by Bob Spitz
“Simca simply would not listen”: JC, My Life, p. 297.
“La Super-Française”: “I began to call her La Super-Française because she so typified a dynamic, self-reliant, bullheaded kind of Frenchwoman that I admired.” Ibid., p. 189.
“Deep down Simca has never been convinced”: Avis DeVoto, “Some Scattered Notes on a Visit to Bramafam-Pitchoune,” in Memoir About Julia Child, p. 2. SA.
“going on and on, floods of French”: Ibid., p. 3.
“Do it this way!”: “We have noticed that many French people have a similar approach to discussion …” PC, letter to family, June 8, 1968, SA.
“I can remember—more than once”: Jones interview, May 27, 2011.
Her hips were giving her trouble: In a letter, Julia writes that her lawyer is in the hospital with “something of the hips—sounds a little like your trouble.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, January 20, 1969, SA.
“She feels that Fate is closing in”: PC, letter to family, May 15, 1970, SA.
“One thing we have never taken”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, October 18, 1967, SA.
“pored over the details”: Thibault interview.
“heralded like the second coming”: Nika Hazelton, “Genghis Khan’s Sauerkraut and Other Edibles,” New York Times Book Review, December 6, 1970, p. 96.
“a very swish affair”: “They plan to have some 250 people!” JC, letter to Simca Beck, September 26, 1970, SA.
“Le tout New York”: “I recall a majestic staircase to an upper balcony and about 250 members circulating … ” Beck, Food and Friends, p. 243.
“utterly intoxicating”: “Volume II is ambitious, inventive, slightly permissive, and rigidly authentic.” Gael Greene, “Julia’s Moon Walk with French Bread,” Life, October 23, 1970, p. 8.
Newsweek, aflutter: “It leaves Volume I behind in a shower of spun sugar and makes that honorable world of the trout mousse and cassoulet seem in retrospect as naïve as Spam.” “Queen of Chefs,” Newsweek, November 9, 1970, p. 94.
“and a plethora of unbridled”: Doris Tobias, Women’s Wear Daily, October 13, 1970.
“were neither living nor breathing”: Jane Becker Friedman, interview with author, August 5, 2009.
“a kind of Public Property”: Fitch, Appetite for Life, p. 373.
Twenty-one WE ARE NOT ALL ETERNAL
“no more, alas”; “slowly going downhill”: “The clientele seems to us to be 2nd grade, less chic, less worldly, and the service is just a bit careless.” PC, letter to family, undated, 1974, SA.
“always got the royal treatment”: JC, My Life, p. 57.
“the bastion of culinary conservatism”: André Gayot, “The True Story of Nouvelle Cuisine,”www.guyot.com.
“Up with the new French cuisine”: Henri Gault and Christian Millau, Le Nouveau Guide, May 1972.
“I have heard of truffles”: “The faults of nouvelle cuisine are, of course, many and obvious.” Craig Claiborne, “Nouvelle Cuisine: Here to Stay,” New York Times, December 18, 1983.
Purists like Simca dismissed its: “Don’t talk about nouvelle cuisine! For me, it’s absolutely nothing.” Suzy Davidson, “Simone Beck Interview,” Cook’s, undated, p. 25.
“an indulgent hodgepodge”: Barbara Kafka, interview with author, May 28, 2009.
“destroying the repertoire”: Fitch, Appetite for Life, p. 385.
“the worst thing to have happened”: Claiborne, “Nouvelle Cuisine.”
“When it came to food, her sole”: Jasper White, interview with author, August 30, 2011.
“Is it a hoax”: “I have been wondering about it all.” Julia Child, “La Nouvelle Cuisine: A Skeptic’s View,” New York, July 4, 1977, p. 32.
“I don’t like crunchily underdone”: Ibid., p. 34.
“All this beating of poor old Escoffier”: John Kifner, “The New Food Revolution? Julia Child says ‘Humph,’ ” New York Times, September 5, 1975.
“a marvelous marvelous cook”: “He has few peers anywhere in the world.” JC, interview with author, September 23, 1992.
“great skill in the kitchen”: JC, My Life, p. 322.
“grow stale and jaded”: JC interview.
“It’s just too confining”: JC, letter to Judith Jones, June 2, 1974, SA.
