Prepared to “My Liking”?

I’m about to embarrass myself the next time I go out to eat. There is a new catch phrase that is driving me bonkers. “Is everything to your liking?” What the hell is my “liking”?

It is entirely possible that I will say something so super-snarky that I might become one of those diners with a not-so-nice comments in my guest profile. But if I write about it before I say it, my good-natured dining persona might be preserved.

The question usually floats across the table during the “check-back,” the useful, considerate, moment when a well-trained server circles back to your table, shortly after serving the meal but before you’ve tucked in too deeply to a dish. The point is to make sure that everything is as it should be. Not too cold, or too rare, not too salty, not too spicy. It’s a good and important table service moment. In a busy kitchen anything can happen. An extra flick of the hot chili oil, a rare instead of a medium rare. Salt mistaken for sugar.

It’s mincing words, I know. Turning a courtesy into tiny meaningless chiffonades. The server is trying to be courteous, solicitous, even when they don’t hang around long enough to hear my answer. And truthfully, I hardly ever have anything to say. I’m not a picky eater. Rare, medium rare, more or less. Almost all restaurant meals are more or less okay for me if I like the company and I’m being treated with warmth. But the question confuses me. I know how to answer, “Is everything all right?”, or, “How is everything?” and lots of equivalent queries. But asking me about “my liking” is confusing for me. Do I like the dish? I can answer that easily. Yes, I do. Or, No, I don’t, and here’s the problem. Is “liking,” meant as a synonym for my “fondness” for the flavor balance, or the texture? Or do I think there’s too much eggplant purple and it’s overwhelming the red of the marinara? I don’t really know how to answer. Maybe “liking” is vaguely British, and I am so solidly American, that I miss the nuance. But next time you see me, at a table, with a server hovering, a question hanging in the air? Please come and clamp your hand over my mouth before I say something snarky.

RE: The Madeleine Korbel Albright Institute for Global Affairs

From: Louisa Kasdon ‘72

I have never been as proud of being an alumna of Wellesley College than I am at this moment. It has been a great honor for me to be asked to cover the 2010 Inaugural year of the Albright Institute by the Wellesley College Alumnae magazine.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve been able to watch the program go from being a well-crafted schedule of speakers and forums, to a life changing experience that will groom and guarantee that the forty fellows (Wellesley College juniors and seniors) will be among the global leaders of their generation. I was awed by the speakers – Wellesley faculty, and the remarkable group of Wellesley alums that came as “professors of the practice”; and by Madeleine Albright who spent the third and final week of the Institute with the kids: three hours each morning listening to student presentations, and two hours each afternoon sitting on a panel. She had dinners, teas, and went to a basketball game too!

Each morning, two groups of students presented a policy plan on one of the eight Millennium Development Goals; MDG’s in UN speak. The MDG’s are the milestones set by the international community as an agenda for measurable progress by 2015 on topics such poverty, gender equality, child health, and maternal mortality . Not exactly a trivial assignment for a bunch of young women in their early twenties to tackle! [One of the students turned 21 on the final day of the program.]

Secretary Albright was fair, funny, warm, wise, and completely engaged. She sat in a red armchair in the front of Founders 121 as each group of five Fellows presented their recommendations for how to achieve the stated development goal. The content and the quality of the presentations were amazing. In addition to mastering all the current themes of international development, the kids were able to offer concise and critical recommendations to move forward. They reviewed case studies, interviewed worldwide experts, mastered telephone books of data, and were able to present with poise, surety, style and fantastic mastery of video, audio and Power Point. Secretary Albright could have been a pretty terrifying interlocutor and she was decidedly not. I loved hearing her say, “Just as I wrote down a question to ask, in the next minute, you gave the answer!” The kids were in love with her. Impressed, awed, but in love.

The 40 Albright Fellows are an incredible group of young women––exceptional in so many ways before their Albright experience. To watch them in action, asking insightful, tough, witty, and very well mannered questions (especially when they were highly critical of the speaker) was to re-acquaint myself with the exceptional power of the Wellesley experience. Over three weeks, the forty fellows lived together in one dorm (Freeman), cooked meals together (it’s intersession and the dining halls are closed), sat, studied and socialized. Few of the forty knew each other when the session began. They were from as many different majors, and backgrounds as Wellesley can muster. From New Jersey and Nigeria, Vancouver and Jordon, from India and California, majoring in econ and classics, math and biochemistry, religion and poli sci. Most of the fellows had previous exposure to international issues – as summer interns, as international students, or during a year abroad.

