs and letters capture their April trip to Lyons for an exhibit that showed the results of the Marshall Plan, an exhibit (it would go to Lille in July) that Paul had worked on since his arrival in Paris. From there they took a ten-day trip in the Blue Flash (Buick) to England to see Nigel and Sally Bicknell, their former housemates in Georgetown. It was the first visit to London for both Julia and Paul, and they delighted in the bowler hats and umbrellas, were struck by the absence of handshaking, and found the English pace vigorous and bustling, but the people ponderous.

They traveled on to Cambridge to meet the other Bicknells, Nigel's brother Peter and his wife, Mari, a graduate of the Cordon Bleu cooking school in Paris. Peter and Mari, with whom they were perfectly compatible, would remain lifelong friends. Despite the affection for their friends, Julia preferred what she called "little old France," with its "sweet naturalness and healthy pleasures of the flesh and spirit." Later she declared that England "seemed more foreign than France" to them.

"Americans are flooding into the city like the tide at Mont St.-Michel," Paul wrote to Charlie. The terraces of the Deux Magots and the Cafe Flore were crowded with people watchers, "the national pastime in France." More old friends were in town, including the Brennans, who were there for a month (Hank, working for Henry Luce and writing an article for Fortune Fortune magazine on the recovery of France, had been to the Lyons exhibit). "Julie cooked a goose" for eight people, Paul added, "and very well too." The meal ended with strawberries and magazine on the recovery of France, had been to the Lyons exhibit). "Julie cooked a goose" for eight people, Paul added, "and very well too." The meal ended with strawberries and creme d'Isigny creme d'Isigny. His letters to Charlie were sprinkled with newly invented mixed drinks for the c.o.c.ktail hour.

HEMINGWAY WEDDING.

Hadley asked Julia if she would serve as maid of honor for the wedding of her son Jack, "b.u.mby," and Julia made her dress and hat (she had been taking hat lessons with a friend) for the occasion. John (Jack) Hemingway and his bride, Byra (Puck) Whitlock, whose first husband had died in the war, wished to be married with a church wedding in the old-fas.h.i.+oned manner. Because Puck was still in Idaho and Jack was stationed in Berlin with Army Intelligence, it fell to Hadley and Paul Mowrer to make all the arrangements and take care of the complicated legal papers. Once Julia agreed to serve as maid of honor (Puck was a tall girl also), Paul agreed to stand by as best man if Jack could not get a friend released to come with him, and the Childs offered to put up Jack when he arrived in Paris on June 20, 1949 (Hadley planned to keep the couple separated until the church wedding).

Jack, Julia informed a biographer of his father, was "an attractive, blond, good-looking American boy, who wed an attractive, unsophisticated and extremely nice young woman." Paul thought that Puck was "a lovely tall dark girl with a face full of character" and described the groom as "a vigorous, extroverted, attractive, thick young man. He's a U.S. army captain with lots of medal-ribbons and paratrooper's wings. He was in OSS and was dropped behind the German lines to form agent-teams. He's bi-lingual, was captured and escaped no less than four times. Like his Poppa he is nuts about fis.h.i.+ng, and thinks of Ernest's estancia outside of Havana as home." Papa, however, did not attend the wedding.

On Thursday, the night before the civil wedding, Julia and Paul hosted a c.o.c.ktail party for the Hemingway wedding party and Mowrer friends, a "big good party," Julia described it (Paul normally preferred a maximum of eight guests at a time). Many old-time American expatriates were there; Julia was particularly thrilled to meet Alice B. Toklas, whom Paul had met through Daddy Myers in the 1920s. Toklas and Stein had witnessed for Jack's christening.

Jack's friend Lieutenant Bob Shankman, who was six feet six inches tall, squired Dort around Paris that weekend, attracting attention wherever they went. "When the two of them got out of her little MG TC and stood up," remembered Hemingway, "crowds would gather and stare in awe at the wonderful mismatch." The wedding party, Dort's friends at the American theater where she was working on staging, and various colleagues in UNESCO and USIS wandered in and out of the Child apartment. Julia seemed to thrive on the chaos and numbers of people. Staying in their apartment were not only Jack Hemingway and Dorothy, but Peter Bicknell, who was on his way back to London. Paul complained that "a steady tunnel of liquor flows from our bar down all these throats."

According to French law, Jack and Puck were married in a civil ceremony first at 4:45 P.M P.M. on Friday, June 24, at the mairie mairie (town hall) of the 7th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, with a rehearsal for the church wedding following. Alice Lee Myers gave a c.o.c.ktail reception before the Mowrers' bridal dinner. (town hall) of the 7th Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, with a rehearsal for the church wedding following. Alice Lee Myers gave a c.o.c.ktail reception before the Mowrers' bridal dinner.

On Sat.u.r.day, the wedding-Julia calls it the "Mowrer wedding" in her datebook-took place at 11:30 A.M A.M., with Julia and Lieutenant Jack Kelly as witnesses in the American Church on the Quai d'Orsay. U.S. amba.s.sador to France, David Bruce (formerly head of OSS in Europe), Richard (Daddy) and Alice Lee Myers, and f.a.n.n.y and Hank Brennan were in the congregation. Helene Baltrusaitis believed this was "the only time I ever saw Paul Child," whom she describes as "an aggressive atheist," inside a church. He should have been at home in this particular church, however, because in the 1920s he had spent hours putting in the stained-gla.s.s windows. Tarzan of the Apse, Charlie named him.

