EVERYONE'SIN THE KITCHENWITH JULIA

She fnay lose the butter or even drop the turkey in the sink, but Julia Child

has won a devoted TV following by combining classic cookery with comedy.

Bif Lewis H. Lapham

To many American housewives theart of French cooking seems an im-

penetrable riddle, as mysterious as Ein-stein's theory of relativity and just aboutas practical. Intimidated by the conde-scending waiters in first-class French res-taurants, they meekly accept the manage-ment's insinuation that such things astimbales d'asperges or tuurnt-dos Rossi/iimust rentain forever beyond their un-derstanding. Within the last IS months.however, the more courageous house-wives have roused themselves from theirhabit of self-cfTacemeni and followed thevigorous example of Julia Child,

A tall and determined woman, cheer-ful, steadfast and pure in heart, Mrs.Child appears as Tiie Frencli Chef on aweekly television show that is as funny asil is instructive. Although an excellentcook, she possesses none of the preten-tious mannerisms so often associatedwith practitioners of hauu- cuisine. Shemoves around in front of the camera ul-icrly preoccupied with the problem alhand, addressing the television audienceas if ihe were talking to herself or to atrusted friend,

t^ach of her cooking lessons has aboutii the uncertainty of a reckless adventure.She has a way of losing things—either ihebutter, or the carrots she so carefullychopped into small cubes or, on one mem-orable occasion, a pot of cauliflower.Sometimes she forgets to put the season-ing in the ragout; sometimes she drops aturkey in the sink.

But to Mrs, Child these slight misfor-tunes are of no importance, merely theexpected hazards of a long and dirty war.Smiling and undismayed, secure in theknowledge that her cause is just, shebashes on. perhaps pausing to remark, asshe did once of a potato pancake spilledon a sideboard, "If this happens, juslscoop it back into the pan; remember(hat you are alone in ihe kitchen and no-body can see you. '

When, at the end of the program, she atla-st brings the finished dish to the table,she does so with an air of delighted sur-prise, pleased to announce that onceagain the forces of art and reason havetriumphed over primeval chaos.

Her sense of theater endears her to themosl fiercely devoted and most unlikelyaudience ever to write fan letters lo atelevision cook. Beginning in 1963 as acasual experiment scheduled al miscel-laneous hours by WGBH, the e Juca tional-tclevision station in Cambridge, Mass.,The French Ctief soon occupied primeevening time on educational stations in16 cities, among them San Francisco,Washington. Philadelphia jnd New York.Next monlh stations in 17 other citieswill SLart carrying ihe program.

As might be expected, ihe bulk of Mrs.Child's 4(X) letters a week come from

grateful housewives who see in her awoman like themselves, harried by thesame accidents of nature and subject lothe same budget, (For the purposes ofdemonstration. Mrs. Child uses onlythose vegetables or cuts of meat availableat reasonable prices in any market.)

A surprising number of letters, how-ever, arrive from people who know orcare nothing about food but prize Mrs.Child chiefly for her ingenuous wil. InNew York's Greenwich Village, for in-stance, a coterie of avant-garde paintersand musicians gathers each week in a loftto watch The Fieneh Chef, convinced thatMrs. Child is far more diverting than anyprofessional comedian.

At first they assumed thai she was do-ing a parody of the traditional cookingprogram, but even the discovery that shewas playing it straight failed to dull theirenthusiasm. In the garrets around Wash-ington Square the introduction to thelesson on artichokes stands as the au-thoritative example of Mrs. Child'shumor and style.

The scene opened on an artichoke boil-ing in a pot of water and shrouded by apiece of cheesecloth, Mrs. Child, loomingsuddenly inlo view, lifted ihe cheeseclothwith heavy tweezers and inquired, "What'scooking under this gossamer veil? Whyhere's a great big, bad artichoke, andsome people are afraid of it."

Of the olher two remarks still quotedin the coffeehouses, the first concerned achicken in a frying pan. "We jusl leave itthere," said Mrs. Child, "letting it makesimple little cooking noises," The secondhad to do with crepes suzette. As sheput a match to it. she said, "You must becareful not to set your hair on fire,"

In the less-threatening circumstancesof her own home in Cambridge, Mrs.Child reveals herself as an even more en-gaging woman than she seems on televi-sion. She stands over six feet tall (herdress size she describes as "stately"), hereyes are grayish green, her hair brownand her complexion freckled.