They worked for three weeks, assigned into groups of five – and had to figure out how to manage personalities as well as the content. Just like the real world where you don’t always get to pick your working team! I laughed when one of the students said, “When they selected the Albright Fellows, they didn’t pick two leaders and 38 followers!”

At the end of program last Friday, I was weepy with pride. The kids were so splendid, the content of the program so stellar, and so well-presented with nary a hitch, Albright so candid and deeply serious… I could not have been prouder to call myself a Wellesley woman.

For the forty fellows, having been an “Albright Fellow” will mean much in the world as they develop their careers on the global stage, and, in turn, become mentors to the hundreds of young women who will follow in their paths. For me, to be a Wellesley woman observing this inaugural year was to re-connect with the mission of the college in ways I thought were impossible.

I urge you all to go the college website and download one or more of the faculty or alumnae seminars, or one of the student MDG presentations. There isn’t a dud in the bunch.

Christmas in Lausanne

If I were a normal person, flying from Boston to Geneva on the day before Christmas, I would be writing about the wonder of Les Fêtes Noel in scenic, charming Switzerland. The grandeur of snow-topped peaks of the Swiss Alps at dusk, the sharp bright moonlight, and I’d be describing the archetypal Christmas dinner, with perhaps mulled wine, roasted goose, and a magical Buche de Noel with meringue mushrooms and flakes of chocolate bark. But this was our family Christmas, and it carries all the charm and challenge, the tight-lipped good humor of forced togetherness, of any family Christmas, celebrated anywhere in the world by jet-lagged, gift-exchanging Jews.

My oldest daughter and her husband live in Lausanne. They have very important jobs at the same company and they travel constantly. The weekend before Christmas, she’d had a meeting in Izmir. He flew from someplace in Tajikistan (or Azerbaijan) to meet her for the weekend in Istanbul. It was out of the question for them to travel back to the states again for the holidays. After all, we’d made our choice––Thanksgiving or Christmas in Boston? Turkey and cranberries beat out mistletoe, and here we were: me, my 92-year-old very game mom, (aka Meo, the grandmother of all grandmothers), my husband, his electric mobility scooter, two laptops, and five bursting ginormous bags. Daughter Number Two flew in from San Francisco, via Philadelphia and Frankfurt. Somewhere in Germany, perhaps courtesy of the snowstorm that shut down America, her own ginormous rolling duffel went on a five day vacation of its own, arriving in Lausanne at her sister’s apartment, a day or so after the holiday.

I’d lugged Christmas in a bag—a handful of tree ornaments, CD of Motown Christmas carols, a heap of our family Christmas stockings (Snowflakes for Katie? Trees for Evi? Or is it the other way around?). Plus an ingenious paper kit I found at the shop near our house in Cambridge that requires three adult American women to spend many hours weaving paper strips into a dozen red and white baubles for the Christmas tree. And, of course, many gifts. Large and small. For my kids and the new son-in-law, for my mom and my husband, and for my daughter’s in-laws who were flying in from San Francisco en route to a Club Med skiing vacation in the French Alps. Oops, almost forgot, for the brother and his new girlfriend, train-ing in from Vienna on Christmas Eve, as the concluding stop of a week’s European tour. Ten for Christmas dinner. A straight up menu, without a lot of folderol cooking, and no dilly-dallying. Come Christmas Eve in Lausanne, grocery stores close early.