The reception was held a few blocks from the church in the Mowrers' apartment, and thanks to d.i.c.k Myers, who represented the distributor Sherry-Lehmann, champagne flowed freely. Close friends, including Julia and Paul, then drove to Crecy for a dinner at the Mowrers' country home. Paul took the wedding photographs by the garden wall, Jack remembered.

Dort, who was closer to Jack and Puck, visited the newlyweds in Berlin in early August after the theater season ended and again in 1950 after the birth of their first daughter, Joan (m.u.f.fet), in Paris. Paul, who thought the final production of three one-act plays amateurish, was pleased that she was visiting the Hemingways, for he thought Dort's theater crowd was "rather emotional."

August 15, 1949, was Julia's thirty-seventh birthday, and Paul wrote to Chafred in Maine that it was an auspicious day: it was the fourth anniversary of "j.a.panese acceptance of Allied surrender terms. It's the first anniversary of the proclamation of the Republic of Korea. It's the second anniversary of the proclamation of independence of India and Pakistan. It was the day when the cease-fire in Indonesia officially came into force, it's the 70th birthday of Ethel Barrymore and it's Julie's birthday. A great and glorious day."

More important, it was a pa.s.sage for Julia. She and Paul may have been nostalgic for the smell of balsam wood in Lopaus Point, Maine, but they were making plans for Julia's future that would tie them forever to France. She was planning to enroll in the fall at the Cordon Bleu cooking school. Several people have taken credit for suggesting that she enroll: Janou, the librarian at USIS, suggested to Paul that Julia's enthusiasm for French food should lead her to the famous school; Jean Friendly, the wife of Paul's a.s.sociate in the Marshall Plan, says "my husband suggested she study at the Cordon Bleu"; certainly the influence of Mari Bicknell in Cambridge, who graduated there and with whom Julia cooked, must have been significant. Julia visited the school on June 2.

She eagerly wrote to ask Freddie to come over and "be a Cordon Bleu too," but by the time of her birthday she gave up on the hope that her sister-in-law would join her. Paul joked about them opening a restaurant together. His birthday gift was Larousse Gastronomique Larousse Gastronomique ("1,087 pages of sheer cookery and foodery, 1,850 gravures, 16 color plates, definitions, recipes, information, stories and know-how-a wonder book," Paul told Freddie). ("1,087 pages of sheer cookery and foodery, 1,850 gravures, 16 color plates, definitions, recipes, information, stories and know-how-a wonder book," Paul told Freddie).

In preparation for her new career, she took a long trip to Ma.r.s.eilles with Paul after saying a tearful farewell to Hadley and Paul Mowrer, who were retiring to New Hamps.h.i.+re. Their final meal together was a four-hour lunch. The fish course was the best lobster Julia had eaten in France, accompanied by a fine white Burgundy.

On a grand gastronomic tour introducing Julia to some of the variety of France's cheeses, wines, and produce, and to celebrate their third anniversary, Julia and Paul left Paris on September 3, drove south through the heat and burning land in the most serious drought since 1909 and through the hills and cooler gorges of the Auvergne. Helene Baltrusaitis and the French art historian Philippe Verdier (who agreed not to talk too much) accompanied them for half the journey. A few days out, happy with lunchtime wine and blinded by the sun, Julia drove over a high curbstone and the gas tank fell to the ground. "Paul was upset but not condemning. He never scolded Julia," remembered Helene.

Ma.r.s.eilles is "a wonderful vibrant, colorful bouillabaisse," declared Paul when he arrived to complete arrangements for his exhibit and hold a press conference. They arrived with a case of Pouilly wine in their trunk and stayed with Abe Manell (who had worked with Paul) and his wife, Rosemary, for whom Julia had an immediate liking. Rosie had been in the WAVES during the war, and Paul described her as "a big, blond, Earth-mother, young, California sculptress wife." In Rosie, Julia found a friend for life and her future food designer. Rosie remembered having heard so much about Julia before meeting her: "I thought they must be exaggerating because no one can be this interesting, this funny, and I couldn't believe it-she was better even than I thought." On the drive to Ma.r.s.eilles and back (alone) through the Dordogne, Julia and Paul visited layers of time: Roman aqueducts, medieval castles, an eleventh-century abbey, and Renaissance fountains. Julia was especially thrilled with the gastronomic discoveries of the present: ba.s.s with fennel, grilled lamb flambe with fennel branches, wild duck, truffles, confit, and a visit to the Roquefort caves. She was ready to learn more about this fertile and complex country.

Chapter 11.

CORDON B BLEU.

(1949 1952) "I've got the Cordon Blues."

Country-western song, 1970

JULIA WALKED past the American Emba.s.sy to the corner building at 129, rue du Faubourg St.-Honore, where for fifty-four years the Cordon Bleu cooking school had been housed. She carried her white ap.r.o.n, cap, kitchen towel, knives, and notebook as she paused to look in the window at the display of brandy. It was 7:30 past the American Emba.s.sy to the corner building at 129, rue du Faubourg St.-Honore, where for fifty-four years the Cordon Bleu cooking school had been housed. She carried her white ap.r.o.n, cap, kitchen towel, knives, and notebook as she paused to look in the window at the display of brandy. It was 7:30 A.M A.M. on Thursday, October 6, 1949. After two frustrating mornings in a cla.s.s of amateurs, she was finally transferred to a cla.s.s she wanted.

