Julia, page 24
“Mmm, crêpes sound delicious.” Dort set the bowl down. “And of course they’d need their own pan, or three of them, it seems.”
Julia grinned at the interchange.
“Don’t forget the pewter-liter measures.” He pointed. “We have demi-liters, quart-de-liters, and deciliters and enough knives for an entire gang of pirates, should they choose to storm a nearby ship.”
“Whatever it takes to produce that.” Dort nodded toward the casserole Julia was carrying to the table, fragrant steam rising.
Julia untied her apron and drew it off. “Lunch is served. Bon appétit.”
Paul leaned close and kissed her, then he pulled out her chair. “Looks wonderful.” He scooped the cat off the next chair so he could sit down.
Minette protested and scurried away.
Dort took the first bite of the seafood risotto. “Absolutely delicious,” she said, giving a half moan. “You get better with every meal, I swear.”
“Not every meal,” Julia said, looking over at Paul, who only smiled his encouragement. She’d already told him about the lunch disaster the day before when he’d had other business and she’d invited her friend Winnie Riley. “Yesterday, I made eggs Florentine for Winnie, and let’s just say it didn’t turn out.”
Dort paused before taking another bite. “I’ve had your eggs Florentine before. What happened?”
Paul chuckled, and Julia nudged him under the table with her foot.
“I got ahead of myself,” Julia said with an ironic smile. “Since I’ve made it more than once, I didn’t dig up the recipe to follow the exact measurements. I thought I could eyeball it.”
Another chuckle came from Paul.
“I should have known it would be a disaster when I couldn’t find spinach at the market and substituted it for chicory.”
Both Dort and Paul winced.
“It sounds awful already,” Dort deadpanned.
“I discovered that chicory doesn’t soften like spinach, and it was too wiry and tough.” Julia took a sip from her glass, then said, “I didn’t exactly measure the flour for the sauce Morney, and it became a gluey paste. Awful.”
“So, what did you do? Throw it out and serve something else?”
Paul snickered, and Julia cleared her throat. “No, I didn’t throw it out. I have a little pride, after all, especially while being a student at Le Cordon Bleu.”
Dort stopped eating and stared at Julia.
“We ate the darn meal, and it was awful,” Julia said. “I had to gag down each swallow. Bless Winnie, but she didn’t say a thing. She ate what I served her as if gooey glop were the most delicious lunch in the world.”
Dort scoffed, then began to laugh. Paul joined in.
“It’s funny, I guess,” Julia said with a shrug. “I didn’t even apologize. I was the cook, and I decided to grin and bear it.”
“I’m sure that Winnie will never forget those eggs Florentine,” Dort said, still chuckling.
Julia sighed. “I’ll have to invite her again and hope for better luck.”
“Don’t be disappointed if she turns you down,” Paul said.
Julia grimaced. “Well, I’ll be redeeming myself with a dinner party this weekend. There will be at least eight of us. Do you want to come, Dort? I’m going to attempt to make French bread too.”
“I have rehearsal with my theater troupe, and then I have a date.” She’d most recently started working for the American Club Theater in Paris.
“A date?” both Julia and Paul said at the same time.
“With whom?” Julia asked.
Dort’s cheeks pinked. “Ivan Cousins. You remember him—he’s done theater in New York and some modeling.”
“Yes, I remember him.” Julia was a bit surprised Ivan had caught Dort’s attention. He was a full head shorter than she, and his personality was larger than life. Julia also knew what Paul would say about him without a word even being spoken. Paul thought Ivan drank too much and was more interested in men than women. With Dort staying with them, her theater friends frequented the place a couple of nights a week when they didn’t have rehearsal.
But by the light in Dort’s eyes, Julia could tell her sister was looking beyond all the warning signs. Maybe a first date would change Dort’s mind.
“He’s an overgrown child, Dort,” Paul said. “You can do better.”
Julia had been hoping Paul would keep his opinion to himself, but that rarely happened.
Dort didn’t seem bothered by Paul’s criticism since she was probably used to his opinions.
“He’s not boring,” Dort said with an easy smile, as if she’d expected to defend her choice. “I like that he’s open and vulnerable—maybe that’s childlike, or maybe it’s refreshing. He’s brilliant in front of an audience, and we have a lot of things in common.”
Julia was quite impressed that Paul held his tongue, at least for now.
“Going on a date might give you a chance to know the real him,” Julia said to soothe all parties.
“Oh, we’ve been on several dates, and I do know him.” Dort turned her gaze on Julia, ignoring Paul’s grumpy expression. “He’s really a dear man, JuJu. You just need to give him a chance.”
Julia reached for Paul’s hand and squeezed since she could practically see waves of frustration rolling off his shoulders.
“Well, if you want to invite him to the dinner party,” Julia said, “that would be fine too.”
Dort nodded. “Thank you, but we already have our own plans.” She rose and cleared her place, then started in on cleaning the dishes, which was appreciated but also meant the conversation was over.
Paul stood as well, and the three of them worked in silence until it was time for everyone to go back to their regular day.