This is best part of any holiday as far as I am concerned: logistics, cooking strategy and tactical shopping. Constraint One: ten jet-lagged adults arriving more or less in time for a festive evening meal; assessment of the capacity of the kitchen (one smallish super-modern combination microwave and convection oven), and an unintelligible induction cook top, which means that only three of my daughter’s fancy wedding present pots heat up at all. Screw all gleaming copper, the All-Clad and the Calphalon! On, Le Creuset and old chipped Dansk! Constraint two: Time. Twenty minutes to shop before closing. Constraint three: achievable simplicity for the staff on hand. So, the swat team of my two delectable girls and me bustle off to the local Co-Op, re-usable shopping bags in hand. We scout, we reconnoiter, we debate and we grab. Risotto with dried porcini mushrooms recently scavenged by husband on a trip to the Ukraine. Roasted vegetables—in Christmas-y colors: green asparagus, red peppers, finger slim carrots, red onions, white onions, and whatever else looked good hanging around in the fridge at home. We’d roast them with olive oil and garlic, and shred local Gruyere for a final gratinee. And what about baked sweet potatoes? What if we sliced them into thin rounds, and sprinkled them with salt from the honeymoon trip to Bali? And the obligatory simple green salad from butter soft lettuce and tomatoes trucked in from Spain.

At the center of the meal: the world’s most perfect beef tenderloin. Huge, expertly trimmed, and a red that makes most American beef look digitally colorized in comparison. This one extravagant Christmas purchase, (177 ChF), this one perfect log of meat, made me happier than all the shopping and scavenging done in anticipation of the whole season. The butcher, his fair Swiss face topped with a nose shaped like a perfect right triangle, presented the beef to us for inspection, as if it were the Hope Diamond. An artisanal miracle, right up there with perfectly runny cheese. Swiss people eat only meat from Swiss cows, and Swiss cows eat only green Swiss grass, (and possibly the occasional lump of chocolate, fed to them by a doting Swiss child with symmetric golden braids). The Locavore Gospel made real and sensuous, in a way that no bestselling screed will ever match. Madly we toss in some yogurt and cheese, tangerines, bread a panettone and a velvety chocolate Christmas mousse cake. (Joyeux Noel in marzipan letters). Plus three more pairs of underwear just in case the lost-in-space-luggage decides to spend Christmas in limbo. (It does. And for future reference, note that Lufthansa takes its phone off the hook for Christmas.)

We lug home our loot. Three strapping Americans with good sturdy re-useable shopping bags, stumbling through the city streets of Lausanne. The light is beginning to fade. Shopkeepers checking watches and turning their locks in unison. The light in the steeple of the Lausanne Cathedral glows holiday red. And then, the bells. A symphony of medieval bells ringing in the holiday as darkness falls. Christmas Eve in Lausanne and the women are cooking.

We are gaining force and impact. Here’s living proof. General Mills has a new Gluten Free website thta listis its gluten-free products. It’s called “LiveGlutenFreely” Lots of recipes too. All using General Foods products, of course. But that’s not so bad. I’m excited about making Rice Crispie treats with gluten free Rice Crispies. It always bothered me that the one stupid snack I might have been able to indulge in wasn’t actually GF.

http://liveglutenfreely.com/

I figured on an hour. Easy in, easy out. Little did I imagine that I would jet into the Natural Products Expo East in Boston and stumble out five hours later with three shopping bags (yes, re-useable and heavily logo-ed) brimming with business cards, brochures, and mini samples of everything from silver ionizing healing cream and nasal cavity washers, to gluten-free pizza and rare tea blends. Plus, an added bonus during my workday hours: much useful and highly personal advice on how to protect myself with probiotics, perform a toxic cleanse, and use crystals to change my aura. It’s the Fancy Food Show for the New Age set. And it is a hoot. Hundreds of booths, wafting aromas of lavender and ozone, many peopled by people who resemble the guys who testify after encounter with UFO’s, but a lot of savvy, suited-up marketing people offering studies and statistics, and spiral bound presentations with their competitive advantage. I know that big companies like Pepsi, Kraft, and Coca-Cola now own many of the leading natural products. It’s just surprising to see what their entrance into the formerly-Mom& Pop, crunchy-granola world of natural products has meant to the explosion of the industry. And I don’t think it is bad at all.

Being a food writer with a gluten allergy, my personal quest was to see what new, potentially edible, gluten-free products were coming to the market. I imagined a teeny corner of a not-so-major expo where I might find one or two crackers and cookie mixes good enough to serve my civilian guests. I was astounded by the sheer depth of the offerings––not just for gluten-free folks, but aisles of products that were cross referenced and segmented for every known food sensitivity—no eggs, booth 1178. No dairy, take a left to booth 1276. Tree nuts and peanuts? The whole aisle over there. The niche is huge and by the number and the sophistication of many of the vendors, I suspect quite profitable. Yes, as someone with an allergy I will happily pay more for a product whose claims I trust. Every product label carried an organic logo, called attention to its ingredients locus of origin, and is readable without a magnifying glass.