LE CORDON BLEU CORDON BLEU.

In Chef Max Bugnard's cla.s.s for ex-GIs who intended to become professionals, Julia was the only woman. (The morning cla.s.ses, on the other hand, were six-week courses attended mostly by women.) Julia and eleven veterans, whose tuition of 4,100 francs a week was paid by the U.S. government, were taking a ten-month course of twenty-five hours a week, with their days taken up by hands-on cooking from 7:30 to 9:30 in the morning, then three-hour afternoon demonstration cla.s.ses. The GIs had a friendly irreverence, one observer noted, and renamed the traditional white sauce originally named after Marquis de Bechamel as "Becha.s.smell."

Devoid of the s.h.i.+ny appliances and painted walls of modern cooking schools, the Cordon Bleu was crowded into seven rooms on the ground floor and bas.e.m.e.nt. (Decades later Julia would remember sixteen students and "very roomy quarters.") Only the office of Madame Elisabeth Bra.s.sart, the owner-director, was not crowded (one disillusioned student noted). Julia began dressing pigeons that morning in one of the two kitchens in the bas.e.m.e.nt next to a storeroom. When they finished, they cleaned the wood tables with salt and vinegar, and Julia rushed home to prepare lunch for Paul.

That afternoon she took her place upstairs in a rising row of chairs that faced a demonstration kitchen where she watched Monsieur Max Bugnard. She was awed by the seriousness and pa.s.sion with which the chefs worked, but was a little overwhelmed by the number of new French words she was having to learn at once. "My French was very sketchy at first, but the Cordon Bleu was a lesson in language as well as cookery."

On Thursday, Julia wrote in her datebook pigeons rotis delicieux pigeons rotis delicieux and then prepared the same dish for Paul and Dorothy: "If you could see Julie stuffing pepper and lard up the a.s.shole of a dead pigeon you'd realize how profoundly affected she's been already by the Cordon Bleu," Paul wrote to Charlie and Freddie. Dorothy remembers Julia walking down the steps from the kitchen with "meadowlarks" on sticks, "their little feet through the eyeb.a.l.l.s," and the cat Minette on Julia's shoulder crying for a bite. and then prepared the same dish for Paul and Dorothy: "If you could see Julie stuffing pepper and lard up the a.s.shole of a dead pigeon you'd realize how profoundly affected she's been already by the Cordon Bleu," Paul wrote to Charlie and Freddie. Dorothy remembers Julia walking down the steps from the kitchen with "meadowlarks" on sticks, "their little feet through the eyeb.a.l.l.s," and the cat Minette on Julia's shoulder crying for a bite.

On Friday the cla.s.s cooked "veal and beans," and she prepared the same dish at home that night. By the next Monday, Dorothy had une crise de foie une crise de foie, the familiar French stomach fatigue, and on Tuesday Paul was stricken as well. Fortunately, on Wednesday the group, who were presumably going into the restaurant business, visited Les Halles with Bugnard. It was a glorious week for Julia.

With her usual enthusiasm and concentration, Julia poured her time and effort into learning to cook. Paul referred to himself as "practically a Cordon Bleu Widower. I can't pry Julia loose from the kitchen day or night-not even with an oyster-knife." By October 15, he confided to his family, "Julie's cookery is actually improving! I didn't quite believe it would, just between us girls, but it really is is. In a sense it's simpler, more cla.s.sical (in the French tradition of bringing out the natural flavor rather than adding spices and herbs). I envy her this chance. It would be such fun fun to be doing it at the same time with her." to be doing it at the same time with her."

Soon they were planning eight-person dinner parties for Julia to practice her new skills. Her datebook is filled with names, from the leading French and American art historians (Jean Ache from the Focillon group was Paul's favorite), to visiting Bicknells and Hemingways, to Paul's colleagues, including Ed Taylor (former OSS pal, now correspondent for several large publications), and Bill and Betsy Tyler (he also a former OSS buddy, now Public Affairs Officer for France). One of their most frequent and respected guests was Helen Kirkpatrick, a senior at Smith when Julia was a freshman ("Who could forget that tall figure?" said the six-feet-two-inch Kirkpatrick) and now information officer for the Marshall Plan (official t.i.tle Public Liaison Director of French ECA). Occasionally Kirkpatrick, who was also a great friend of the Mowrers, brought Cornelia Otis Skinner.

It took brawn to get to the brine, and Julia's stamina was more than a match for most of her male fellow students. Unlike Sabrina, the delicate Cordon Bleu apprentice played by Audrey Hepburn in the 1954 movie of the same name, Julia was strong and determined. Madame Bra.s.sart, Simone Beck, and Louisette Bertholle (she would not meet her co-authors until the next year) all have commented on the value of her physical strength in hefting iron pots and pans in the kitchen. "When I first saw her stature and enthusiasm," declared Bertholle, "I knew she would be a great success." The great chef Escoffier, by way of contrast, had to wear elevated shoes to reach the stove.

