Backstage with Julia

by Nancy Verde Barr

  "It would be fun," I said to Julia. "But I don't think we can do it."

  "Why not?" she retorted.

  "Well, I don't know. Seems like a lot of juggling; we'd have to change our tickets again and we'd have to pack for the weather in both places." In spite of the thousands of miles we'd traveled together, her art of fitting everything into one small suitcase had never rubbed off on me, and I imagined the several suitcases I would be forced to schlep in order to accommodate both climates.

  Oxford attendees just like to have fun. Raymond Sokolov, editor of the Wall Street Journal's Leisure and Arts page, and Jeffrey Steingarten shocking me!

  "My travel agent can take care of the tickets, and I always pack the same clothes," she said. That usually meant a couple of pairs of slacks, one dark skirt, several colorful blouses, one pair of black pumps, and her New Balance sneakers. It all fit into one manageable suitcase. "I think we should do it," she said. "Why not?" I had no good reason why not, especially since my sons were by then in boarding school and I didn't have to be home for them or a manuscript.

  "No reason—let's do it," I said.

  "Good. I'll take care of the plane reservations."

  "Okay. I'll find a place in London for us to stay." I already had in mind to ask Dagmar and Walter Sullivan if we could stay in their London flat. They were in California, and I knew they wouldn't be using it. When I told Julia the Sullivans said it was fine for us to stay at the flat, she decided to fill our already full schedule with more activities—and, as it turned out, some classic Julia fun.

  Partying at Paul Levy's after the Oxford Symposium.

  That trip to the Oxford Symposium was our second or third, and in previous years British friends had generously entertained us at parties in their homes and treated us to meals at restaurants and private eating clubs. Julia decided that since we were going to be in a private flat, we should host a thank-you party.

  A friend of mine from Rhode Island, Hope Hudner, had plans to stay with us in London, and the three of us organized a lovely, rather sophisticated cocktail party and sent invitations to a host of English friends and foodies. Following the party, a group of us went to dinner, and when Julia, Hope, and I returned to the flat, we changed into our nightclothes and regrouped in the living room for girl talk. Ever-courteous person that she is, Hope began to plan what kind of thank-you would be fitting for the Sullivans. Julia thought we should take photos of us in the flat and attach them to notes. Hope had a Polaroid camera with her that could be set to take automatic pictures, and we began to say "souf-flé" for the camera. Then Julia McWilliams took over and convinced us that simple photos were a bore. The Sullivans' flat held numerous pieces of valuable, irreplaceable porcelain that had been in the family since who knows when. Julia decided that we should take pictures that looked as though we were smashing all that china and send them to the Sullivans. Ever so gingerly, we held the porcelain in precarious poses and took our photos. I can't even begin to imagine what Dagmar must have thought when she opened our thank-you notes.

  Julia and Hope Hudner getting ready to greet our guests at a very respectable cocktail party.

  The next day, Julia went to the hospital to visit her good friend Elizabeth David, the British cookbook author, who was very ill. I asked Julia if she wanted me to go with her, but she said it was probably best if she went alone. When she returned, I asked with appropriate gravity, "How did it go?"

  "We had a good time," Julia said. Turns out that when Elizabeth saw Julia, she told her to bring her some decent food or she would expire on the spot. Julia went shopping and returned to Elizabeth's room with pâté de foie gras, caviar, and champagne or vodka—I don't recall which. I only remember Julia saying that they spread the contraband on the bed and had a picnic that was hardly medically sanctioned.

  "Weren't you afraid you'd get caught?" I asked her.

  "No," she said. I was traveling with an octogenarian delinquent!

  Smashing the Sullivan's porcelain in our bathrobes. Not really.

  Julia and students from Regaleali enjoying a boat trip around the small islands of Sicily.

  Julia was unstoppable in her determination to binge on life. After receptions, parties, and "sick visits" in London, and lectures and more parties in Oxford, we arrived in Sicily for more parties, trips around the island in an old wooden boat, and lessons in Italian sign language.