Many of the people staffing the booths come with a story attached. For me, a veteran story-sharer, cruising the entire trade show was like eavesdropping on the true confessions of people with food issues. A mother whose two sons were diagnosed with a peanut allergy. A woman diagnosed with celiac in her mid-forties and longing for a cracker she could bring to a cocktail party. A man who suspected he had allergic reactions but couldn’t find a diagnosis. A younger man whose own diet concerns led him to develop a wheat-free granola with “live” grains that helped him lose thirty pounds, and clear up his skin! Food as medicine, developed by consumers and food professionals with a problem to solve.

I bounded from table to table, bonding with the proprietors as I tasted gluten-free mini-pizzas, gluten-free power bars, gluten-free sourdough bread, probiotic lime and green tea swirled frozen yogurt popsicles, marched myself down the aisle for gluten-free pretzels, crackers, cheesecake with gluten-free graham cracker crust, chocolate cookies (both shelf-stable and fresh from a mix), and carrot muffins, and back to the pizza again. There was even a gluten-free line of chocolates, (who even knew that chocolate had gluten?). In between, I washed it all with a huge range of organic teas, power drinks, and three sets of powders (diluted in distilled water) that each and all pledged to make be beautiful and young. (Still checking….)

I was thoroughly ill when I reclaimed my car from the convention center valet. But I was also enormously impressed. First, at the sheer number of food entrepreneurs operating in a niche market for allergy friendly foods; second at the fact that so many of them have a personal connection to the need for the product; and third, with products that are both responsive to allergy concerns and to conscience.

The Modest Mollusc

Mussels are the middle children of the mollusc family. They are the “other” local mollusc. (Check out the underside of most docks and rocks in New England, you locavores!) Elegant oysters overshadow the modest mussel, gutsy, smoky flavor-bombs that they are. Oysters, frankly, have much better PR. Fantastic PR. Oysters get all the glamorous cameos in movies, (call it product placement); they beckon appealing from sparkling raw bars; and get served with exceptional drama. Oysters have their own festivals and special events, and even have a line of branded cutlery. Ever heard of a mussels fork? No, I didn’t think so. And diners, like chi-chi customers at a cheese counter, like to sample the oyster from this creek or that, comparing flavors and plumpness as if they were taste-testing farmhouse cheddars. Like everyone else, I’m an oyster fan, but the modest mussel needs at least one charter member of its booster club. Plus, the mussel is under assault. Zebra mussels are invading local lakes and ponds. We have to fight back.

Here’s the major marketing problem for mussels: You can’t eat them raw. Smoked or steamed, or sautéed, they are first rate. But never on a raw bar. “Oysters get the front row seat, because they are raw, and served with the whole magic of the raw bar, shucked in front of you. Alive and so fresh,” explains, Chris Parsons, chef/owner at Catch, the first class fish bistro in Winchester. Parsons serves a mean mussel. His mussel appetizer in lobster stock with tiny chunks of chorizo is reason enough to trek to Winchester, but he uses mussels as an ingredient in many other dishes, in a sole dish, with a swordfish entrée studded with chickpeas, and in a broth made from corncobs and mussel stock. The old saw is that mussels are in season during the months that end in “–ber”, from Septem- and Decem-, but the season is longer than that, especially for the Atlantic mussels. Prince Edward Island farms 80% of the fresh ocean mussels, but we do “farm” them closer to home.