But as important as physical strength was the strength of her commitment. "I just became pa.s.sionate. I had been looking for a career all my life," she informed an OSS interviewer. "Julia's strongest personal trait is dogged determination," said Helen Kirkpatrick. Helene Baltrusaitis credited both her intelligence and her seriousness: "Julia was sharp, quick, and perceptive. Her mind was always working, but sometimes she could look naive. She had these two wonderful faces: she cooked with all her heart and seriousness, but could dissolve into laughter and silliness the next minute." Paul declared she had a "quality of raucous humor" even in her most chic creations, and he later described for Chafred one of her cold fish dishes, decorated with five-point stars cut from leek leaves for the eyes, and strips of anchovies to suggest the skeletal structure.

Instead of struggling to express herself with words, as she had first envisioned her career before joining the OSS, Julia was finding expression in cutting, molding, and cooking the elements of nature that on the table bring friends together for conversation and good wine. This was not American "home economics," with its undercurrent of nineteenth-century melioristic scientism, but a century-old tradition at the center of French life. Julia observed the French need for formulating and tabulating nature and art, and she was well aware that she needed to learn to codify food and cooking. There were, after all, a hundred ways to cook a potato, and every variation in a sauce gave it a different name (she learned the first week that adding grated cheese to a bechamel made it a Mornay).

One month later-in fact, it was a year ago to the day that she landed on French soil-Julia went alone to Les Halles with chef Max Bugnard, a distinguished man with fine mustaches. Trained as a boy with Escoffier at the Carlton Hotel in London and a former restaurateur in prewar Brussels, he was a cla.s.sicist of French cuisine, specializing in sauces, meats, and fish (which would be Julia's specialties). He was, she told Simone Beck four years later, "mon maitre "mon maitre chef Max Bugnard ... with impeccable standards." With him she studied the produce in the market that Sat.u.r.day. With him she prepared, during the first six weeks, the following dishes: chef Max Bugnard ... with impeccable standards." With him she studied the produce in the market that Sat.u.r.day. With him she prepared, during the first six weeks, the following dishes: terrine de lapin de garenne, quiche lorraine, galantine de volaille, gnocchi a la florentine, vol-au-vent financiere, choucroute garnie a l'alsacienne, creme Chantilly, pets-de-nonne, charlotte de pommes, souffle Grand Marnier, risotto aux fruits de mer, coquille St.-Jacques, merlan a lorgnettes, rouget au safran, poulet saute Marengo, canard a l'orange terrine de lapin de garenne, quiche lorraine, galantine de volaille, gnocchi a la florentine, vol-au-vent financiere, choucroute garnie a l'alsacienne, creme Chantilly, pets-de-nonne, charlotte de pommes, souffle Grand Marnier, risotto aux fruits de mer, coquille St.-Jacques, merlan a lorgnettes, rouget au safran, poulet saute Marengo, canard a l'orange and and turbot farci braise au champagne turbot farci braise au champagne.

The list of dishes was compiled by Paul. His respect for French cuisine and for her future career would be an essential element in her success. French women of Julia's cla.s.s hired cooks, and their American friends thought she was "a nut" to shop, cook, and serve her own food. Americans disdained (and some argue they still do) home cooking, which was being pushed aside by economic growth and time-saving shortcuts (Pillsbury and General Mills had just introduced the first cake mixes). Food historians agree that the post-World War II period was the nadir of American cooking. But Julia did not know this; she could only revel in crowded street markets, drama in the kitchen, and a nation obsessed with eating well.

Paul shopped with her when he could, joined a gym, immersed himself in photography during her hours in the kitchen ("If I don't sit in the kitchen and watch I never see Julia"), and eagerly awaited each meal. He also helped her critique her dishes. It was clear to their friends that she adored and respected him. The only real tension in their marriage was Julia's love of big dinners and c.o.c.ktail parties. He preferred small groups and occasional solitude: "It's inconceivable to Julie that I don't really enjoy what she called 'getting out in the world and seeing a few people people now and then'!" he complained to Charlie in January 1950. now and then'!" he complained to Charlie in January 1950.

Paul gives us this first description of Julia the chef, in December 1949. Though the word "stove" is called "piano" in French, Paul chooses another musical instrument: The sight of Julia in front of her stove-full of boiling, frying & simmering foods has the same fascination for me as watching a kettle drummer at the symphony. Imagine this in y[ou]r mind's eye: Julie, with a blue-denim ap.r.o.n on, a dish towel stuck under her belt, a spoon in each hand, stirring 2 pots at the same time. Warning bells are sounding-off like signals from the podium, and a garlic-flavored steam fills the air with an odoriferous leit-motif. The oven door opens and shuts so fast you hardly notice the deft thrust of a spoon as she dips into a ca.s.serole and up to her mouth for a taste-check like a perfectly timed double-beat on the drums. She stands there surrounded by a battery of instruments with an air of authority and confidence. Now & again a flash of the non-cooking Julie lights up the scene briefly, as it did the day before yesterday when with her bare fingers, she s.n.a.t.c.hed a set of cannelloni out of the pot of boiling water with the cry, "Wow! These d.a.m.n things are as hot as a stiff c.o.c.k."

