Backstage with Julia

by Nancy Verde Barr

  Where's Dr. Schwartz?

  In ——— Dr. Schwartz created a stir regarding MSG. Where is he and what's he doing today? What's happened to his studies? Have they been challenged in journals?

  The Food Police in a Republican Congress

  Will their hands-off government policies affect the "food police"? Will people start to take an attitude of being personally responsible for what they eat?

  Politically Correct Food

  Has the Clinton administration given us a new line of politically correct food? George H. W. Bush had his no-broccoli dinners and Ronald Reagan his jelly beans. Will Bill Clinton give us junk food or will we be more influenced by Hillary Clinton's light-food bent?

  Food as Medicine

  Have we come to the point of an "eat saffron pasta and call me in the morning" approach to food? Is it better to chew garlic pills than to include a healthy dose of garlic in your diet?

  Bypassing Breakfast

  In a recent survey, 55 percent of those polled said that they can't find time for breakfast even though 84 percent said that they think it is the most important meal of the day. Twenty-eight percent said it takes too long to prepare, but does it? Eggs are quick, but perhaps they are afraid of them. Breads and cereals are fortified and quick. Julia is busy; does she ever skip breakfast? Never.

  Will Trendiness Kill the Mashed Potato?

  It probably went out of vogue the first time because it was too ho-hum. Now it may disappear because it has become a fad food. In Chicago's Mashed Potato Club, spuds are the centerpiece, with offerings of forty-two garnishes to spice them up. Chocolate mashed potatoes, peanut butter mashed potatoes—what are we thinking of? Some things blend well with a spud, but others are ridiculous. The trendiness will probably kill the reemergence of this delicious vegetable.

  For those shows, however, I was brilliant at reminding Julia not to slouch. Julia and I have the same bad habit of slouching when we sit, and for years we reminded each other often, "Sit up!" (We also shared a cowlick in the exact same spot on the back of our heads, so we alternated posture and hair alerts.) For the shows, Julia and the hosts sat in high-backed, narrow wing chairs that seemed to make Julia want to slump more than usual. So we worked out a system whereby she would always look at me just before the cameras rolled, and if I was making exaggerated circling motions with my shoulders, it meant she looked slouched.

  When the producers of Cooking with Master Chefs asked Julia to do another series in 1994, she agreed primarily because they wisely decided to bring the chefs to Julia rather than have her traipse around the country to them. Once again, Julia and I were responsible for writing the book. The crew converted her kitchen into a set and her dining room into a control room, and Julia and I added an office area to "my bedroom" upstairs and one to the basement, aka, food prep area. Appropriately called In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs, the series, like the one before it, combined what Julia loved best: being on television and working with other chefs.

  Not having to travel for the show was a plus, but because Julia not only had to write the book but also perform on camera, the workload was just as demanding for her. Passion and energy in hand, she rose to the occasion. During the week I lived at Julia's house, and although I was well used to her stamina, I still marveled at it. She thought nothing of getting up at five in the morning, doing twenty minutes of exercise on the stationary bike that stood in her bedroom, and arriving fully dressed ready to cook breakfast at six. We then put in a full day's work, and it was usually nine or later at night before she declared it was time to stop. I have to admit there were times when my thoughts would drift longingly to delivery pizza, but Julia would insist on preparing a "proper" meal, which meant meat, chicken, or fish plus vegetables. It would be eleven o'clock before we finished eating and cleaning up. And up again at five the next morning.

  Julia's Italian-Style Swordfish

  Serves 2

  One of my favorite after-work meals was Julia's baked swordfish, which she called Italian-style. She always kept a jar of Italian seasoning in her cupboard, and although both of us championed the use of fresh herbs, the jar held mostly oregano and fennel, which in their dried state are decidedly Italian American flavors and far from objectionable.

  Two 6-ounce swordfish steaks, each ¾ inch thick

  Salt and pepper

  About 1⁄4 cup extra-virgin olive oil

  A few tablespoons dried Italian seasoning

  1. Preheat the oven to 400°F.

  2. Season the fish on both sides with salt and pepper. Choose an ovenproof baking dish just large enough to hold both pieces of fish comfortably without their sides touching. Pour enough olive oil into the dish to coat the bottom completely and sprinkle the seasoning over the bottom.