“all is for housewives in the daytime”: Ibid.
“Rumor has it that you are retiring”: Madeleine Kamman, letter to JC, January 22, 1972, SA.
“spreading stories”: PC, letter to family, April 21, 1972, SA.
spread other rumors badmouthing Julia: “She went around badmouthing Julia like crazy”: Sara Moulton, interview with author, January 12, 2009.
“[Kamman’s] former story about me”: JC, letter to Robert H. Johnson, December 15, 1975, SA.
“She is a trouble maker”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, November 7, 1971, SA.
Julia gladly sent her a proprietary list: “Enclosed is our list of cooks in the Boston area.” JC, letter to Madeleine Kamman, September 10, 1970, SA.
“to throw it away or not to buy it”: Sue Bateman, letter to JC, September 24, 1969, SA.
“that woman from Newton”: “Julia hated Madeleine. She always called her ‘that woman from Newton.’ ” Anne Willan, interview with author, September 10, 2009.
la véritable cuisine à la française: Beck, Foreword, Simca’s Cuisine, p. ix.
“a little short story that you have to convey”: Patricia Simon, “The Making of a Masterpiece,” McCall’s, October 1979, p. 122.
“feisty prose”: “You’ll find much of this sort of feisty prose throughout this new book.” Stephen Schmidt, review of From Julia Child’s Kitchen, New Boston Review (Winter 1975–76).
“a quite nutty woman”: JC, From Julia Child’s Kitchen, p. 403.
“it was my most personal book”: JC, My Life, p. 328.
Jim Beard showed up, overweight: “Having Jim Beard as a guest is rather like having an aging elephant for a guest.” PC, letter to family, August 5, 1974, SA.
“entirely honest, entirely serious”: JC, letter to M. F. K. Fisher, November 29, 1974, SA.
“sweet but essentially empty-headed”: Olney, Reflexions, p. 127.
“very bitchy”: Ibid., p. 196.
“nervous, high-strung”: “He’s so self-conscious, nervous, high-strung, unsure of himself, suffering, that alcohol is clearly a necessary medicine.” PC, letter to family, August 12, 1974, SA.
“He is so self-engrossed”: PC, letter to family, May 24, 1973, SA.
“run down almost everything”: “The continuous negation of everything by Richard becomes increasingly tiresome.” PC, letter to family, August 14, 1974, SA.
“All are by a painter”: “The entire house seems to be a complex 19th-century art work.” Edith Efron, “Dinner with Julia Child,” TV Guide, December 5, 1970, p. 48.
“You could tell upon meeting”: “Paul was someone who was angry.” Sheryl Julian, interview with author, October 22, 2009.
“Paul was really the intellectual”: “From my point of view, this was a hard thing for Paul.” Pat Pratt, interview with author, December 2, 2008.
“not normal”: JC, My Life, p. 326.
His left arm hurt constantly: Phila Cousins, interview with author, May 11, 2009.
“struggle awake to fight for air”: “I wake myself in the middle of the night, suffocating.” PC, letter to family, July 2, 1984, SA.
“at once, without delay”: “You are clearly having some sort of heart irregularity.” PC, letter to family, November 1974, SA.
“What changes in life”: “Evidently, if he had not had the bypass operation, he never would have been well.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, October 24, 1974, SA.
“still weak and groggy”: “His will to live and get well are very strong.” JC, letter to M. F. K. Fisher, November 29, 1974, SA.
“He looked diminished”: Jon Child, interview with author, April 8, 2009.
“Words seem to get stuck”: PC, letter to family, July 15, 1977, SA.
; “scrambled brain trouble”: Pratt interview.
“He had no short-term memory”: “He was very wondery mentally.” Willan interview.
“After the surgery, a blood clot”: Cousins interview.
“Okay, we’ve got to get speech therapy”: Jon Child interview.
“We knew the audience was there”: Judith Jones, interview with author, May 27, 2011.
“his mind was still scrambled”: Fitch, Appetite for Life, p. 384.
“There was never any question”: Pratt interview.
“The doctor says he is just fine”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, November 6, 1976, SA.
“I was determined that nothing”: JC, interview with author, September 20, 1992.
“him good to be doing things”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, November 6, 1976.