An affectionate portrait of a l.u.s.ty, loving wife in their private kitchen, reported by her sophisticated husband to his brother. Paul marveled at her ability to remove all the guts of a chicken out through a small hole in the neck and then loosen the skin for the insertion of truffles. She could remove the bones of a duck without tearing the skin: "And you ought to see that Old Girl skin a wild hare-you'd swear she'd just be Comin' round the Mountain with Her Bowie Knife in Hand."

He described their kitchen as an "alchemist's eyrie," full of the instruments of her craft. She bought tart rings, zester, a tortoisesh.e.l.l to sc.r.a.pe a tamis, copper pans, maplewood stirring paddles, a conical sieve, whisks (the French had eight kinds), long needles for larding roasts, scales, and rolling pins at E. Dehillerin, her favorite food-equipment store in the main street of Les Halles. "The store owner was a friend of Max Bugnard and they let us buy on credit," she remembered. Buying pots, pans, and gadgets "became an obsession I've never been able to break." She hung her pots around the stove, somewhat as in her great-grandfather's pre-Civil War wood cabin in Griggsville, Illinois, where cookery pots hung around the clay fireplace and where corn bread was the staple meal and migrating pigeons were so thick they bent the tree limbs outside.

The Cordon Bleu, however, had only the basic equipment in 1950. It had only one sink, did not have electrical equipment other than stoves (and some of them did not work). The English word "Frigidaire" was adopted by the French to refer to their iceboxes: "zinc-lined block-ice dripper-coolers," to use Paul Child's description. There were certainly no blenders. On the day they made a ham mousse, Julia and the nine men present had to pound the ham by hand: "We pounded it in this great big mortar, and they had one of those big drum sieves, and they rubbed it through the sieve and sc.r.a.ped it off the bottom. And it was absolutely delicious, but it took about an hour and a half to make. That would be two minutes or less in the food processor," she said recently. When it came time to make quenelles (which Paul had so lovingly described for her in China), they pounded the pike for thirty minutes ("a horrifying ch.o.r.e"), then forced it through a tamis for the day's demonstration. The dish was a divine morsel, in sharp contrast to the fried codfish cakes of her childhood.

When she wanted to make quenelles de brochet quenelles de brochet at home, Paul accompanied her to the Marche aux Puces (flea market) to buy just the right instrument. Paul said that as if "by some special chien-de-cuisine instinct Julia ran to earth at the end of an obscure alley of packing-box houses on the remoter fringes of the market a marble mortar as big as a baptismal font and a pestle." With muscles honed by pulling logs in Maine, Paul was able to carry the instruments on his back through the market to their car. He judged the slave labor worth the effort when he tasted the quenelle, though he described it "as a sort of white, suspiciously suggestive thing, disguised by a multiform yellowish sauce for which, if you saw it on the rug, you'd promptly spank the cat." at home, Paul accompanied her to the Marche aux Puces (flea market) to buy just the right instrument. Paul said that as if "by some special chien-de-cuisine instinct Julia ran to earth at the end of an obscure alley of packing-box houses on the remoter fringes of the market a marble mortar as big as a baptismal font and a pestle." With muscles honed by pulling logs in Maine, Paul was able to carry the instruments on his back through the market to their car. He judged the slave labor worth the effort when he tasted the quenelle, though he described it "as a sort of white, suspiciously suggestive thing, disguised by a multiform yellowish sauce for which, if you saw it on the rug, you'd promptly spank the cat."

In order to puree any food, Julia recently explained to Food & Wine Food & Wine magazine, "you would have to pa.s.s it through a hair sieve-meaning that you first pounded the cooked rice and onions in a mortar, then pushed them through a fine mesh stretched over a drum-shaped form with a wooden pestle, and finally sc.r.a.ped the puree off the other side with a tortoisesh.e.l.l scoop. That took some doing, and I know since it's how we pureed in my Paris school days in 1949." magazine, "you would have to pa.s.s it through a hair sieve-meaning that you first pounded the cooked rice and onions in a mortar, then pushed them through a fine mesh stretched over a drum-shaped form with a wooden pestle, and finally sc.r.a.ped the puree off the other side with a tortoisesh.e.l.l scoop. That took some doing, and I know since it's how we pureed in my Paris school days in 1949."

A controversy about the hygiene at Cordon Bleu arose in 1951 when an American woman wrote a satiric expose of the school ("First, Peel an Eel"), describing the dirty drawers, endless dipping of fingers into pots, the reuse of unwashed pots and pans, and food dropped on the floor, "delicately known as a coup de ballet parisien coup de ballet parisien and forthwith returned to the mixing bowl [instead of being kicked under the table, as the expression suggests]." The school "stands firmly aloof from almost all equipment invented since the beginning of the school.... In my six weeks at the Cordon Bleu I never spied a thermometer, mechanical mixer or pressure cooker." The author described the peeling of live fish and the drowning of little rabbits in white wine. She added that with the absence of green vegetables, salads, and fruit, and the excessive saucing and cream, it was little wonder that "every Frenchman complains perpetually about his liver and why the larger eaters go to Vichy for periodic cures." and forthwith returned to the mixing bowl [instead of being kicked under the table, as the expression suggests]." The school "stands firmly aloof from almost all equipment invented since the beginning of the school.... In my six weeks at the Cordon Bleu I never spied a thermometer, mechanical mixer or pressure cooker." The author described the peeling of live fish and the drowning of little rabbits in white wine. She added that with the absence of green vegetables, salads, and fruit, and the excessive saucing and cream, it was little wonder that "every Frenchman complains perpetually about his liver and why the larger eaters go to Vichy for periodic cures."

