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 Jeannette Ferrary and Julia Child
I couldn't believe my ears. The chef had been given the opportunity to prepare a box lunch for Julia Child. It was supposed to be casual and unfussy, just a little something before her afternoon appearance at Macy's San Francisco. He was holding football-sized gift boxes tied with blue ribbons and was delivering them to the back stage dressing room where Julia, her sister Dorothy, and I were waiting. I only hoped they hadn't heard what he said. I took the boxes from him-there were three of them, one for each of us-and slid them onto a table by the door. Then I realized he was kidding; he must be kidding.
"Come on, tell me. What's in them?"
He looked frazzled, an appropriate response for someone who had invested all his creative energies into the challenging but intimidating task of whipping up a box lunch for Julia Child. He also looked annoyed.
"I told you. Tuna fish sandwiches."
Maybe he hadn't realized which Julia Child he'd been asked to make lunch for. Could he have thought these were destined for some ordinary Julia Child, an earthling who hadn't helped change the course of America's eating habits in her lifetime? Or perhaps the strain had been too much for him and he'd completely lost his mind. His eyes looked a bit jumpy, now that I peered more closely. Proof of his derangement surfaced almost immediately as Julia, attracted by the commotion, turned to greet him.
"Oh, hellooo, you're the chef aren't you?" came the chortly tones, full of welcome and gratitude. The billowy abandon of her teal rayon blouse swarming with flickery white splotches contrasted with the workhorse immovability of a navy gabardine skirt. Cinnamon-orange hair, the same color as her lipstick, made thick, loopy curls across her forehead. She was smiling and talking, the metallic music of her voice pitched halfway between some kind of horn and a reed instrument not yet invented.
"I hope you like tuna fish sandwiches," he blurted out with no shame or embarrassment, clearly out of touch with reality.
"Why, yes. We love tuna fish, don't we Dorothy?"
"Wonderful. I thought you would. Especially when I saw this magnificent specimen." He went on to describe how he'd gone down to the fishing boats at dawn, poking and slapping a dozen different fish before deciding on the nice fat one he brought back to poach for these sandwiches.
I felt foolish for thinking any sane chef would present Julia Child with a Star Kist chicken of the sea. Meanwhile Julia never flinched. She'd already dived right in, unperturbed about whether her sandwich had begun with a can opener or a court bouillon. (I remembered M. F. K. Fisher telling me, in her unique mélange of praise and condemnation, "You know, Julia will eat anything.")
"Isn't this just marvelous?" Julia practically sang, referring to how the chef--"such a nice young man"--had cloaked the sweet chunks of fish in a creamy aioli that was "marvelously tart" and studded with chopped fennel instead of "ordinary old celery." As for the sourdough, fire and smoke trapped in its crusty ridges and curves, he must have taken the loaves directly off the baking stones: that was the consensus.
On a publicity tour for her book, Julia Child and More Company, she'd come to San Francisco to do a cooking demonstration and book signing; I was there to interview her for an article, one of many I would write since 1978 when I met her at a cooking course at her place in France in 1978. I enjoyed writing about her gastrobatics, her jolly nature and her contagious humor. 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 Rene 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 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 for writers: "above all, have a good time" she counseled, but "keep your knives sharp."
The last time I saw Julia was at her apartment in Santa Barbara. It was January 11, 2002. She invited me into her kitchen, which was small and tidy and contained very little of her extensive baterie de cuisine. She had donated all her kitchen equipment, she explained, to the Smithsonian.
"Except for those," she smiled, indicating a place on the wall over the sink where a set of dark-handled knives clung tightly to a magnetic holder. There were just a few of them, probably her favorites, in various sizes. They looked well-used, sturdy and beautiful. And, needless to say, they were sharp.
Tuna Fish Sandwich for Julia
"First catch your hare" is the age-old culinary advice meaning, basically, begin at the beginning. And so it is when making a tuna sandwich for Julia. After catching the fish--or buying it at the market if you're so inclined--poach it, mix it with the same stuff you would if you'd opened a can, substituting fennel for celery. Serve it on sourdough. It's almost as good as the real thing.
About Jeannette Ferrary
Jeannette Ferrary's latest book is Out of the Kitchen: Adventures of a Food Writer. Author of the memoir/biography of M. F. K. Fisher and six cookbooks, she teaches food writing at Stanford and U. C. Berkeley extension.
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