Most of the mussels you want to eat are farmed, rather than wild. They do grow wild in New England, in clumps in the sand at the bottom of the ocean. The wild ones, Parsons says, are sandy, with dirty unkempt beards, and require a fair amount of skill to get them table ready. As the proprietor of a regional seafood restaurant, when he can, Parsons prefers to buy his oysters from Maine, from sources like the collective of local mussel growers who own a 10-barge collective, Pemaquid Mussel Farms. These “farmers” specialize in a Spanish form of high volume mussel “farming” that harvests mussels from a network of ropes suspended from floating rafts in the bay. In the season, mussels from Maine are harvested twice a week, packed in ice and shipped, fresh and squiggling, the same day. Parsons find them “plumper and bigger.” Given P.E.I’s dominance in Mondo Mussel, you’re more likely to get a Canadian mussel than one from fifty miles away. Don’t be disappointed. According to Parsons, mussels, unlike oysters aren’t as much the about the “terroir” as the preparation. French, Portuguese, Belgian, or Spanish-style, mussels are a staple at most Boston area bistros much of the year, simple and steamed, or fancied up with wine and garlic, or beer and butter. Oyster crackers? Phoo. Crackers are way too dainty for mussels. Give me a good loaf of crusty bread to capture each ooze of mussel broth, and as Chris Parsons says, “Get the aroma, then get down and dirty.” Take that, oysters.

Exercise may be better treatment than angioplasty for heart disease - The Boston Globe

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Rolling through Jaffa Gate
By Louisa Kasdon
Jerusalem, June 2009…. Rolling through the Jaffa Gate, towards the pink, jewel of Israel: the Old City.  For millennia, the must-see, must-conquer destination. A small plot of holy and historical real estate, revered by Jews, Christians, and Moslems. The most contested, few acres on earth. Who wouldn’t fantasize about being here? With our without MS?
Like all the best fantasies, we knew it was a reach. Jerusalem seemed an impenetrable destination for me and for my husband Michael. Michael’s MS means that he can walk with two canes, but slowly and gingerly, eyeing cobblestones and slippery spots with trepidation. The specter of ancient Jerusalem’s narrow, and uneven streets, with limestone pavers worn down by centuries of awestruck pedestrians and pilgrims… I just couldn’t imagine how we could do it. All the things that made Jerusalem a destination of our dreams––made the prospect of a visit there daunting at best. But we wanted to go. We’re not particularly religious, or even attached to the same religion, but how could we hope to understand the world today without trying to decipher Israel?
Then, by chance, my internet-surfing son-in-law discovered the Caddy. A small, foldable electric scooter, compact enough to fit in the trunk of almost any car or taxi, light enough to be lifted by reasonably sized people (i.e. me). The Caddy is one of a series of electric scooters developed by ingenious Israeli engineers at the Kibbutz Afikim in Northern Israel. www.afiscooters.com The scooter was a practical wrench & bolts solution to the problem of how to shuttle elderly kibbutz residents between homes and the dining hall. We found a rental company (run by Miguel Hass, a Mexican- born Israeli who has polio. Disabled himself, he tried one of the scooters, delighted in how it opened up his life, and launched a small business for travelers with disabilities.    www.access4you.co.il.  My friends, it was a miracle. How appropriate for a visit to Jerusalem and Israel.
With Michael perched on his snazzy Israeli scooter, we did it all. With the Caddy , we were nimble enough to navigate the cool alleyways of the Arab market, powerful enough to pilot us through the quiet morning streets of the Armenian Quarter, and assertive enough to get us into the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, where priests of every denomination and pilgrims of every color and flavor, all jostle for their private moment inside. We picked our way through the Cardo, sniffing like bloodhounds at the scents of cardamom and cumin coming in small puffs from the spice stalls. We rolled close enough to touch the Western Wall, and to make an amazed stop at the Dome of the Rock and the Al Aksa Mosque, marveling over the idea that you could throw a fastball from one religion’s most holy site to the other’s.
We spent a week in Israel, most of it in Jerusalem, sightseeing, eating, and shopping. Because we wanted to make the most of our time, we hired a private guide for the first three days, Muki Jankelowitz, a native South African who emigrated to Israel in his late teens. Muki recommended we spend Day One in Jerusalem, absorbing Israel’s past and present conundrum; Day Two in very urban Tel Aviv, focusing on the origins of the Zionism; and Day Three at Masada and the Dead Sea, (where yes, we did bob in the famous bouncy water).
Muki quickly became handicap savvy, thinking through best entry and exit points with the scooter, maneuvering us through ancient sites around the country so that we hit ramps and open spaces instead of stairs and crevices. Truthfully, with the Caddy, the task of making Israel Michael-friendly was not very difficult. Some locations were more challenging – Mike couldn’t quite get high enough to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Israel Museum’s Shrine of the Book, but that was the only real no-go in a packed tourism schedule. And in a few places in the Old City, Michael had to dismount while Muki and I carried the scooter up a few stone steps. When we were on our own, our hotel called us a taxi––not a special taxi, just a taxi––and the Caddy nestled comfortably in the trunk, with the joint effort of the cabbie and me.  Our only problem came when I flagged down a taxi to take us to a restaurant, and the Arabic speaking driver took us to an Arab café deep in East Jerusalem, en route to Ramallah. Michael was in a funk of anxiety, mute with anger at me for agreeing to a dinner destination ripe with potential for crisis and kidnapping. We did get curious looks as we strolled in, but the food was great, super cheap, and the cab driver waited for us outside. I knew he wouldn’t leave. His potential tip was larger than the cost of the meal.