Julia blamed the dirty facilities and lack of modern appliances on the stinginess of Madame Bra.s.sart, who had bought the school in 1945, when it was clear that the charity (for orphans) which had inherited it at the death in 1934 of the founder, Marthe Distel, could not manage it. The Cordon Bleu began as a sixteenth-century chivalric order of a hundred gastronome aristocrats who wore a Maltese cross on a blue ribbon (cordon bleu) (cordon bleu) and gathered for "first-cla.s.s feasting," according to Catharine Reynolds. The weekly magazine and gathered for "first-cla.s.s feasting," according to Catharine Reynolds. The weekly magazine Cordon Bleu Cordon Bleu was started in 1895 by Marthe Distel, who gathered the subscribers and household chefs for demonstrations by great chefs. Bra.s.sart, who studied with Henri-Paul Pellaprat (one of France's greatest professor-cooks), bought both the magazine and the school. She introduced the first hands-on cla.s.ses and saw to it that only was started in 1895 by Marthe Distel, who gathered the subscribers and household chefs for demonstrations by great chefs. Bra.s.sart, who studied with Henri-Paul Pellaprat (one of France's greatest professor-cooks), bought both the magazine and the school. She introduced the first hands-on cla.s.ses and saw to it that only cuisine cla.s.sique cuisine cla.s.sique was taught. was taught.

There was no love lost between Madame Bra.s.sart and Julia Child. Bra.s.sart, after reading harsh criticisms from Child, said as late as 1994 that "Mrs. Child was not marked by any special talent for cooking but for her hard work." She repeated the judgment that Mrs. Child did "not have any great natural talent for cooking," but added that she was a bonne executrice bonne executrice who understood French cuisine and what was important about it for Americans. Certainly Mrs. Child lacked "taste memory," an expression coined by James Beard, whose mother had brought him up amid the gathering, preparing, and serving of food in Portland, Oregon. To make up for lost time, Julia studied and researched recipes and food and practiced long, hard hours. During the winter while other Parisians leisurely watched from the Deux Magots the renovation of the church of St.-Germain, Julia stayed in the kitchen or haunted the markets, cooking shops, and specialty shops, such as Androuet, the famous cheese emporium behind the Gare St.-Lazare. who understood French cuisine and what was important about it for Americans. Certainly Mrs. Child lacked "taste memory," an expression coined by James Beard, whose mother had brought him up amid the gathering, preparing, and serving of food in Portland, Oregon. To make up for lost time, Julia studied and researched recipes and food and practiced long, hard hours. During the winter while other Parisians leisurely watched from the Deux Magots the renovation of the church of St.-Germain, Julia stayed in the kitchen or haunted the markets, cooking shops, and specialty shops, such as Androuet, the famous cheese emporium behind the Gare St.-Lazare.

Bra.s.sart also said, however, that "Julia was a woman of character, a good communicator. She was courageous. She worked very hard." After her American student achieved fame, Bra.s.sart would say that she was the only student allowed to conclude her studies after just four months [she studied six]. Bugnard praised her work, according to Louisette Bertholle: "Max Bugnard and Claude Thillmont said that you were the most gifted of us all. They were not only talented chefs, they were also good predictors." Julia's eagerness to learn offset the French suspicion of foreigners. She was a spy in the house of food, in the temple of gastronomy, and would reveal its secrets. One day she would make them clear and apparently simple to her compatriots.

Despite what she thought of Madame Bra.s.sart, she valued her lessons at Bugnard's stove and enjoyed the teaching of chef Pierre Mangelotte, a "young, sad-eyed" magician with dramatic skills, who was chef at the Restaurant des Artistes in Montmartre. He always held his audience's attention. Holding his knife high in the air, he announced in a loud voice, "Voici! "Voici! A potato!" His enthusiasm over his creations was loving. Raymond Desmeillers was also one of her demonstration cooks (it was he who peeled the live eel for the woman who wrote the expose on a dirty Cordon Bleu). She also studied with Claude Thillmont, the pastry chef at the Cafe de Paris, who was once a.s.sociated with Madame Saint-Ange. Paul called him "a fine, honest, salty technician with a ripe and rapid accent, and a wonderful way with a pie-crust." He gave her individual cla.s.ses in cake making the next year (she remembered beating eggs for a cake for twenty minutes). A potato!" His enthusiasm over his creations was loving. Raymond Desmeillers was also one of her demonstration cooks (it was he who peeled the live eel for the woman who wrote the expose on a dirty Cordon Bleu). She also studied with Claude Thillmont, the pastry chef at the Cafe de Paris, who was once a.s.sociated with Madame Saint-Ange. Paul called him "a fine, honest, salty technician with a ripe and rapid accent, and a wonderful way with a pie-crust." He gave her individual cla.s.ses in cake making the next year (she remembered beating eggs for a cake for twenty minutes).