  For Julia, binging on life required a healthy appetite of curiosity, and she was, as she said she had been as a kid, always hungry. What made her curiosity so richly rewarding was that she noticed what went on around her, which gave her an extraordinary number of things to examine. People, things, and activities that might pass unnoticed to others caught her attention. On a trip to Napa Valley, John, Julia, my latest boyfriend and I stood in the parking lot after a tour of the Napa Valley Wine Train wondering where to go next. A truck pulled up near us, the driver went inside one of the buildings, and Julia noticed that the vehicle was shaking slightly. She asked me what I thought might be causing it. I had no idea. In truth, I had paid no attention at all to the truck. Julia was curious, so she walked up to the back and peeked in. To her delight, she found a cargo of lambs. When the driver returned, she engaged him in conversation and not only learned about the methods of raising of lambs in California but also found, upon her return to Cambridge, a neatly trimmed leg of lamb waiting in the freezer for her. Julia didn't stop there. She was curious about the effects of agriculture and climate on the flavor and texture of lamb, and before long, we were oven-deep in an exhaustive tasting of lamb from different parts of the country. And all because she noticed a truck shaking!

  Fred Plotkin in Palermo, Sicily, teaching Julia the Italian sign language for squisito, "delicious."

  Julia discovering the lamb cargo.

  As always, her curiosity extended far beyond the culinary. In 1993, Susy Davidson arranged for us all, including Julia's niece Phila and her family, to spend the week following the Aspen Classic at a ranch tucked away in the middle of nowhere in southern Colorado. The ranch offered lessons in fly-fishing, which appealed to Julia since she was a passionate aficionado, and horseback riding in the high aspens, which Susy, Phila, and I planned to do. Brochures showed western-style bunkhouses lined up outside a main dining room watched over by several stuffed animal heads, and we all agreed that it was the perfect spot to relax and pursue pleasures not necessarily food-related. John was at that time having respiratory problems, and there was some discussion as to whether the trip would be safe for him. Trouper that he was, he asked the doctor for an oxygen tank and joined us.

  Julia in her fly-fishing outfit, me ready to ride horseback, the owners of the ranch, and John.

  It was a long, eight-hour-plus drive from Aspen to the ranch, and we decided to make a stop in Denver at the Tattered Cover Bookstore and buy a book on tape for the trip. We wanted something suspenseful and mysterious, and Julia and I stood looking at the possibilities. I spotted Anne Rice's name on a box of tapes entitled Exit to Eden and I picked it up.

  Our happy, rested group at the Colorado ranch.

  "I just read her Interview with the Vampire and I really couldn't put it down."

  "I've wanted to read her vampire story, but since you already have, let's get this," she said, taking the box to the register without examining it.

  We climbed back in the car with me in the driver's seat, Julia riding shotgun, and John and Susy in back, with Susy diagonally behind me so I could see her gestured directions to turn left or right. We didn't want unnecessary talking to interrupt the storytelling.

  I must have been concentrating especially hard on negotiating the streets out of Denver because I don't remember hearing the beginning of the tape. My first clue that it was not about anything as pedestrian as vampires was when I looked in the mirror at Susy for instructions on which way to turn. Her eyebrows were arched high in her forehead and she darted her startled eyes from me to the tape. I tuned in just in time to hear something about blac
k leather and chains.

  "What's this?" I asked, fumbling for and then ejecting the tape. "There must be a mistake. Do the tapes all say Anne Rice?"

  It turns out that Rice writes explicitly erotic and wickedly pornographic stories that in book form appear under a pseudonym. On tape, they carry her name. At the time, we only knew we had something that seemed highly inappropriate to everyone but Julia.

  "Well, let's listen to it anyway," she said, pushing the tape back into play position. Susy looked aghast, and I'm sure I heard John pulling extra hard on his oxygen tank. Meanwhile on the CD, two characters named Lisa and Elliot were pushing the envelope on the limits of pleasure at the Club, an exclusive, hidden resort devoted to the fulfillment of forbidden fantasies.

  "What's he doing to her?" Julia asked. Was that John gasping? Susy was giggling.

  "Look, Julia, we—we can listen to it, but I'm not explaining it to you." It wasn't so much that I was embarrassed; I wasn't exactly sure what kind of forbidden fantasies Lisa and Elliot were engaged in, and I wasn't sure John ever wanted to know. But Julia wanted to figure it out, so Susy and I did our best to offer commentary. John rolled down his window.

