The Julie/Julia Project

Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:19:03 GMT

I don’t know what to say.

Julia Child was ninety-one years old when she died, late yesterday, in
her sleep. It’s the death that all of us want, after a life so full it
would seem she was one of history’s true lucky souls, if only luck had
had anything to do with it. She enriched the lives of thousands – my
life she quite literally turned around. She died well-loved, and I
hope she died well-fed. There is no tragedy here. It’s a day for
remembrance, and celebration.

So why am I so fucking sad?

I heard this morning. I was working on my book – I’m always working
on my book, only “freaking out over” would probably be a better term –
when the emails started pouring in. Condolences from my relatives, and
my friends, and my blog-friends, comforting me as if I was suffering
the loss of a family member. I never met Julia Child. I have no
particular reason to think she’d even have liked me if I had. I have
no claim over the woman at all, unless it’s the claim those who have
nearly drowned have over the person who pulled them out of the ocean.
And yet I do feel this loss personally, as a great six-foot-two hole in
my world.

Julia Child began learning to cook when she was thirty-seven years
old. She started because she wanted to feed her husband Paul. She
started because though she’d fallen in love with great food late, when
she did she’d fallen hard. She started because she was in Paris. She
started because she didn’t know what else to do.

Who knows how it happens, how you come upon your essential gift? For
this was hers. Not the cooking itself so much – lots of people cook
better than Julia. Not even the recipes – others can write recipes.
What was Julia’s true gift, then? She certainly had enormous energy,
and that was a sort of gift, if a genetic one – perhaps the one thing
about her you can pin down on the luck of the draw. She was a great
teacher, certainly – funny, and generous, and enthusiastic, with so
much overbrimming confidence that she had nothing to do with the
surplus but start doling it out to others. But she also had a great
gift for learning. Perhaps that was the talent she discovered in
herself at the age of 37, at the Cordon Bleu School in Paris – the
thirst to keep finding out, the openness to experience that makes life
worth living.

She was no bending reed, of course. She had no use for silly,
fear-driven food fads; she could be set in her ways, even mulish, and
when she wanted to she could be withering. That’s fine. That’s good
even. We don’t need saints. Who changes their life under the
influence of a saint? Okay – don’t answer that. But the point is –
Julia was so impressive, so instructive, so exhilarating, because she
was a woman, not a goddess. Julia didn’t create armies of drones,
mindlessly equating her name with taste and muttering “It’s a Good
Thing” under their minty breath. Instead she created feisty, buttery,
adventurous cooks, always diving in to the next possible disaster,
because goddammit, if Julia did it, so could we.

This morning, I was writing about lobster murder. As anyone who’s
here will remember, Julia’s instructions for Homard a l’Americaine were
particularly troubling. Now, bisecting a living lobster is not an easy
thing to do – not for the cook, and certainly not for the lobster. I
still feel a little bad about it, and this morning I was writing
something maybe a little resentful about how I had visited this torture
on a crustacean on Julia’s directive.

She told me I could do it, so I did, and it was hard. I don’t ever,
ever want to do it again – not for her, not for anybody. But it was
important that I do it once. Killing that lobster made me face up to a
lot of stuff that bothers me – stuff about responsibility, and hard
decisions, and carving (bad word, maybe) a place in the world I can be
comfortable in. I would not have done it without Julia to tell me –
“Go ahead – What could happen?”

There’s so much I would not have done. Because it would not have been
there for me to do. Without you here, I would be a different person –
a smaller, a sadder, a more frightened person.

So thank you Julia. Thank you.

I don’t believe in this kind of thing, and I sort of get the feeling
you don’t either, but I’m going to make an exception in your case. I’m
going to choose to believe that tonight, you’re eating sole meunieré,
with Paul, and you’re lifting a glass to toast whatever comes next.

Bon Appetit.