Maurice-Edmond Saillant, known by his pen name Curnonsky, also came to teach at the Cordon Bleu. A key figure in gourmet circles, he wrote a thirty-two-volume encyclopedia of France's regional foods and in 1928 founded the Academie des Gastronomes. The author of Cuisine et Vins de France Cuisine et Vins de France had just turned seventy-seven. had just turned seventy-seven.

By March 24, 1950, Julia decided she had completed the course and learned what she could from the Cordon Bleu. The recipes were getting repet.i.tive, and she preferred to study independently with Bugnard, attend afternoon demonstrations, and practice for her exam. She spent six months, except for the Christmas holiday when she cooked with Mari Bicknell in Cambridge, England, preparing food in the early morning for two hours, cooking lunch for Paul, attending three-hour demonstrations in the afternoon, and then preparing the same dishes that night for Paul, Dorothy, and friends. (She did essentially nothing else, except, she told one interviewer, "I would go to school in the morning, then for lunch time, I would go home and make love to my husband, and then ...") Probably no one at the school worked that thoroughly. The halfhearted GIs would continue three more months, but Julia wanted no more of the six-thirty wake-ups. Later when she asked Madame Bra.s.sart when she could take the final examination, Julia heard nothing from her.

It would take more than a year, the written testimony of Max Bugnard, and finally a blunt but professional letter to Madame Bra.s.sart before she received a signed diploma. Julia's letter a year later (March 28, 1951) detailed her work and the failure of Bra.s.sart to set an exam date, and insisted she must take the test before leaving on a trip in mid-April: Il est surprenant de vous voir prendre si peu d'interet a vos eleves Il est surprenant de vous voir prendre si peu d'interet a vos eleves (It is surprising to me to see you take so little interest in your students). Everyone at the American Emba.s.sy, including the amba.s.sador, she added threateningly, knows that she has been studying at the Cordon Bleu. In a postscript she offered her own well-equipped kitchen if there was no room at the school for her exam. (It is surprising to me to see you take so little interest in your students). Everyone at the American Emba.s.sy, including the amba.s.sador, she added threateningly, knows that she has been studying at the Cordon Bleu. In a postscript she offered her own well-equipped kitchen if there was no room at the school for her exam.

Results were immediate, her exam completed, and the diploma sent with a date that preceded her letter by thirteen days. Julia thought that the written portion of the exam was far too simple for her training, and she was self-critical about her cooking techniques and failure to memorize several basics for the final meal prepared for Bugnard (though Helen Kirkpatrick, who was a guest, remembered that "Bugnard ate everything at the dinner with gusto"). Both Bugnard and Julia were pleased that the paperwork was complete. In his Christmas letter to her, he expressed admiration for her and asked for her help in answering the expose article in Life International Life International. Not surprisingly, when Julia publicly responded to the article, she charged the school only with "poor administration." And two years later, she would write to a friend, "I hate only a very few people, one being Mme. Bra.s.sart, head of the Cordon Bleu, who is a nasty, mean woman, [Senator] McCarthy, whom I don't know, and Old Guard Republicans, whom I see as little as possible."

While Julia was giving herself up to Cordon Bleu recipes, "that b.a.s.t.a.r.d from Wisconsin!"-as Paul called Red-baiting Senator Joe McCarthy-was making life miserable for several of their friends, as well as for Secretary of State Dean Acheson. They took a keen interest in the "trial-by-McCarthy," France's war in Indochina, and the crippling strikes during the spring of 1950. Julia, whose appliances were gas-generated, had to cook her food on the stoves of the Cordon Bleu and put a block of ice in her refrigerator for a large dinner party she gave during the gas strike. She thrived in adversity, and Paul reported the party's success: he poured Chablis '37 with the oysters, a Corton '32 with the beef, and a Volnay '45 with the Brie.

They always maintained, beyond their cooking and photography, a rich French intellectual life, attending plays (they saw Louis Jouvet in Moliere's Tartuffe Tartuffe that spring), doc.u.mentary films and discussions at their cine club, the Wednesday medieval art history nights at the Baltrusaitises (they found Jurgis egotistical and difficult, but adored Helene), and their Sunday mornings' in-depth exploration of another quarter of Paris (marking each section off on a map of Paris they kept on the wall). One day in May, as she listened to Weber's "Overture to Oberon" on the radio and could smell the soup gently simmering on the stove, she wrote that the "gentle soft night was lovely, Brie cheese is at its peak right now, strawberries are just coming in, and cream is thick and b.u.t.ter yellow." She reveled in these sensuous pleasures. that spring), doc.u.mentary films and discussions at their cine club, the Wednesday medieval art history nights at the Baltrusaitises (they found Jurgis egotistical and difficult, but adored Helene), and their Sunday mornings' in-depth exploration of another quarter of Paris (marking each section off on a map of Paris they kept on the wall). One day in May, as she listened to Weber's "Overture to Oberon" on the radio and could smell the soup gently simmering on the stove, she wrote that the "gentle soft night was lovely, Brie cheese is at its peak right now, strawberries are just coming in, and cream is thick and b.u.t.ter yellow." She reveled in these sensuous pleasures.