Julia’s next weeks were consumed with creating the perfect tried-and-true recipe for mayonnaise when she had a batch not turn out on a cold, wintry day. She’d realized that cooking wasn’t just throwing ingredients together and hoping for the best outcome. There was technology involved—which justified her collecting kitchen gadgets—and there was also science involved—which meant she had to understand the chemistry of how the ingredients interacted when combined.
Why hadn’t the mayonnaise recipe turned out when the weather was colder? She’d made tubs of mayonnaise, beating salad oil into egg yolks until the creamy mixture had thickened. She only had to add some salt and vinegar, and the mayonnaise was perfect. Until it wasn’t. In the winter months, her mayonnaise was too thin and not creamy at all.
So she began to experiment with different measurements and proportions, with making sure the egg yolks were room temperature, with changing up how hard she was beating the mixture. She wanted to truly understand how the ingredients combined and what made the recipe successful. What was the quality of the oil? How many egg yolks were needed to bind to the oil? And how much salt and vinegar was needed to break down the yolks in order to absorb the oil?
“I don’t think I can put mayonnaise on one more thing,” Paul said one evening after their shared dinner. His gaze was locked on the three tubs of mayonnaise she had made that day.
“I think I almost have the recipe perfected,” she said. “I want to create something fool proof—where every person can use the recipe, no matter the weather or temperature or city they live in—and come up with the perfect mayonnaise. Wouldn’t that be something?”
“It would be something,” Paul said. “Maybe you can submit the recipe to one of the ladies’ magazines once you have it down. But count me out as your taste-tester.”
She laughed. “You don’t even know about all the batches I’ve flushed down the toilet.”
Her experimenting continued and with different foods too. For a couple of weeks, she attempted to make French baguettes at home. It turned out a disaster each time. Her oven at the Roo de Loo was nothing like the bakery ovens in the cafés.
But she also learned that her obsession with perfecting recipes was sometimes over the top.
“You don’t need to marinate the veal in so many herbs,” Chef Bugnard told her one day. “Veal is simply veal. Bring out the flavor, don’t mask it.”
Julia looked down at her creation of probably 200 spices.
“Watch me,” Bugnard said, and he proceeded to dress veal by salting and peppering the meat, then wrapping it in a salt pork blanket. “Adding in your sliced carrots and onions in the pan, then a tablespoon of butter on top for the basting becomes all you need to create the burst of flavor.”
When Julia tried the veal after Bugnard’s demonstration, she was sold. French cooking wasn’t just about learning technique and starting with fresh ingredients; it was also about simplifying the process and, more importantly, mirroring Bugnard’s confidence.
“Surely there’s never been a student as hardworking as you,” Paul commented one night after a successful dinner party for which Julia had made sole meunière for everyone. They’d invited their former OSS friend Jane Foster and her husband—who were currently living in Paris. Despite the good company and nostalgic conversation, Julia had felt frustrated because she hadn’t gotten the sauce exactly right and was close to marching into one of their favorite restaurants and demanding the recipe from the cook.
“Probably not,” Julia said as she sat at the table while Paul did the cleanup. He insisted on it most nights, and Julia was more than happy to let him take over. After cleaning the kitchen, he often turned to painting or reading. “In class, we’ve made quiche Lorraine sixteen times, and veal blanquette twelve times, and that doesn’t count the many times I’ve made it here. The program is ten months, but I’ll be done much sooner at this rate.”
Paul crossed to her, wiping his wet hands on a towel. He bent and kissed the top of her head. “What does Chef Bugnard say?”
“That I am doing fabulous,” she said. “I still have to get approval from Madame Bussart to take my final exams. Once I pass, I’ll get my graduation certificate.”
Paul sat across from her and took one of her hands. “You’re truly remarkable.”
Julia thought her husband was particularly handsome tonight. Folded towel over his shoulder, his smile soft, his constant support and encouragement, his patience with her commandeering half of their apartment for her cooking experiments. His mild-mannered grumbling of their stacks and stacks of cooking gadgets. The way he artfully debated politics with their dinner guests, carefully dissecting the Marshall Plan, British socialism, and the state of the global economy. His brotherly friendship with Dort, despite her on-again, off-again relationship with Ivan Cousins.
“I don’t know how wonderful I’ll be when I graduate, because I plan to write up my complaints about Le Cordon Bleu,” she said.
“Like what?” he asked, although he’d heard them all along.
“For the most prestigious cooking school in France, it’s remarkable how Madame Brassart has run it into the ground. Starting with the knives—none of them are sharp. I have to bring my own knives, or I can’t even cut a tomato. She’s started to check everyone who is taking the extra food home with them. And she tried to tell us we can’t cook with butter anymore—only margarine.”
The food rationing had been lifted, but some items were still in short supply.
“It’s why some of your dishes turn out differently at home,” Paul mused.
“Exactly.” Julia released a sigh. “I can’t create an exact recipe if I can’t rely on the ingredients. I have to create more than one recipe for the same dish. The equipment is either hopelessly outdated or works on its own fickle schedule. Only a few of the electric ovens even operate.”