At Masada, we took the cable car, at the Jerusalem Symphony concert, we took the elevator, and at the Dead Sea we ditched the beach and opted for one of the series of Miami style spa hotels rimming the beach that offered a dip in a pool with water piped in from the Dead Sea – and lunch. (Lousy buffet lunch in a dining room overflowing with noisy Russians oldsters, and the pool area was a tad slippery. But still we did it, and we were glad, and we have the photos to prove it.)
We ate well, but not splendidly, Israel tending towards casual cafes and open-air pizza parlors more than white tablecloths. We tried to master the wrist flick & dip maneuver with fresh pita peculiar to hummus-gulping Israelis. Hummus here, hummus there, hummus, hummus everywhere. And at every meal, including breakfast, we feasted on huge amounts of fresh salad with heaps of local Israeli tomatoes. (Better than even my memories of my grandfather’s vines.)

We got it. The history. The spirituality. The politics. The anxiety. And the joy. Muki’s gifts as a historian and a storyteller allowed our conversations to burrow deep, and twist back on themselves with the complexities that are the fascination of a visit to Israel. Visiting Israel isn’t just another travel notch on the wish list of places to see before you die. It’s not Paris, Rome, or London. It is an excursion into your own logic and spirit. It is a destination that demands intellectual engagement, regardless of your religious and political beliefs. Late into the night in bed at our Turkish-style hotel, The Mount Zion Hotel overlooking the Valley of Death and Mount of Olives, we’d find ourselves arguing about decisions made over 2000 years ago.
You too can go to Israel. With a little logistical planning, a good guide, and a nifty mobility device, you can see all the sites that anyone hopes to see. And return home energized with a keen, almost heartbreaking sense of why Jerusalem and Israel matter so much to the world, and why the path to peace is so elusive.

If you go:
Flying in: The Ben Gurion Airport is very sensitive to the needs of handicapped travelers. El AL is the national airlines and has a seamless service for passengers who need mobility assistance. Assistants will meet you at the plane, get you through customs, collect your luggage and hail you a cab. They will not accept tips.
Where to stay: Two good options in Jerusalem are the Inbal Hotel and the Mount Zion Hotel. Both have elevators, handicapped accessible rooms (although one’s man’s idea of a handicap accessible is not another’s), and friendly staff. Mount Zion is cozier, and has the more charming view; the Inbal is more cushy and modern and has a much better pool area for people with challenges.
Where to eat: Almost anywhere. Food is safe and cheap. Two good restaurants: in Jerusalem, The Colony is excellent. In the old Port of Tel Aviv, Boyo is a first rate seaside restaurant.
What to do: In Jerusalem: Visit the Old City, the Holocaust Museum at Yad Vashem, the Israel Museum (especially for the open-air model of the Old City of Jerusalem during the Second Tempe Period), browse the Arab Markets, and the shops on Ben Yehuda.
Peak points: the view from Mount Scopus; The Western Wall in early morning; cocktails on the terrace of the King David Hotel just as the Jerusalem stone turns pink with the last light of day; and listening the Al Aksa Mosque as the muezzins call the faithful to prayer.
What to buy: Great handmade jewelry in Israel, and lots of religious keepsakes. You won’t lack for souvenir options.
Useful websites:
There are several good websites for accessible travel in Jerusalem. One of the best can be accessed thorugh the Israel Ms Society  www.mssociety.org.il/tour/english/en_tourjeru.htm