Fri, 19 Dec 2003 14:59:36 GMT

If, when my book is published, I sell twenty-five copies, I will count
myself lucky (though my publisher surely won’t) so long as I sell those
copies to the amazing people who showed up to my little Julie/Julia
wake on Wednesday. The problem with these things is that inevitably
someone gets, not forgotten, never forgotten, but misplaced for a
moment at the time of writing. This goes double on the day I am to
load my husband and my hundred pound dog into a rented car to drive
back to Austin, when my house is still a wreck and I haven’t bathed in
two days. But I will do the best I can:
Thanks be to Rebecca and Bill of the tamales and Deborah and Cassandra
of the cigarettes and Jane and Ellen and the Antstett cousins (all the
way from Connecticut!) and Bala, and Helene and John and George, a
co-book-slogger, and Amy from Nylon, and Hellkatte was there, though I
hardly got to talk to and now I’ve misplaced your card, grr argh! Not
to mention oh-so-classy Amanda, and poor Katie and Brandon and Amelie,
and my faithful Bekkah and Lisa, and Jeff and Konrad and even NoSluggo
Dave – well not in person, but he called the bar from Memphis, which is
plenty good enough for me! There are people whose names I never caught
and of course I didn’t get to talk to any of you as much as I’d like,
but in case I was weird or distracted or getting high on gimlets, and
you got the wrong idea, please know now that it was one of the most
incredible nights of my life, and I am utterly in awe of each and every
one of you. Thank you.
My god. Sometimes it hits hard, just how much I have to thank you for.
So. I just got my 12-year-old Ford Bronco with the busted rear window
and mirrors and torn up seats and mushrooms growing in the back seat
towed away, so I’m on the right track, And this afternoon I’m off on
our drive to Texas, where to pack back on the few sad pounds I’ve lost.
And all this I’ll be doing without you to talk to about it. Which is
sad. But good. And so. On to the next….

Thu, 11 Dec 2003 13:38:37 GMT

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve come to conclusion that is, well, a little bit heartbreaking for me. I think it’s time to officially pack up the Julie/Julia Project.

This thing was always meant to last a year and no more. I knew that. What I didn’t know, when I started, was how much I would come to rely upon the feedback and encouragement and just plain daily greatness of all of you who’ve so inexplicably agreed to go through this thing with me. I am sure that keeping the blog limping along past its useful life is no good to anyone involved, and the last thing I want to do is jump the shark; I know it’s time to go. But that doesn’t mean I’m necessarily happy about it.

So I was out at lunch yesterday, and Julia Roberts was sitting at the next table, and maybe that’s why I’ve got all these stupid Pretty Woman quotes in my head. Well, paraphrases, I guess. Remember that bit where she says to Richard Gere something like “You’ve changed me, and you can’t change me back”? Well that’s like you guys and me. I started this project in inky isolation, to pull myself out of a tailspin of secretarial ennui. How was I to know that you were all out there? I am in a place that a year ago I could not have imagined. Because of all of you, because you kept coming back, my life has changed. I credit Julia Child’s spirit and example with the inspiration to start this crazy thing, but for finishing it, I can only credit all of you. And it’s great. But it also means I’ve come to a place where I’ve got to let go of this, and of you, to some extent, for a little while.

So – that was the bad news.

Good news – I want to go out with a bang, so there is at long last going to be a J/JP Party! On Wednesday, December 17^th from 6 to 8 pm (and beyond?!) Eric and I will be at the Fat Black Pussycat at 130 West 3^rd Street, between 6^th Ave and MacDougal, expecting anyone and everyone to show up for a Julie/Julia Project wake. I’ve never been to this place, so I make no promises, but I’m reserving a lounge just for us. So come! I want to meet you all in the flesh, and lift a gimlet or three to you!

For those of you who can’t make it, what with living in New Zealand or wherever and all, thank thank thank you, for everything. Please keep in touch. When I come crawling out of my hole with my (our) book in the spring of ’05, I hope some of you are there to greet me.

Tue, 25 Nov 2003 13:23:23 GMT

So –

I have enjoyed my first full weekday of blissful unemployment, but that is not why I am writing.

I will be breaking my rabbit-food fast for long enough to indulge in the least French Thanksgiving ever, with my family, in Cape Cod of all places. There will be neither a goose nor a foie-gras-stuffed prune in sight. But that is not why I’m writing, either.

No, I am writing because, as many of you so correctly guessed, we do indeed have a new family member at the Powell household.

You’re going to love this:

Weighing in at 102 pounds, a champion shedder, gentleman to felines, terror to squirrels, a little bit country, a little bit rock-n-roll, all lover – it’s Robert the Dog! A German Shepherd – Rottweiller (?) – Mastiff (?) mix of heroic proportions. He is the perfect dog, notwithstanding the fact that he seems to have made an entire chicken carcass evaporate from the trashcan. We are all quite in love.

Now. I haven’t bathed in quite some time, and it’s almost time for me to head out, so that’s all I’ve got. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

I myself am not much of one for giving thanks. But this year is different. This year I’ll have all of you to think on.

Tue, 11 Nov 2003 12:09:54 GMT

“When you’re old, crazy and worn-out, you’re old, crazy and worn-out.”