An American in Paris with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron was the movie of 1951 and an impetus for travel (the Childs would reluctantly see the movie the following year and enjoy it). The beginning of the spring influx of visitors, including Julia's cousins, both their families, and an a.s.sortment of friends made it impossible for Julia to continue her early morning Cordon Bleu cla.s.ses. The arrival of family and even the most distant of friends made great demands on their time and entertaining capacity. with Gene Kelly and Leslie Caron was the movie of 1951 and an impetus for travel (the Childs would reluctantly see the movie the following year and enjoy it). The beginning of the spring influx of visitors, including Julia's cousins, both their families, and an a.s.sortment of friends made it impossible for Julia to continue her early morning Cordon Bleu cla.s.ses. The arrival of family and even the most distant of friends made great demands on their time and entertaining capacity.

FAMILY MATTERS:.

DIVORCE FROM POP.

Easter brought the McWilliamses, father John and stepmother Phila, otherwise known as Philapop, for a three-week holiday with Julia (and, for a while, Dort) in Italy. Because Julia and Paul forged a secret pledge to make Pop happy (which meant no political discussions) and because he was on their turf, the days in Paris were pleasant, and Paul was pleased. Pop was generous, and they stayed at the Ritz. They all dined at the best restaurants, including Laperouse, Pre Catalan, Tour d'Argent (for the McWilliamses' anniversary), and in the Palais Royal, Le Grand Vefour-the latter, according to Paul, was their "favorite ritzy eating place" costing "a million dollars," but "because Julie is both unusually tall and unusually nice, everyone always remembers her, and we get the royal-carpet treatment."

Julia and Paul had never been apart more than two days since their wedding, and it was difficult for both of them when she left to travel with her father and Phila to Naples and back through Lucerne. Difficult for Julia because her father's back hurt him (they spent only a half an hour in the Uffizi, she noted in her datebook), and she knew after two weeks he wanted to be back in California. He was indeed Old Republican Guard and Scotch Presbyterian, so she did not disagree with him when he contrasted clean Switzerland with dirty France. But she spoke positively: "Pop is an old darling, who has mellowed mightily in every respect but that old Tory hard-core of politics." She wrote Charlie and Freddie her response to the trip: "What surprised and interested me is how far away I am from their life and interests. We have just about nothing in common any more, no reactions, likes, life, anything." Paul, who felt that life without her was "like unsalted food" ("You are the smell to my flower, the b.u.t.ter to my bread, the breath to my life"), was pleased to observe that "Julie finally got her divorce" from her father.

Dorothy returned early from Italy to work at the American Club Theater and keep Puck Hemingway company until the birth of her daughter at the American Hospital (Jack stayed at his job in Berlin). Dort still had her own room in their apartment and preferred the company of outsiders, misfits, and bohemians. Paul was urging her to leave the theater group (she was demoted from her nonpaying job) and the company of Ivan Cousins, whom he did not like. Paul complained twice in letters to Julia about the theater company "fairies," with their speech patterns and walk, who hung around Dort's room.

Ivan was a former Navy man (captain of a PT boat in World War II) from Greenfield, Ma.s.sachusetts, who worked for the Marshall Plan (Office of Small Business) and occasionally acted in the theater company. Because he had studied in New York at the Neighborhood Playhouse with cla.s.smates Gregory Peck and Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., he played the father in Thornton Wilder's Happy Journey Happy Journey. He had come to Paris at the urging of poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a Navy buddy with whom he roomed in Paris for two years. When Ivan's mother arrived for two months, including travel with Ivan, Paul urged Dort to make the break ("he's a dreary, emasculated youth"). Instead she found her own apartment in July and by the end of the year went to Was.h.i.+ngton to be with Ivan.

Ivan was Irish, "witty, fun, and social," says his daughter, "he played the piano by ear and had many talents and had the joie de vivre that Julia does." Julia thought him "jolly and huggable." Louise Vincent, who acted with Ivan, remembered he "had much of an overgrown child in him" and "Dorothy was a protective figure for Ivan." For Dorothy, she added, "Ivan was the traveler, the adventurer, the artist, the troubadour, and far removed from her father." They completed and accepted each other. Clearly Ivan saw in her the McWilliams (or rather Weston) love of life. "One of the reasons I married her is that she makes me laugh so much," he later told a journalist.

The most joyous reunion came in July when Charlie, Freddie, and their three children arrived in St.-Malo, Brittany, where Julia and Paul drove to meet them. By Bastille Day on July 14 the Child clan was cooking a big dinner together in Paris, including the Bicknells, who had come from Cambridge, and some of the Focillon group. Julia served a huge stuffed breast of veal poached in wine with, as she told me, one of the best stocks she would ever make. In helping to clean up, Charlie mistakenly threw out the pan of stock (Julia would remember it forty-five years later). Nevertheless, she whooped it up, taking them to a demonstration at the Cordon Bleu and to the Dehillerin kitchen shop, to picnics and Paris sites. Paris was where Charlie and Freddie had fallen in love after college and where they lived together before marrying and rearing a family.

After two weeks the Chafred family went to Ca.s.sis in Provence near Ma.r.s.eilles, where Julia and Paul joined them at the end of July for three weeks. They stayed in the Ma.r.s.eilles home of Rosie and Abe Manell and visited with Richard E. (Daddy) Myers before returning, on Julia's thirty-eighth birthday, through Geneva. After the family left by boat train for Cherbourg and the Queen Mary Queen Mary, Julia and Paul celebrated a late joint birthda