Julia Child_ A Life - Laura Shapiro [2]
The pile of goose parts on the counter looked remarkably fresh and tidy, considering what they had gone through. “Now you’re ready to cook the goose,” she announced, and deftly floured the pieces by hand, turning and daubing them until each was lightly coated. “I never like to shake things in a paper bag with flour. It seems too ladies’ magaziney for me.” While the pieces were browning in goose fat, she brought out other elements of the ragout in various stages of completion—the onions, the lardons, the cabbage—and concisely demonstrated the crucial steps in their preparation. When the goose was browned, it went into the pan with the onions and lardons, and Julia added the wine, the stock, and the herbs. Her bird was now all set for a long simmer in the oven. Smiling down at the pieces that were jutting out from their cozy, aromatic bath, she tucked a sheet of wax paper over them. “Particularly because the goose was peeled, I like to protect it,” she said fondly.
As soon as the goose went into the oven, she turned to a second oven and triumphantly pulled out her “ready” goose—a ragout that had been fully prepared before the show. Arranging the tender, fragrant pieces of goose on a bed of noodles, spooning the cabbage alongside them, she became so absorbed she sometimes fell silent until she remembered she was supposed to be talking. Yet even her silence was energetic: the attention she was pouring into this luscious-looking ragout as she readied it for the dining room was as vigorous as the actual cooking had been. “I like to serve things all on the same plate if there’s room, because I think it’s more attractive, though it’s often difficult to get a big enough platter,” she mused aloud as she worked. “Last time we were over in France I got some down near Nice and sent them over.” She reached for a dish of parsley. “And then if you feel it needs a little more decoration—a typical parsley garnish.”
Seated in the dining room with the platter in front of her, she was glowing: this was the culmination of the whole ardent enterprise. She picked up a plate and showed how to serve the ragout, and as she did so—perhaps it was the lighting, perhaps it was a trick of the imagination—suddenly we were seated at the table with her. Before our own hungry eyes, the camera zeroed in on the plate while Julia filled it, and we listened to her avid description of what we were going to eat. “This person is going to get a lovely big drumstick, and a nice handful of noodles, and some of this beautiful fresh cabbage. And then a little bit of your sauce on top.” We could taste every morsel as she lifted it, we could taste the wine—“your very best red Burgundy.” During the last moments of the show, she was so absorbed in serving a second portion that she almost forgot to look up for her sign-off. “This is Julia Child. Bon appétit!”
Julia Child was unlike any other celebrity in America. People gawked at her in restaurants, of course; greeted her joyfully on the street; excitedly pointed her out to one another when they glimpsed her in an airport; and crowded into bookstores whenever she arrived to sign copies of her latest cookbook. None of this was out of the ordinary in the realms of fame. What was unique about Julia was the quality of the emotion she inspired, which was remarkably direct and pure. Julia attracted love, torrents of it, a steady outpouring of delighted love that began with the first pilot episode of The French Chef in 1962