That was one of my granny’s favorite sayings. She used to say it a lot. Constantly, in point of fact. Until even I, who loved her passionately despite the pretty-hard-to-ignore racism and negativity, wanted to shake her.

Well, I guess the circle stays unbroken, because now I myself am old, crazy, and worn-out. And you know? I say it a lot.

So we went to DC over the weekend. There I blew off my diet and ate crab cakes and barbeque shrimp with grits, and duck confit and potatoes of various descriptions, and fresh fried donuts at our hotel, the Tabard Inn, which I loved madly. But we were moderate. We did things like ordering appetizers and then sharing an entrée, and napping in the afternoon, and ordering a glass of wine each instead of a bottle, and sipping port by the fireplace in the inn at the end of the night. It was absurd, depressing on the face of it. But I’ve gotten so old I didn’t even care; I loved it.

The less fun bit about being old crazy and worn out is the worn out bit. I am one creaky, achey sunnofabitch these days. Of course it didn’t help that after driving down to DC in our rental car, and getting a wee bit bent out of shape trying to negotiate its fucking frenchie streets, and having a very late dinner (the duck confit and mmmmmmm potatoes with bacon, in a French bistro that could have been Dallas. In fact everything in DC seems like Dallas, or maybe the whole United States seems like Dallas after New York – all the huge cavernous restaurants with the kitschy themes, and the people in them smoking, and the silly kids lined up in front of silly nightclubs – one of the great things about living in New York is that even if you never go out clubbing once in your entire life, you can still feel superior snubbing every other place’s nightlife as bush-league), while we were walking back to the hotel, I managed to smash full on into a street light. The reason I managed to do this was that I was looking back over my shoulder at something called a “Buddy-cam” in a shop window – it appeared to be video from a camera strapped to a dog, but I doubted its veracity. This was lucky, because if I’d run into it full-on, my face would now be bisected by the jagged edge of the street sign affixed to the lamp pole. As it is, only the back of my skull is bisected. And I’ve got this enormous knot on my thigh, which hurts like a sonofabitch. Of course this leaves out that one presumes if I was not walking while looking backward, I would not have run into the pole at all. And isn’t this what husbands are for, to keep you from doing stupid shit like that?

Anyway, I spent the rest of the weekend pathetically achey and creaky and old and worn out and maybe just a little bit crazy. We went to the Smithsonian for a performance of “Bon Appetit,” an operetta based on an episode of “The French Chef.” The mezzo playing Julia was just fabulous, and game as all hell – she sang, and beat egg whites by hand, while being rolled across the stage in an office chair because she’d broken her ankle, and coughing between arias, because she had a terrible cold. See, to me, that’s what it’s all about. Brava, say I. And Rayna, the lovely woman from the Smithsonian who curated the Julia Child exhibit there, had seats reserved in the front row for Eric and me, which was a little embarrassing, but pretty damn neat too. And after there was coffee and chocolate cake, and I was recognized for the first time (I imagine because of the reserved seats.) The woman also known in blog comments as Reba was incredibly gracious and sweet and what she said by way of her feelings about the blog meant a lot to me, so I have to apologize, Reba, because I was not particularly sparkling or wise or even cogent. It was my first time, so I was a little flummoxed. Plus, of course, the old crazy and worn out thing.

So a great time was had by all in DC – though we didn’t get to the International Spy Museum, which was sort of our whole reason for coming. You wouldn’t believe the lines. Lines, when you are old, seem just too much to deal with.

So. Nine work days remaining. Actually 10, because I’m sure I’ll be working over the weekend, because it is absolutely fucking D-Day at the LMDC, and if I have to reschedule one more Very Important Fucking Person I will kill someone, and let me just warn any VIFPs who might be out there reading, it’s not gonna be me.

In other news – stay tuned, I may have some verrrrrrry exciting news of a familial nature coming up soon. (And no, it’s not a baby. Jesus.)

Mon, 27 Oct 2003 11:57:51 GMT

I saw a woman the other day who hates the subway even more than I do.

Everyone knew she was the one to watch when she got on at Queensborough Plaza, during the morning commute, and immediately sat down on the floor, her back against the pole. She was about sixty or so, short and squat, with salt and pepper hair shorn into one of those crew cuts they give to the mentally disabled. She was talking to herself. You know the type.

Between Queensborough and Lexington Avenue, under the East River, the train stopped, as it often does, mornings. No sooner had it begun to slow down that the woman cried “NOOOO!!!” When it came to a stop, she started screaming “Fuck you!!!”, over and over. Between fuckyous she beat the back of her head against the pole, hard.