“And the GIs?” Paul said. “They’re not complaining?”
“Sometimes I think they’re just there to horse around,” Julia said. “They aren’t really progressing and refuse to even clean a chicken in the French way. None of them can even prepare béchamel sauce. They aren’t serious about the class.”
“Like I said, you’re remarkable, and not everyone—in fact, few people—take cooking as seriously as you do.”
“I love it,” Julia said. “I think I’ve found my passion.”
Paul chuckled.
“What are you laughing about?”
He waved a hand about the room that was indeed cluttered with every pot and pan and cooking implement imaginable. “I think you just made the biggest understatement of the year.”
Julia shrugged. “Now the question is, What will I do after I graduate from the famous Le Cordon Bleu?”
Chapter 24
Paris, France
March 1950–April 1951
“The sight of Julie in front of her stove full of boiling, frying and simmering foods has the same fascination for me as watching a kettle-drummer at the Symphony. (If I don’t sit and watch I never see Julie.) . . . Imagine this in your mind’s eye: Julie, with a blue denim apron on, a dish towel stuck under her belt, a spoon in each hand, stirring two 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 leitmotif. The oven door opens and shuts so fast you hardly notice the deft thrust of a spoon as she dips into a casserole 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.”
—Letter from Paul Child to his brother, Charlie
Julia decided that rising each morning at six thirty and walking in the rain only to attend a class full of GIs who didn’t take anything seriously, nor did they care about progressing, was beyond her patience.
Chef Bugnard stopped her one day after class. “I see you’re frustrated, madame. What can I do to help?”
Bugnard was a dear to even be concerned.
“I’m thinking of quitting,” Julia said truthfully. “I want to keep learning, and you’re an excellent instructor, but there are too many interruptions by the other students acting ridiculous.”
Bugnard didn’t deny it. “You’re my best student. Why don’t you take a leave of absence instead? You can still attend the afternoon demonstrations, and I could also do some private lessons at your own home if you wish.”
Julia hadn’t thought of that, but she was definitely interested. “Do you think I could still prepare for the final exam if I’m not in morning classes?”
“Of course,” Bugnard said with confidence. “I don’t know anyone who works harder than you.”
Julia hurried home with a lighter step to report to Paul. She could devote herself in preparing for the final exam and curtail her involvement in embassy socials, which had lately become tiresome and boring. She found she had less and less in common with the embassy wives, who cared only about primping and preening and shopping all day. Oh, and she and Paul and Dort also had to prepare for her father and Phila’s visit in March.
Julia had been quite blasé in her letters to her father after Phila told her that any mention of politics riled him up. His opinions hadn’t mellowed with age. No, he still argued with anyone who had views different from his own, and he couldn’t understand why any American would choose to live in Paris since he couldn’t understand the language, not to mention that he detested the art and culture.
“We have a plan for Pop,” Dort said that evening over the dinner table.
Julia looked from Dort to Paul. “Oh, what is it?”
“We need to keep Pop and Phila busy, that’s what,” Dort continued. “I don’t want him to have too much free time, or he’ll fixate on how I’ve traded my soul to the theater or how you’ve married an intellect who must be sympathetic to the Communist mind-set since all intellects are Communists.”
Julia nearly spat out her drink. She wanted to defend Pop, but Dort was absolutely right. Once he started a tirade, it was impossible to stop him.
“What are we doing, then, for the month that he’s here?” Julia asked.
“Paul is putting together the Paris itinerary for the first week,” Dort said. “Then the four of us will travel through the south of France and end up in Italy. It will be a grand tour of sorts.”
Julia looked at Paul. “The four of us?”
“I can’t take extra weeks off from the office,” he said, “especially if you’re traveling for three of them.” He paused, a flash of guilt crossing his face. “I think it will be better for everyone if your father sees as little of me as possible.”
“Or the other way around?” Julia prompted.
“Correct.” He reached for her hand. “You know I love your family . . .”
He didn’t need to finish. Julia squeezed his hand. “The week in Paris will be very much appreciated. We’ll show Pop the beautiful city and people we’ve grown to love. We’ll change his mind, you’ll see.”
“That would be a miracle,” Dort said. “But you have a better attitude than me, JuJu.”
“Whatever happens, we’ll make some good memories,” Julia insisted.
And they kept that mind-set until the day Pop arrived. Everyone was on edge when he and Phila stepped off the plane, but apparently, Pop had decided to be on his best behavior. Whether it was for the duration of the trip or his heart had really softened, Julia wasn’t sure.
He refused to try speaking French, with the exception of his badly pronounced “Bahn Joor,” which most people found charming. At every museum or restaurant stop, Pop would simply speak in English, expecting everyone they encountered to understand and converse with him. It was rather amusing.
At age seventy, he had lost the status of being able to intimidate others, and frankly, Julia enjoyed being around her father more than she ever had in her life. Dort felt the same way too.