  Julia's desire to go at the pace she did when she was eighty was inspirational. She could do it, because overall she was blessed with remarkably good health and a stalwart constitution. "Sleep well?" I'd ask her mornings when we were together. "Always do," she'd say with a complacent lilt in her voice. And she always did, just as she always ate well, without a tinge of indigestion. Surgery, medicine, and sitting more all helped with her knee problems, and the rare times when something else did lay her low, her seeming supernatural recuperative powers put her back on her feet in no time. Her physical and mental resilience was remarkable.

  "I think you must have some special chromosome makeup," I once suggested to her.

  "Red meat and gin," she said, but I think it was DNA and mind-set. Whether it was the common cold or hip surgery, she was usually out the door for lunch long before the florist could rush the inevitable vanful of get-well bouquets to her bedside.

  I used to love to look through Paul Child's photos, which occupied several storage areas of their house. Paul was a fine photographer and a gifted artist. His paintings, photographs, and several pieces of intricately carved wood furniture filled the house. Julia was justly proud of his work and was always pleased to show it to me. We were looking through photographs and I saw some from their wedding. I commented on how pretty she looked wearing a short-sleeved, two-piece, dotted dress that accented her slim figure and long legs. Yet I couldn't help but notice the large bandage on her head.

  "Pimple?" I snickered.

  "Head injury," she responded.

  "Excuse me?"

  "Paul and I were in an accident the day before our wedding. I hit the windshield, was thrown out of the car and knocked unconscious, and my shoes came off. We both had several lacerations, and Paul liked to joke that we were married in stitches."

  I got my mouth to close just enough to ask, "And you got married anyway?"

  "Why not?"

  I didn't know why not other than that a person with a normal chromosome makeup would probably need more than a day to recover from an accident that knocked her out and required suturing.

  Julia and me touring in Taormina, Sicily, after her quick recovery from her fall.

  More than once Julia's cavalier attitude about her health caused me alarm. On our Sicilian trip, we checked into a hotel in Taormina, went to our separate rooms, and agreed to "knock each other up" for dinner in an hour or so. At the appointed time, I knocked on her door, she opened it, and I was alarmed to see an egg-sized lump on her forehead.

  "Lord, Julia! What happened?"

  She gingerly touched the lump and said, "Oh, this. I tripped and fell down those foolish stairs." Her room had a small foyer and then two steps that led down into the bedroom. "The fall knocked me out, for I don't know how long. Then I took a short nap."

  I was frantic thinking of what might have been the outcome of her going to sleep after a fall that left such an obvious injury. "Why didn't you call me right away when you woke up from the fall?"

  "Well, I woke up, so I figured I was okay."

  It was only at my adamant insistence that she agreed to see the local doctor, who confirmed that she was indeed okay, and I wondered what it would take for her to holler for help. I found out in 1994 during a trip to The Greenbrier.

  The annual Symposium for Professional Food Writers at The Greenbrier in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, is something Julia and I loved to attend. It was always a small, congenial group of food writers watched over with efficient, attentive concern by its director, Antonia Allegra, and held in a resort teeming with the grace of past decades. One year I was scheduled to be a speaker at nine o'clock in the morning, and although public speaking does not make me nervous, going over what I am planning to say often keeps me tossing and turning all night. Hoping to avoid that, I took a sleeping pill and fell into a deep sleep. When the phone next to my bed startled me awake, I thought for a moment it was my wake-up call, but it was still dark outside and the clock said one. I anxiously grabbed for the receiver, certain that something had happened at home. It was Julia.

  "I think I need your help, dearie. Can you come to my room?"

  I threw on my bathrobe and let myself into her suite. She was sitting on the bed holding a towel to her mouth. There were two bloodied hand towels on the floor by her feet.

  "My God. What happened?" I asked, walking over to stand in front of her.

  She lifted the towel away from her face, and I could immediately see the source of all the blood. Her lip was split.

  "I got up to go to the bathroom and tripped over that bench at the end of the bed. I fell into the dresser. So stupid."