Now most of the passengers winced at the obscenities, and at the clunk of her skull on the metal. That didn’t phase me at all – I was perfectly familiar with both. Instead, I just thought, “Oh, honey. You should try traveling on the weekends – you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.”

The other day I put on my winter coat for the first time. I was already in a bad mood, because not only was it cold, but I was already thinking of the frustration of spending the next six months yanking my bag full of shit up onto my shoulder, only to have it slide back off again – this is one of the things I hate most about winter in New York. But anyway, I divest the coat of its dry-clean plastic – I had taken it to the cleaners not only to get it cleaned, but also to get the buttons tightened, and to replace the hooks and eyes which keep the big honkin’ Mongolian wool sleeves in some kind of order. Well, first I find a long hair dyed the bright red my hair was last winter – not the more subdued hue it is now. So I’ve got my suspicions right off the bat. Then I notice that the Mongolian wool at the sleeves and neck don’t seem to have been dealt with at all. I took this coat to an extremely overpriced cleaner in the financial district specifically because I thought they’d be able to deal with the Mongolian wool. I put the coat on. The buttons have been tightened up, so that’s good, but when I go to adjust the sleeves, I notice that the hooks and eyes have not been replaced. Which means I’m going to have to ride the subway with my bag falling off my shoulder AND my big flapping Mongolian wool sleeves getting in everybody’s faces.

Now there was a time when I would have shrugged this off. I would have humbly yet proudly turned the other cheek, said to myself, “well, these things happen,” felt the flow of generosity in my veins as I quietly, without fuss, took my coat and dry cleaning business elsewhere. This was when I was a Texan. But things are different now. This time, I spent the entire subway ride rehearsing the nasty fit I was going to throw in the dry cleaner’s – the demands for recompense, the threats to out their shoddy business practices to the media.

I’ve got to get out of this city.

I’m also dieting. And not drinking – well, not much. Which I hate – not because I’m hungry or I’m craving a drink, but because I’m not. Have I become the kind of person who watches their carb intake and teetotals? God, it’s like how Hemingway would feel if he suddenly, against all his instincts and will, took a job writing Hallmark cards. I don’t want to be that kind of person. But the “Gotta Be Pretty” need trumps all in the heart of a southern girl (and yes, I do believe I’m a southerner at heart, Texas roots notwithstanding, firmly in the O’Hara line.)

In other news, I’ve got 20 days of work left, my life is going to start any day now, so I’ve got nothing to complain about, actually. So I’ll shut up now.

Thu, 09 Oct 2003 11:03:05 GMT

Some of you may be asking: oh my Julie, why hast thou forsaken me? You might resentfully assume I’m off living the lush life as a famous-writer-in-waiting, partying in Williamsburg, accepting and tearing up my regularly faxed Ben-Lo wedding invitations and gradually going Republican.

Not so.

Rather, I’m spending a lot of time waiting for my life to begin. I am still a secretary, which is beginning to really get me down, if you can believe it. I am also eating like a fucking vegan with a wheat allergy and a weaknesss for skinless boneless chicken breasts, and I would like to say to you all now that while I have always found vegetarians a bit silly, since I have been eating like one my contempt for them is boundless. Jesus, what a boring, sad life it is. Wouldn’t be so bad, if you’d just throw in some fucking bacon. Or a steak.

Speaking of, I did manage to get to Peter Luger for my father’s birthday. Now that’s food. And afterwards we partied in Williamsburg, but only a little.

What else? Oh, yes, I have been riding the subway a good little bit. Oh my fucking Christ, you should have seen the fit I threw when the G train quit on us the other weekend. Riddle me this – how is it possible that the largest metropolitan transit authority in the world has managed to work things so that is has absolutely NO accountability? There is nothing that I nor my diminutive outer-borough brethren can do – no one we can petition to, no money we can pay, no one we can shoot, even – that will make the slightest improvement in our commute. What other organizations could get away with that in this Jeffersonian Democracy? I mean, other than the presidential administration?

So – will Julie indeed become a literary lion on the scale of Bill O’Reilly? Will she get a movie deal with the guy that produced Shaft? Will she be gunned down in a blaze of glory while trying to immolate the R train? These are all questions that remain to be answered. In the meantime, take a look at some preliminary Julie/Julia findings by our resident cyber-researcher….

Oh, and sorry about not posting on September 30^th, thereby fucking up that oh-so-reliable Radioland software. Here’s the link to September….