Paris_ The Collected Traveler - Barrie Kerper [211]
“Jeannette?” she called out as if it were a question. “What are you doing?” There was a suggestion in her tone of voice that there was a right way to mince a garlic and this wasn’t it by an order of magnitude. I could protest that the method had definitely not been included in Simone Beck’s course at L’École des Trois Gourmands, but this wasn’t the time or the place.
Shaking her head as if in disbelief, she grabbed another clove and slammed down on it with the flat side of a giant saber, smashing it to a pulp. Then she worked the blade over it until it was practically liquid. As for the papery stuff, it lay on the chopping block in tatters.
“Thanks,” I said, gathering up the remaining cloves. “Is there anything else I can help you with?”
She just laughed, unfazed by the crescendo of crowd-gathering sounds just outside the auditorium. Someone was adjusting the overhead mirrors so that those in the back could see her sautéing mushrooms and green onions and the garlic that Rosemary had kindly rescued me from. Once the doors were opened—the floodgates might be a more accurate term—people swarmed in. Most were women, all ages and descriptions, all with the same look of awe on their faces. As Julia’s first squawky words trilled their way across the reverently silent throng, the group complexion softened into smiles, then grins and wide, throaty laughs. They were eating out of the palm of her hand and they weren’t even eating.
After the demo, she signed about a million books and then she wanted to visit the cookware department. As we stepped into the elevator, a few people recognized her instantly. Hardly able to contain their excitement, they poked their friends or whoever was closest, rolling their eyes in Julia’s direction, mouthing their message: “That’s Julia Child.” When the elevator opened, Julia noticed an in-store post office, walked over, and stood in line. Her height alone made her a presence, so it wasn’t long before the person in front of her turned his head discreetly to take the mea-sure of whatever was looming over him. He immediately began to babble.
“Oh, it’s you. Oh my goodness. Julia Child. Please,” he said, stepping aside with a bit of a flourish, begging her to go ahead. Seconds later, all the others became aware of the stir and then each of them in turn stepped aside in a kind of domino effect. She would have none of it.
“No. I’m in no hurry. Absolutely not,” she protested, directing everyone back into line.
A few weeks after this event, she wrote me a postcard: “It was fun being with you that day, and I hope we can renew the experience with or without garlic!”
That wasn’t the only time I’d seen Julia since meeting her at Simca’s in 1978. I enjoyed writing about her gastrobatics, her jolly nature, and her contagious humor. She was eminently quotable: “If cooking is evanescent, well, so is the ballet”; men were often better cooks because they have a “what the hell attitude.” And her advice to cooks, perhaps even more relevant to writers: “Above all, have a good time,” she counseled, but “keep your knives sharp.”
I’d written an article about her appearance at a benefit for the Children’s Garden in San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts; I’d reported on the evening she and René Verdon cooked dinner at his San Francisco restaurant, Le Trianon, as a benefit for KQED, the public television station. I’d even interviewed her about her favorite San Francisco restaurants: “… Once we went to Mike’s Chinese Cuisine on the advice of Jack Shelton. I think it was over on Geary. We thought it was extremely good.” She also mentioned, in passing, Campton Place, Le Trianon, L’Étoile, and Masa’s, which “we found very ethereal.”
For me, Julia embodied