Wilh her husband, Paul Child, shelives in a clapboard house, three storieshigh and 12 minutes' walk from the Har-vard campus. The walls in her kilchenglitter with enough pots and pans 10equip a small restaurant.

Sitting in her garden one day recently,wilh a tossed salad and a lerrine de dinde(pat¿ stuffed with the white meat of aturkey), she confessed that as a younggirl she seldom even fried an egg. "Thekitchen seemed a dismal bother; I had noreason to go ihere."

Born in Pasadena, Calif., in 1912, shegraduated from Smith College and there-after "lived a lovely bulterlly life," until.at the outbreak of World War II she vol-unteered for the OSS, She hoped to be-come a spy but was sent inslead lo Ceylon

as a file elerk. There in 1943 she met herhusband, a painter who had been turnedinto a map maker by the OSS.

Equally accomplished as a photog-rapher, a violinist and a judo expert. PaulChild had lived in Paris in the 192O's,car\'ing copies of antique French furni-ture and selling theni to tourists. He mar-ried Julia after the war and returned toFrance as an officer of the U.S. informa-tion Agency, Familiar with the languageand the better restaurants, he introducedhis wife lo French cooking, "An intox-icating revelation," she recalls. "I wasbilious for two months,"

Her indigestion soon passed and, nothaving any children to care for, she en-rolled at the Cordon Bleu, the celebratedFrench cooking school. She studied witha disciple of the immortal Auguste Es-coffier and within six months had learnedenough to enter Le Ceriic des Goiu-mt7/fi, agroup of trusting Frenchwomenwho met twice a monlh lo try out theirexperiments on one another.

Practiced on students

Together with two other women in thegroup, Simone Beck and LouiselteBertholle, she then established her owncooking school in Paris and began work-ing on her book. Mastering the An ojFrench Cooking. "We were fortunate,"Mrs. Child says, "in having our studentsto practice on."

The book took 12 years to write, theChilds meanwhile moving around Fu-rope as Paul worked al U,S. consulatesin Marseilles, Bonn and Oslo. They set-tled in Cambridge in 1961, the year thatPaul retired from government service andJulia's book was published.

Now in its fifth printing, the book hasalready sold over 100,000 copies at SIO acopy. The critics thought it definitive.

Mrs. Child's premise is that Frenchcooking is "neither so long, so rich nor socomplicated" that ii cannot be iiceom-plished by anybody willing lo take thenecessary trouble, "lt doesn't have to befancy," she says, "but you have to careabout what you buy; squeeze ihe toma-toes, shun the bottled salad dressing—that son of thing."

Although she admits lo a weakness forfrozen Lima beans* and canned beets.Mrs, Child otherwise orders fresh vege-tables. She also cuis her own meal. Herbreakfast consists of fruit and tea; herlunch of a cold dish and a salad. Even atdinner, the principal meal of Ihe day,both she and Paul eat sparingly, fearfulthat if they once gave way to temptation.ihey both would gain 20 pounds.

Mrs. Child's introduction to televisionoccurred within a year of her arrival inCambridge, A friend at WGBH invitedher 10 discuss her newly published book

in an interview but before she could doso, the station burned to ihe ground.Several months later, as a gesture of com-miseration, in a makeshift studio in awarehouse, she offered to demonstratethe making of an omelet.

Remembering that first sight of Mrs.Child. Russell Morash, now the producerand director of The French Chef said, "Ithought to myself. Who is this mad-woman cooking an omelet on a book-review program?" Exuberantly smashingeggs, gossiping about the merits of cop-per pans, Mrs. Child enthralled all thosewho saw her. She proved to be, in thewords of her husband, "a natural clown."The station promptly engaged her for aseries of 26 demonstration films and foreach show she received a fee of about S50.

The filming takes place in a modelkitchen on the second floor of a gas-and-electric company's plant. A mirror dan-gles from two chains in the ceiling abovethe siove. thus allowing the cameramanto photograph the food in the pots.

