Life Is Meals_ A Food Lover's Book of Days - James Salter [77]
In the fall of 1985, we were living in a borrowed house while construction was being completed on ours, far behind schedule. Hurricane Gloria, making its way up the coast, now looked as though it would pass directly over our part of Long Island. We reinforced our windows and those of friends who used their houses only on weekends, and ate as much of the ice cream in their freezers as we could, to limit any loss. When Gloria was within striking distance, since our water was pumped electrically, we filled buckets, pots and pans, and the bathtub with water to use for what we assumed would be several days without power. That first night we were invited to dinner at a friend’s who had a gas stove. For the next few meals, we used bread, peanut butter, and a can opener.
In 2003, at four in the afternoon, there had been no warning and no time to prepare, except for the hours before it got dark. We gathered every candle we had in the house, along with a couple of flashlights and a battery-powered radio to follow developments, especially in the city, where mass transit was at a standstill as rush hour approached and people were being rescued from elevators and subway trains in pitch-black tunnels.
By comparison, we were lucky. We had already finished making the first course and the dessert for a dinner party. The main course was to be polpettonne alla toscana, along with braised endive and glazed carrots. Instead, we got out the grill and charcoal and turned the elegant meatloaf into six hamburgers. There were only a few ice cubes for drinks, but on the other hand, as one guest commented, “Doesn’t everyone look wonderful by candlelight?”
JULIA CHILD
On this day in 1912, Julia McWilliams, who under her married name of Julia Child would become a major figure in American cooking, was born in Pasadena, California. Her father was well-to-do. The family always had a cook, and Julia did not begin cooking until she was thirty-two. Before that, she said, “I just ate.”
She graduated from Smith College in 1934—tall, animated, and at ease with herself—worked as a copywriter in New York for a while, but then returned home. When the country entered World War II, she signed up with the glamorous OSS — Office of Strategic Services—hoping to become a spy, all six feet two inches of her. She was sent instead to be a file clerk in Ceylon, where, as it turned out, she met her husband.
She and Paul Child were married in 1946 and soon moved to Paris, where, trying to learn to cook, she attended the Cordon Bleu, the only woman in the class. She met Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, and the three of them started a cooking school of their own and collaborated on what was to become her influential work, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, which took ten years to write. It was dedicated to France and its people, who, through generations of invention and concentration, had created “one of the world’s great arts.”
Her true popularity came through television. She whisked up an omelet on her first appearance, and viewers loved her from the start, her manner and high, enthusiastic voice. She established herself as a personality, lively and imperturbable. “I fell in love with the public,” she said, “the public fell in love with me, and I tried to keep it that way.”
Fervent, dedicated to instructing, she was always so relaxed that it was often thought she had been drinking. She became a national figure and remained true to her principles, as well as to public television, where she had the freedom to cook tripe, kidneys, and other things unthinkable on commercial TV.
During her career she wrote ten cookbooks, all of them noted for their clarity.