  I turned to look at the dresser and grimaced at the sight of all that brass hardware that had done battle with the full force of Julia's face as she went crashing down. My own face ached just to think of it. I sat down on the bed next to her and took a closer look at the damage. "I think I'd better call for a doctor," I said.

  "I think you're right."

  Fortunately, besides being a luxurious resort, The Greenbrier has a medically staffed clinic. A very young doctor took us immediately into an examining room and had Julia lie down on an examining table.

  "You'll need stitches," he told her after assessing the damage.

  "Fine," said Julia.

  As he began to numb her lip with a needle that seemed the size of a crochet hook, Julia took hold of my hand. I was awfully glad she did, because I wasn't very good at watching needles going into someone else's body parts. Besides, the sleeping pill was still doing its thing, and I was fighting an overwhelming inclination to simply slide under the table and close my eyes. Her hand steadied me.

  While we waited for the local anesthetic to take effect, I tried to comfort her, although she hardly seemed to need it as much as I did. I was in serious danger of passing out. I gripped the table with my free hand and told myself to focus on Julia—she must need something. The working side of her mouth was moving, and she was saying something to the doctor. Was she delirious? She was discussing meat.

  "I don't think the meat is very good here," she mumbled. "Tonight they served us a slab of . . ."

  Oh, God, I thought, please don't talk about the meat. I already felt queasy. Now not only was I going to slide under the table, but my stomach was going to rebel against that night's dinner.

  The doctor looked perplexed; he had no answer for the meat dilemma. Julia continued to give her assessment of the problem, and I gripped her hand and the table harder. She squeezed back to let me know she was okay—or more likely because she saw the state I was in and wanted to save my life.

  With a bit of prodding, Julia agreed to take a wheelchair back to the room, although God knows I needed it much more than she did. She accepted the painkillers the doctor gave her, and I tucked her into bed just seconds before I co
llapsed on her sofa. I bolted awake early the next morning and immediately checked on her; she was sleeping soundly. I nudged her gently to make sure she was . . . well, you know. I asked a mutual friend to stay with her while I gave my talk, and when I returned, she was still asleep. I began to worry. I nudged her again, and she responded but remained in deep sleep. She woke just after noon and said she felt tired but okay.

  "Are you hungry? I asked.

  "A little."

  "Do you think you could eat some soup or soft-boiled eggs?"

  "Ice cream. Vanilla."

  I got the ice cream, but she ate only a few mouthfuls before going back to sleep. I really began to worry and called the doctor. He came down and checked all her vital signs and said she was fine, just understandably worn out and sleepy from the medication. After a few more mouthfuls of ice cream at dinnertime, she went back to sleep and I went back to the couch. I checked on her repeatedly during the night and wondered if I should try to get her back to Cambridge. But how? Ambulance? Stretched out on the backseat of a car? Private plane?

  At five the next morning she was sitting up in bed. "I look a fright. I think I won't go to the lectures today."

  "I'd hardly think so!"

  "I think it would be nice, though, to ask Anne and Mark up for cocktails tonight," she said, referring to good friends Anne Willan and her husband, Mark Cherniavsky, who own the French culinary school La Varenne, which has a branch at The Greenbrier. "Let's see if the kitchen will send up some food and drinks." So although she opted not to attend any of the symposium programs because she "looked a fright," she partied in her room that night and the next, exhibiting not a smidgeon of infirm behavior.

  Two days later, we decided it would be best to return to Cambridge. Her assistant, Stephanie, rightly convinced her that she should see her own doctor and perhaps a plastic surgeon, since the stitches were in such a conspicuous place. The Greenbrier provided a car to drive us to the airport in Washington, D.C. Since Julia was sensitive about being in public with a lip that was still quite swollen and discolored, she wrapped a long lavender chiffon scarf around the lower part of her face. At the airport, a woman approached her and began the usual litany of adorations, ending with the proffered piece of paper and request for an autograph. When she left, Julia turned to me with a look of surprise registering on the visible part of her face. I thought she was aghast that anyone would bother an obviously injured person, so her comment took me aback. "How do you think she recognized me?" she mumbled through the chiffon.