  3. Lay the fish in the dish and brush the tops with more olive oil. Bake for 4 minutes, then turn the fish over and continue to bake until done, 4 to 6 minutes.

  We wrote the book in tandem as we had the first one, and as with the first one, the highlight of my day was reading her notes. I marveled at her carefree, unselfconscious style of writing. When the recipes were completed, Julia would ask me to take the first stab at the headnotes to the recipes, and I would stress and struggle to try to sound like her. She'd always tell me what I wrote was "very good," then she'd change it. My "large roasting chicken" became her "ample chicken of a certain age." I wrote "classic apple pie" and she amended it to "everybody's favorite American-national-hero pie." All too rarely, I wrote something that must have sounded like her voice because she'd guffaw and leave it just as it was.

  Nancy's Butter Marinara Sauce

  Serves 2

  Regardless of the country's mania for pasta, which Julia pronounced with a short a like in past, she wasn't wild about it and was quick to tell people so. But she'd always add, perhaps truthfully, maybe diplomatically, "I like the way Nancy fixes it." My secret was butter. My family's traditional Neapolitan quick tomato sauce begins with olive oil, but when I was making it for Julia, I substituted butter because I knew it would be more appealing to her.

  4 tablespoons unsalted butter

  1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

  1 small onion, minced

  Salt

  One 28-ounce can Italian peeled plum tomatoes, lightly drained

  1⁄4 cup fresh basil, torn into small pieces

  1⁄2 pound pasta, freshly cooked

  1. Melt the butter and oil in a heavy medium saucepan over medium-low heat, being careful not to let the butter color. Stir in the onion, season with salt, and cook gently until it has softened. Be very careful not to let the onion brown or it will become bitter.

  2. Pour the tomatoes into a bowl and break them into small pieces with your hands, then add them to the pan when the onions are softened. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and add the basil and a bit more salt. Simmer for 15 minutes. Serve over 1⁄2 pound of cooked pasta.

  I loved reading Julia's notes on chefs' recipes

  Charlie Trotter's List of Recipes

  This is a list of proposed recipes from chef Charlie Trotter to make on the show. Julia's initial notes to me appear in italics.

  Seared Diver Scallops with Mushrooms, Bacon, Curried Carrot Broth. Sauté mushrooms in rendered bacon fat. Sauté scallops in butter. Serve them over the mushrooms and surround with broth.

  Curried Carrot Broth: Sweat onions, garlic then apple, add curry, paprika, etc. & cook, then purée and sieve and mix with 1 lb. butter. Add several tablespoons to 1 cup reduced carrot juice.

  Sounds ok but not world shaking.

  Quinoa with olive oil, poached tomatoes, etc.

  Do we need another of these 3rd world grains?? The tomatoes are interesting.

  Belgian Endive with Japanese Pear, Greens, Hazelnuts, Chèvre. A salad type of dish, julienned endive tied in upright bundles and surrounded with chèvre cream, hazelnuts, pear pieces, julienned apricots.

  A rather fiercely nouvelle type of thing. Probably eats good.

&nbs
p; Smoked Salmon with Potato, Avocado, Papaya, Herb Sauce. Recipes included for herb oil, parsley juice, pulped avocado, pickled papaya, potato tuiles. A kind of napoleon of smoked salmon squares in 3 layers.

  The potato is like Gross's mashed potato wafers—he could think of something else. Sounds nice, if he would think of some alternative to the potato.

  Almond Torte, Nectarines, Lavender Ice Cream. An almond cake baked in 2-inch ramekins surrounded on one side by slices of poached nectarines and on the other by the lavender ice cream.

  Sounds nice, with recipes for each thing. (Would the torte be nicer if imbibed with nectarine syrup??)

  Poached Beef Tenderloin with Lobster Potatoes, Mushroom–Foie Gras Sauce. Tenderloin slices fanned around one side of a plate, and mashed potatoes mixed with lobster meat, bacon, parsley on the other side. The sauce around all.