“He’d even get down and scrub”: “He was so much a partner, a real force in her life.” Judith Jones, interview with author, March 18, 2009.
“This is the summation”: JC, letter to M. F. K. Fisher, December 9, 1976, SA.
“It’s gotten much more expensive”: Clifford A. Ridley, “La Cuisine? La Julia!” National Observer, May 1, 1976, p. 20.
“if you’re not on TV, people forget”: “Julia always felt she needed to be in front of the camera.” Morash interview.
“And anyway, the people”: Donald Cutler, interview with author, October 5, 2011.
“Nobody ever said, ‘We don’t want Julia’ ”: Ibid.
“People who didn’t know Julia”: Marion Morash, interview with author, December 11, 1987.
“out of the French straitjacket”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, August 22, 1977, SA.
they hired Peggy Yntema: “I do the recipes, and she does the narrative, taking things from the TV shows, the rehearsals, and general talk and tape.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, January 10, 1978, SA.
“A new cookbook by Julia!”: Jones interview, May 27, 2011.
“My field of comprehension is murky”: “I will never attain those splendid heights of verbal skill of yester-year.” PC, letter to family, July 15, 1977, SA.
“a little bit of heaven”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, August 7, 1977, SA.
“the almost tropical growth”: PC, letter to family, June 23, 1968, SA.
“abstract swatches of pale-gold ginesta”: PC, letter to family, May 18, 1968, SA.
heaps of lemon verbena and summer mimosa: PC, letter to family, June 22, 1968, SA.
“shattered”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, August 7, 1977.
he was losing his eyesight: Jon Child interview.
“he hated to be alone”: Rachel Child, interview with author, April 7, 2009.
“I can only thank heaven”: “PC is very much depressed over Freddie Child’s death.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, September 6, 1977, SA.
Twenty-two LOOKING FORWARD
“deep depression”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, January 28, 1981.
“a kind of palsy, with cataracts”: “Poor thing has ‘the shakes.’ ” JC, letter to Simca Beck, February 3, 1980, SA.
Aside from her knees: “the cartilage is worn out from standing around too much.” JC, letter to M. F. K. Fisher, September 30, 1980, SA.
“a teenager”: “When she went back to work, it seemed like the years melted off her.” Russ Morash, interview with author, September 3, 2009.
“I am even hoping”: “I am really getting tired of all the cuisine brouhaha, jockeying for place and prestige.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, July 28, 1979, SA.
“It’s where I learn what really goes on”: JC, interview with author, September 19, 1992.
“To Julia it was nothing”: Fitch, Appetite for Life, p. 410.
“We saw Julia cut herself on Tom Snyder”: Dan Aykroyd, interview with author, November 17, 2011.
“Now, first, remove the giblets”: Saturday Night Live transcript, December 9, 1978. Available at snltranscripts.jt.org.
“For years she played that tape”: Stephanie Hersh, interview with author, May 6, 2009.
“meant much research and testing”: JC, Foreword, Julia Child and More Company, p. vii.
“wild woman and party girl”: “Julia liked her wild side, the way she made her laugh and everyone have fun.” Sara Moulton, interview with author, January 12, 2009.
“had no formal training”: “When Julia interviewed me I just lied and said, ‘I’m really, really good.’ ” Ibid.
“We’d all work on it separately”: Marian Morash, interview with author, December 11, 2009.
“This past week we did cassoulet”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, March 1, 1979, SA.
“he gets along, he functions”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, May 6, 1978. SA.
“remarkable in the head”: “But getting along as well as can be expected.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, December 15, 1978, SA.
Physically, he was thinner: JC, letter to Simca Beck, July 28, 1979, SA.
“Up to now, Paul had looked”: “Julia became the lead person in their family.” Anne Willan, interview with author, September 10, 2009.
“It was always a happy person”: “It was always someone like Marian Morash, who is chronically good-natured.” Sheryl Julian, interview with author, October 22, 2009.
“This place is too dark!”: Thekla Sanford, interview with author, September 9, 2009.
“He had brought out something in Julia”: Marian Morash, interview with author, October 12, 2011.
“Often a particular market”: “These stations were like Balkan countries: Serbia might show it in February, Croatia in July, and Macedonia in October.” Russ Morash, interview with author, October 12, 2011.