On one recent and typical rehearsalday, Mrs, Child arrived at the gas plantat nine A.M. She wore her customary cos-tume: a khaki blouse, a blue denimapron and tatiersall sneakers. Half anhour later ihe production crew appeared,lugging their lights and cameras up afire escape on the rear of the building.Twenty minutes before the cameras rolled,Mrs. Child checked a list of ingredientsand utensils with Ruth Lockwood, as-sistant producer of the show,

"Wooden spoon," said Mrs. Lock-wood.

"Wooden spoon," repeated Mrs. Child."Parsley sprigs," said Mrs. Loek-

wood."Check," said Mrs. Child,And so forth, through a list that in-

eluded olive oil. macaroons, butcherknives, scallions, squares of wax paper,vermouth, cucumbers and 74 other items.

Mrs. Child and Mrs, Lockwood (whohas gained 15 pounds sinee coming to theshow) then rehearsed the entire program,blocking out stage movements and timingeuch part of the cooking process. If thelesson deals with a volatile substancefpastry, hollandaise sauce, etc.) they pro-vide at least two sets of all the importantingredients to insure themselves againstcatastrophe. In the 68 shows that Mrs.Child has so far filmed, the cameras havestopped on only six occasions, the mostspectacular of ihese being the times whena souillé fell and when a kidney Hambéfailed to catch fire.

The morning after that rehearsal, Mrs.Child turned up at the studio once againfor the actual filming of a show on Inmbstew, " r m Julia Child." she said into thecamera, "and loday we're going to provethat lamb stew can be French too." Shebegan with a finished slew in the oven, a

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of ¡III' food in this cotnitrij /'.v friyhtfttl." Mrs. I'hikf ded/tres. "//'.s- liecanse people don't care etiottyli."

half-done slew simmering in a pot on ihcstove and Ihe materials for a ihird stewarranged before her on cutting boards.The demonstration was distinguished byonly one minor error. At the momentwhen Mrs. Child proudly picked up IheSlew and said with a flourish, "And nowwe put it in the refrigerator." Mrs. Lock-wood napped her hands excitedly, "Ofcourse I don't mean the refrigerator,"said Mrs. Child, unperturbed, "I meanwe put it in Ihe oven,"

Her husband, watching from behindthe cameras, smiled indulgently. Through-out the ñlming he busied himself with themixing of beef extract and water in a winebotlle. Although Mrs. Child uses real

wine for her cooking, the synthetic wineis placed on ilic table setting at the end ofthe program to save money. ("You don"lhave lo use liquor." she once informedher audience, "but it'll taste moreFrench if you do." I

Immediately üftor Mrs. Child finishedher demonstralion, Ihc set Tilled with acrowd of hungry cameramen, secrelar-ies. technicians, assistants and unidenti-fied persons introducing themselves sim-ply as "friends of WGBH," Morashwalked in olí the fire escape and peeredinto the pois on Ihe stove. "The bestlunch in town," he said, "certamly thebesl free lunch." While 18 people feasicdon the day's lesson. Mrs. Child witichcd

from a polite dislance. "Most of the foodin this country is frightful," she said. "It'sbecause people don'l care enough, jusl amatter of bnd habils."

Living always m the hope of correclingthose bad hubits, Mrs, Child thinks ofherself asa missionary instructing a nohicbut savage race in a civilixed ari. The re-sult of her teaching first manifests itself inmarkets and hardware stores.

The morning after her show, grocersfind themselves surrounded by womenclamoring for whatever Mrs. Child dis-cussed ihe night before. The rt-qucslsvary from city lo city, because ihc differ-ent slaiions broadcast her tilms on dif-ferent schedules. Thus a lady in San

Francisco could be demanding fish headson the same morning that a lady in NewYork asks for chicken livers.

Mrs. Child's own butcher. Jack Sav-cnor, offers similar evidence. He reportsthat after she cooked a goose on TV. hehad a big run on gccsc. "I mean, howmany geese do you ihink a guy could sellin a year? ' he says, "Maybe six, maybeseven. Bui Ihc week after she works onIhe goose, I sell sixly-five."

Mrs. Child's photograph, clipped froma newspaper, decorates Savenor's meiitscale. And he lakes great pride in herpatronage. 'She does such Justice to themeal," he sa>s. "She gives us honor; shegi"cs us profit." THE END

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