  A rather typical young chef's reach for glory???

  When the galleys for the book arrived, Julia was horrified to see that instead of being neatly secured with rubber bands and sent snug in a box, the loose pages had been shipped in an oversized mailer that allowed them to shift around so they were difficult to manage. She went to her office to deal with them and I worked in my bedroom office down the hallway within earshot. I heard her guffaw, so I trotted down to see what was amusing her.

  "I've written a scathing letter to the head of Knopf complaining about the manner in which the galleys were sent."

  "Good for you," I said. "What did you say?"

  "Here, read it," she said handing me the letter.

  After explaining the deplorable condition of the papers and her unhappiness with it, she asked the chief mucky-muck of the prestigious publishing house, "What kind of sleazeballs do you have working for you anyway?"

  "Julia, I'm not sure you want to say 'sleazeballs' to the head of Knopf."

  "Why not?" she said with that evil twinkle in her eye. Some years later, I asked Judith Jones if she'd ever seen that letter, and she didn't remember it. So I'm not sure if Julia changed her words or if the Knopf mucky-muck enjoyed reading it as much as Julia enjoyed writing and called the "sleazeballs" on the carpet.

  It was during our taping of In Julia's Kitchen with Master Chefs that Julia and I had the first and only fight we ever had. I think it surprised us both.

  Johanne Killeen, chef-owner of Al Forno restaurant and cookbook author, prepares for her segment in Julia's kitchen turned TV set. Me checking out the details of her recipe.

  Each episode of the series showed Julia cooking in her kitchen with the featured chef, who demonstrated a few signature restaurant dishes. After taping, Julia and I reworked the recipes until we found them doable for home cooks and then passed them on to Kathleen Anino, a professional recipe tester who did the major amount of testing. Chef Jacques Torres appeared on the show and demonstrated his recipe for chocolate soup, just one of the many innovative desserts he created for New York's Le Cirque. He lined a soup tureen with rum-flavored caramelized bananas, poured on a semisweet chocolate sauce, covered it with meringue, and baked it in a water bath. The "soup" was served warm, and its deliciousness still haunts me.

  Julia wanted to write the recipe for individual ramekins rather than one large tureen, and we were having trouble. Reducing dessert recipes is particularly difficult because baking involves a lot of chemistry and the balance of ingredients has to be just right. Perhaps, with that particular dessert, the changed ratio of moisture from the bananas to starch in the chocolate was disturbing the balance in the smaller dishes. Who knows? We couldn't get the recipe to work just right. Kathleen was away for a few days, but before she left she made several suggestions to me, and I was alone in the kitchen testing the recipe once again. I don't love to bake. I'm happiest as a top-of-the-stove cook, simmering and braising my way through sauces, soups, and stews, so I wasn't particularly enjoying the testing and I just wanted it finished. Julia walked into the kitchen.

  "I think we should wait until Kathleen gets back and she can test it again," she said.

  "Well, she left some good notes, and I think I can work from those. I definitely think less chocolate is the answer."

  "No, let's wait."

  I could tell that she was digging in her heels, but I was close to working out the problem. I just didn't want to leave it in limbo. "But everything is measured and ready to go."

  "Doesn't matter. We should wait."

  I recognized the firm stance and definitive tone. What was her problem? Why couldn't I just finish what I was doing and be done with it? "Okay. I'll just put this one in the oven. If it doesn't work, I'll leave it for Kathleen."

  She raised her voice and her finger. "No. Stop now. We'll wait for Kathleen."

  Never had she made me so angry, and I stormed out of the kitchen and upstairs to "my room," where I paced in a circle, muttering misery. "She's acting like . . . like . . . like her aunt Theodora." It was the worst I could think of. Julia used to tell us about her monster aunt Theodora and once described her in a letter to me: "She looked nice as pie, a really impressive upper-class duchess type, and acted sweet as pie until she was crossed. And then, the little digs, the pricks, the scratches, and how she would tear people apart down to the bone—but so delicately done."

  Within ten minutes, an agonizing feeling of regret swept away my anger. I knew I had to apologize for storming off the way I had. I didn't know what I would face, but I dragged myself remorsefully downstairs. Julia was standing at the bottom of the steps.