“We just killed ourselves”: John Wadsworth, “Julia Sums Up,” Dial (Spring, 1981), p. 24.
“I’m not even sure”: Judith Jones, interview with author, May 27, 2011.
“This is THE END, finito”: “No more TV, no more of anything of that sort.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, July 28, 1979.
“What do you think of Julia Child joining”: George Merlis, interview with author, July 5, 2011.
“who would stagger onto the set”: Ibid.
“We were looking for star power”: Joan Lunden, interview with author, July 12, 2011.
“As soon as you’re off television”: Wadsworth, “Julia Sums Up.”
“I don’t think we were prepared”: David Hartman, interview with author, July 5, 2011.
“She thought the activity”: Pratt interview.
All in all, doing the shows: “Far less work than our other TV shows.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, October 29, 1980, SA.
still “dangerously overweight”: Clark, James Beard, p. 309.
“slowing down a little, but functioning”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, January 28, 1981, SA.
“James loved cooking with Julia”: Clark Wolf, interview with author, March 18, 2009.
“with his big old purple legs”: “Had lunch with Jim, who is finding it more difficult to get around.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, July 30, 1983, SA.
“Why spend the remainder of one’s life”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, March 3, 1981, SA.
“Lots of my old school mates”: JC, letter Simca Beck, January 28, 1981.
“spectacularly beautiful”: Ibid.
“jolly places”: “There were five or seven restaurants she liked best.” Eric Spivey, interview with author, September 9, 2009.
“all on one floor”: “It is not the most beautiful apartment, but it is very nice indeed and will be just right for us.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, March 3, 1981.
“that California wines”: James Conaway, Napa, p. 191.
“She and Paul were so negative”: Richard Sanford, interview with author, September 9, 2009.
“I’d grown up on that stuff”: JC, interview with author, September 19, 1992.
“really handsome, literate”: Wolf interview, April 24, 2009.
“wildly talented” . . . “a genius”: Ibid.
“a generous cornucopia of produce”: Brenner, American Appetite, p. 1
34.
“The cuisine generates an excitement”: Patricia Wells, “New Wave California Cuisine: A Marriage of Many and a Mime of None,” International Herald Tribune, January 1981.
Julia thought California cuisine was nothing more: Wolf interview, March 18, 2009.
“There is not as much of a California cuisine”: San Francisco Culinary Academy, “California Cuisine: What Is It and Where Is It Going?,” newsletter, November 17, 1981.
“She was careful not to rail”: White interview.
“never attended cooking school”: R.W. Apple, introduction to McNamee, Alice Waters and Chez Panisse, p. xii.
“Dearie, everybody should go”: “Before I knew it, she basically told me I had a job. She traded me to this guy.” Moulton interview.
“No one was ever more encouraged”: Willan interview.
“free-style American cooking”: From the flap copy of Child, The Way to Cook, which was a compilation of her Parade articles.
“They have, at present, a circulation”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, July 4, 1983, SA.
“fallen off in royalties”: JC, letter to Simca Beck, May 28, 1986, SA.
“It was her deep-rooted liberal disposition”: Jones interview.
The final insult came when Reagan: “Human life legislation ending this tragedy will someday pass the Congress, and you and I must never rest until it does.” Ronald Reagan’s speech on abortion, Orlando, Florida, March 8, 1983.
“To me, it’s always been about”: JC interview.
“In April 1982, she staged”: “Julia Child Will Speak in Memphis,” Kentucky News Era, December 15, 1981.
if you had your way: Polly Frost, “Julia Child,” Interview, August 1989.
“I did want to ask them this”: Abigail Van Buren, “Dear Abby,” Miami News, July 15, 1982.
“Three cheers for Julia Child!”: Abigail Van Buren, “Dear Abby,” Eugene Register-Guard, August 23, 1982.
“Well, why don’t we do it out here”: Fitch, Appetite for Life, p. 419.
“people like Jim Beard”: “They don’t need an association because they are already launched.” JC, letter to Simca Beck, January 28, 1981.
Twenty-three ENOUGH
“You know what would be fun?”: “The format for Dinner at Julia’s was my idea.” Russ Morash, interview with author, October 14, 2011.