The Day Julia Child and I Became One [final]

“Don’t crowd the mushrooms! Otherwise they won’t brown!”

I could here Julie Powell in a scene from the movie Julie and Julia, teaching herself out of Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French cooking. I looked down at the mass of mushrooms on the cutting board, envisioning the sin I was about to commit. I carefully cooked them in small batches, and they quickly browned into utter perfection.

So there I was, trying to emulate my own fondness for Julia Child, Julie Powell style- by cooking her recipes. It was not as picture perfect as I had imagined it: I was wearing her signature strand of pearls underneath my lumberjack flannel with bunchy corduroys. The cookbook was faded, the pages thick with wear but sturdy and informative. My library copy was perched above the mess of activity with worn sticky notes marking the pages of attempt: the oh so famous Boeuf Bourguignon, always declared in a deep boisterous voice (which I did my best to imitate), Artichokes with Hollandaise Sauce, Rice Pilaf, Rockfort Cheese Quiche, and of course, Chocolate Souflee. These recipes are signature of Julia’s life’s work, and I wanted to capture the essence of Julia in my “perfect meal”. To me, the perfect meal means seeing every dish from start to finish, communicating a labor of love. The fact that these particular recipes have represented these things to so many people around the world made it even more meaningful.

Julia Child is legendary among aspiring American cooks. Her recipes represent many characteristics of perfection: that of a mastered elaborate, intent, and genuine approach to “French” cooking. To me, Julia Child represents the perfection in cooking as an art because she shares her love: she has not only mastered recipes that connect people around the world, but dedicated much of her life to sharing them.

Though I normally value buying foods that support the local community and were sustainable in their production, for the preparation of my Julia Child meal my first priority was to follow her directions exactly, buying the ingredients that she specified. I was prepared to venture outside my local comfort zone if it meant a more successful execution of her expertise. However, this did not change my grocery shopping approach: local businesses first, were I found grass-fed beef, eggs and butter, and commercial grocery stores for all that remained on my shopping list. Procuring ingredients was nothing short of a Grocery Store tour through Kalamazoo: The Park St. Market, Meijer, People’s Food Co-op, Sawall Health Food, and D&W. It turns out artichokes are hard to come by in the middle of winter, and Roquefort Cheese can only be found at D&W. Nonetheless, I found all of my “French” ingredients in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

Although I tried to channel every aspect of Julia, her charm and her methods, certain parts of the meal resorted to conventionality as opposed to her manual, old-fashioned impressiveness. I couldn’t help but use the microwave, and lacked ramekin cups for the Chocolate Souflee, so I scrounged up a collection of matching school-cafeteria mugs. I was nervous about the risk of using the misshapen, tall porcelain for something so testy, but, I conquered a souflee, beautifully, successfully, and without ramekins!

The Hollandaise Sauce was the most intensive: not a second to breathe in the whole recipe, and so many opportunities to blow the whole thing. Hollandaise sauce requires consistent attention: constant whipping for 20 minutes or more. It is basically butter, with egg yolk and flavored with lemon. The idea is to heat the egg yolks, but not cook them, constantly aerating them with a vigorous whisking motion. If you are to stop or slow down, the eggs will scramble or curdle, ruining the sauce. I alternated whisking with one of my housemates, thinking of Julia Child’s man biceps and determination to persevere through any recipe. I learned that Hollendaise Sauce is justanother food myth: “impossible” in perception, but like poaching an egg, if you follow the directions it turns out just fine.

The most useful tool in the kitchen ended up being our onion goggles, as onions were used in almost every dish! The cooking was intensive, and time consuming, taking nearly five hours of straight mixing, prepping, baking and warming of finished dishes. The countertops were covered in dirty bowls abandoned in the midst of time-sensitive recipes. As we were mixing the last of the souflee, my housemates descended upon the kitchen, diligently picking up the slack on dishes that had accumulated. Once the souflee was in the oven, and the artichokes were on the table I was stunned by the resonating stillness of the previously kinetic meal, after constant chaos, it was finally time to eat.

The most important ingredient to a fantastic meal is an appetite, which everyone brought to our 9:30 PM meal. The artichokes were a tease for growling stomachs, so little meat with each bite, but the Hollendaise Sauce was hypnotic, sending each of us into a trance. Next came the Bouef, Rice, and Quiche. The quiche was punchy and strong with flavor, and light like warm cheesecake. The Roquefort cheese transported us beyond the simple idea of quiche, to impressively French technique and ingredients. The Pilaf was nothing more than rice cooked in onions, and of course, butter. It was the perfect counterpart to the melting, flavorful beef and vegetables that had soaked up red wine and herbs for the past four hours. The flavors communicated the design behind the recipe: the fusion of so many flavors into melt-in-your-mouth meat. The souflee followed, the most impressive of everything, with homemade whipped cream on top. Not only were they saturated with delicious chocolate, but they did not collapse!

There are strange expectations that come with preparing such a labor and love infused meal, the moment of enjoyment was more statically climactic than I had expected. Like everything edible, the food came and went. But for all that I put into each dish, I wanted more than just the hour that passed surrounded by exquisite flavors and people I love. The time the food spent in my mouth was not extensive enough to celebrate the process of the meal. But the memories and skills that I learned will remain… and I’ll probably make it again.