  "I'm sorry, dearie," she said before I could get my apology out.

  "So am I."

  "I behaved badly."

  "Me too. I was going to tell you that you reminded me of your aunt Theodora."

  "I wanted to tell you that you reminded me of you-know-who." I knew whom she meant. It was someone we had worked with who annoyed Julia by always doing things so quickly, and just annoyed me all around. It was an insult equal to my aunt Theodora one.

  I laughed, she smiled, and our fight was over. By saying that I reminded her of you-know-who, she let me know that I had been plowing through one test after another in a mad dash just to get it done, and that was not her style. No matter how pressured the situation might be, cooking was always to be careful, meticulous—and fun.

  At the end of one of the weeks of taping, I packed my small bag and returned to Providence. It was May 12, 1994. I remember the date exactly because it was the day Paul Child died. His health had been so poor that, foolishly, I was certain Julia was prepared for it. But the depth of her pain was so extreme that I did wonder if this time something would break inside her. Her long, sobbing phone calls broke my heart. "It is the end of an era," she kept repeating, and I was struck by the immensity of feeling that an entire period of one's life was simply finished. I found it so difficult to comfort her, especially since she did not believe in God or an afterlife, as I did, so it was useless to offer such comforts as "He's in a better place" or "He will always be there watching over you."

  Three days after Paul died, I sat with Julia at her kitchen table before going to the nursing home to collect his belongings. She and Paul had long ago joined the Neptune Society, and they made all the arrangements for his cremation.

  "Do you plan to be cremated?" she asked me.

  "No. I think I want to be buried. I don't really care where, but I don't want the funeral procession to travel on a highway. I want to ride on back country roads."

  "It doesn't matter. When you're gone, you're gone. You wouldn't know."

  "Well, I think I would, so if you're around, make sure I ride through the country."

  "Won't matter," she said.

  We went to the nursing home, gathered Paul's belongings—including the ties he'd still worn there and his weathered baseball cap—and returned home. I was sensitive to Julia's emotional state, but she was more pensive than despondent, so she startled me when she stopped on the sidewalk in front of her house and gasped.

  "Look," she said, staring at the yard.


  I didn't see what she saw, so I asked, "At what?"

  "The wisteria is blooming."

  "Oh, yes, it's lovely," I responded, completely unaware of the significance until she told me that it had never bloomed before—never in the thirty years that the Childs had lived there. Paul had planted and nursed it and Charlie the gardener had pampered and fed it, but they'd finally given up hope, deciding that the location was much too shady for the plant ever to flower. That day, the blossoming pale lavender flowers struck Julia to the quick.

  Back in the kitchen, I said, "Don't you think that's a sign that there is a life afterward? That it's a message from Paul?"

  Julia took this photo of me with David about to serve her lunch.

  I could see that she was trying to make sense of it, and she spread her arms wide, trying to wrap them around something she could not describe. "Perhaps there is a greater . . . something," she said, struggling for the words. She never said "God" or "afterlife," just "something," but we both felt that the something was from Paul, and we cried quietly together. We never discussed the possibility of an afterlife again, but I like to think that if she could be here, she would make sure that my funeral procession would travel by country roads.

  We resumed taping of In Julia's Kitchen after Paul was cremated but before his ashes were scattered in Maine. I again moved into her house, and although she rallied during the daily activities, I was heedful of her emotions when the crew left at the end of the day. Even though Paul had not lived at home for many years, he was still there, and I wanted to keep Julia's spirits buoyed as much as possible. To that end, I had an exceptional ally. Her nephew David McWilliams, her brother's son, was living in the third-floor apartment while studying for his graduate degree in business at Boston University. David was a constant delight. Moreover, he had an insatiable appetite, so we could count on him to bound into the kitchen smiling and happy whenever Julia called up the stairs, "Boop-boop. Hungry, David?" Not only did his presence soothe Julia's spirits, but his good counsel made me realize I didn't need to walk on eggshells; I found I could easily talk to Julia about Paul without making her sad. In fact, mostly it made us laugh.