My Interview with Judith Jones
The Editor of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking, and all her other books including, My Life in France featured in the movie, Julie & Julia.
Senior Editor, Alfred A. Knopf

To read Judith Jones own blog, go to www.judithjonescooks.com
No self-respecting foodie will pass on the Julie & Julia movie. Delightful twinned love stories, lots of great food porn shots and romantic Paris porn shots, (for lovers of both). Great 1950’s hats and dresses, worn with pearls and martini glasses. A few good weepy moments, and several fabulous performances––including a channeling–of Julia Child by Meryl Streep.
In the movie, you will notice two contrary depictions, of Judith Jones, the titanically influential book editor at Knopf, who was the publishing champion who rescued Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking after it had been politely rejected by Houghton Mifflin.
Judith Jones appears first as a  “villain,” a legend who uses a New York downpour to duck a scheduled dinner at Julie the Julia-Blogger’s Queens apartment, triggering a major meltdown for our blogosphere heroine. The second Judith is the “savior” who recognizes Child’s importance, titles the book and ushers in the entire American food revolution, courtesy of France. The villain persona, Jones says is a movie plot invention––(she recently escaped from her car after a Vermont bridge collapsed in a torrential rainstorm, clawing her way up the banks, grasping vines and branches). And the savior part? Basically true.
Boston has a special relationship with Julia Child. Did Julia have a special relationship with Boston? Why did she leave us and move to California?
Julia and Paul Child chose Boston very deliberately. They were looking for a community that was liberal and intelligent, where they could make friends––and Boston was a lot smaller than New York. Julia was so attached to the people who made the “food revolution” happen––she felt very close to the local chefs in Boston. She was a very practical person. After Paul died, she decided that the house in Cambridge was too big for her to maintain. A part of her was always a Californian, and the climate was better. She just packed up and never looked back, leaving hardly a trace. She wasn’t sentimental at all. She really didn’t want to do an autobiography, but I told her to think of it as a tribute to Paul. We went through boxes of Paul’s photographs, thousands of pictures, as we were preparing for her autobiography, (the book that became My Life in France). The photos would start to spin memories, and she would say, “Now, Judith, you know we can’t afford to be sentimental like that…”
What did you learn from Julia – aside from cooking?
Julia used to say to me, “Judith, you and I were born at exactly the right time.” I think if we’d been born at any other time, she would have thought that was the best time to be born too. Julia was always very positive about everything. You’ll see that in the movie. When the first publisher rejected her book, she didn’t give up, she moved on to the next idea.  In many ways she did teach me how to think about cooking. She used to tell me, “Judith! You’ll never be a great cook if you worry about how many pots and pans you use, or if you’re following the recipe exactly.”  I learned that you don’t have to measure every tablespoon of flour once you know how to cook; you have to feel it in your hands.
As an editor, what made Julia unique? Was it her recipes or her voice?
It’s hard to separate the two. Julia had a concept and she knew how to deliver it. She was able to dissect French food and translate it into for the American housewife for the American kitchen. She came up with ways of teaching that were reassuring. For example, it was her idea for the ingredients to appear, as you needed them in the recipe, not just to list them at the beginning of a recipe. She invented that. She also wanted to make sure that things that were easy to get in France had reasonable equivalents here. I remember going to Gristede’s in New York to see if they sold shallots. They didn’t at the time. Things are very different now.
From Julia I learned that if a food writer had a strong individual voice, it didn’t matter if they were writing about French cooking, or Middle Eastern cooking, Italian cooking, or Asian cooking. I found that the best cook books were very often written by women who were expatriates from their own culture and yearned for the plates, the pasta, the recipes that they could get from aunts, mothers, friends.  The used sensual words to describe things –like “velveting” the chicken. Think of how lovely that sounds.

Can you channel Julia? Would she have liked the movie?
I hesitate to do that. Julia wasn’t very comfortable with things that were about her. For example, she wasn’t all that taken with the Saturday Night Live spoofs. But with this movie—she would have admired the quality of the performance. Would have very much admired Meryl Streep’s performance…