1. LA BELLE FRANCE: A NEW LIFE BEGINS
PARIS, HERE WE COME
THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD newlywed Julia Child was feeling queasy as she peered out the porthole of a heaving SS America. There were no stars in the November sky, but she could make out dim lights winking through the grimy fog. Julia's first glimpse of France made sleep impossible, so she bent over her tiny writing table and added a note to the letter her husband, Paul, was writing to his twin brother, Charlie, back in Pennsylvania.
She tells everyone that she misses them terribly but can't wait to finally see Paris. She sends her love especially to the family dog and Mimi, her favorite cat-in-law. She pleads for news of their latest mischief.
Julia had married into a letter-writing, animal-loving family that warmly embraced its dogs and cats, and the tall, two-legged newcomer with the warbly voice. Cold noses, sloppy dog kisses, and purring balls of fur were highlights of every family reunion. They reminded her of growing up in a rambunctious Pasadena household where frisky Airedales were the favorite playmates of Julia and her two siblings.
A passion for animals was one more sign—if she needed any more—that her marriage to Paul would be a good match. They also shared an appetite for fine food and adventure. They fell in love over steaming bowls of potted chicken in Kunming, China, where they were both stationed during the war while working for the Office of Strategic Services, America's first spy agency.
Paul Child was ten years older—and ten inches shorter—than Julia. He worked for the Foreign Service and in the fall of 1948 was heading for his new job designing cultural exhibits at the American embassy in Paris. A talented photographer, painter, and poet, Paul had lived in a very different Paris twenty years earlier, when Americans came by the boatload to pen great thoughts in cafés and party the nights away in jazz clubs. Now he was eager to show his wide-eyed California bride, Julia McWilliams, the Paris he so loved. She jumped at the chance to live in the most beautiful city in the world.
Dawn was just breaking as burly stevedores wrestled with six trunks and fourteen suitcases, jammed with almost everything the couple owned, and lowered their massive Buick to the dock. The "Blue Flash" guzzled petrol at a breathtaking rate and would be a tight fit in the narrow streets of the Left Bank where they planned to settle, but it was a gift from Julia's father they couldn't afford to leave behind.
They squeezed into the front seat, giddy with fatigue and anticipation. Paul revved the engine and aimed for Paris. On the French country roads, tiny Citro?ns and Renaults were dwarfed by the Flash, like pilot fish around a huge blue shark. Julia's head swiveled from the map to the window as she breathlessly pointed out every gabled farmhouse and church spire. Paul figured they'd see the City of Light by nightfall, even with a stop in Rouen for lunch.
LOVE AT FIRST BITE
THEY RUMBLED INTO the medieval town hungry, looking for la Couronne, a restaurant Paul picked out of his dog-eared Guide Michelin. The wood-beamed room was cozy and warm, and a low fire licked at three fat ducks slowly rotating on a spit. The air was dense with the scent of bubbling butter as they followed a waiter to their table and pored over the menu. Julia deferred to Paul, who seemed to know it by heart. Start with oysters portugaises on buttered rounds of rye. Then a whole Dover sole, faintly briny, from that morning's catch, still sizzling on the plate, followed by a crisp green salad, fromage blanc, and strong filtered coffee. They shared a bottle of chilled Pouilly-Fuissé—in the middle of the day! Julia felt tipsily French already.
Her first bite of French food was a revelation—she remembered it for the rest of her life, and the memory grew more delicious every time she told the story.
They arrived in Paris as the sun was setting. Through the windshield lay a city Paul scarcely recognized. Piles of rubble clogged some streets and few cars snaked through the normally teeming traffic circles. Whole blocks of apartment buildings were dark, boulevards all but deserted. Gas was still scarce and electricity unreliable. Unable to get butter and cream, chefs at some of the fancier restaurants closed their doors rather than compromise their haute-cuisine standards. Cuisine of any kind was hard to come by for many Parisians, let alone the abandoned cats and dogs who roamed the city scrounging for food and warmth. When there were no table scraps, the ranks of gutter cats, the city's renowned chats de gouttières, skittered along slate rooftops, hoping to snare dozing pigeons.
Paul gripped the wheel tightly, cranked down the window, and leaned out to get a better view. Like other drivers he turned off his headlights, a cautionary habit left over from the war years, and slowly maneuvered the Flash through cramped streets in the murky dusk. Occasionally, shadowy figures emerged from the gloom, making driving even more unnerving.
As they peered through the windshield, suddenly there it was—la tour Eiffel, outlined in red blinking lights, another reminder of the city's vulnerability during the war. Julia's heart exploded at the sight.
ROO DE LOO
THE FIRST MONTH, they stayed at the H?tel Pont Royal, a snazzy address in the Latin Quarter, while Paul settled into his job at the embassy and Julia searched for an apartment. She finally found one at 81 rue de l'Université, in the most elegant quarter of Paris. Although the old h?tel particulier oozed Gallic charm, it had seen better days and definitely lacked American amenities, like dependable heat and electricity. Some nights as they sat reading in the dim salon, they could see their breath. The formal but shabby Louis XVI decor made them feel as though they should be wearing powdered wigs.
The apartment was stuffed with bric-a-brac, faded draperies, and too many rickety tables and chairs, so they moved the most unsightly pieces to a storage room they called the oubliette, the "forgettery." The drafty, high-ceilinged rooms quickly swallowed the contents of their many trunks and suitcases. They were glad they'd brought all those extra blankets, sheets, and warm clothing, since scarcity was still a painful fact of French life.
As they settled in, Julia and Paul found that the warmest spot was the top-floor kitchen, up a narrow back staircase from the living rooms. Originally servants' quarters, the kitchen had large windows facing the courtyard, so it was bright even on dreary mornings. And fairly spacious, though Julia towered over everything in it except for an ancient stove, a coal-burning "monster" that made her long for the modern kitchen she had left behind in their house on Olive Street in Washington, D.C. On one of her first shopping forays, she bought a compact gas stove with two small ovens on spindly legs, which they wedged next to the behemoth. The shallow soapstone sink that supplied cold running water, when the pipes didn't freeze, just wouldn't do. So she devised a makeshift hot-water system for dishwashing and warm baths, and insisted on covered containers for garbage. Roughing it at the family cabin in Maine was one thing, but she refused to put up with primitive conditions in the cultural capital of the world.
It took some getting used to, but "Roo de Loo," as Julia named it, gradually became home.
The view was dazzling—the Paris of her dreams. The windows overlooked the courtyard of the Ministry of Defense, and the graceful spires of the Church of Saint Clotilde floated above the rooftops, its bell softly singing the hours. It was all very picturesque, except that winter, foggy and damp, was settling in around the gray stone buildings. Everyone in Paris was looking for warmth, especially the mice.
A BETTER MOUSETRAP
TO JULIA'S SURPRISE, Roo de Loo came with a maid—and mice in the kitchen. Neither woman could tolerate souris scampering among the pots and pans, so one rainy day the frizzy-haired femme de ménage bumped up the kitchen stairs with a large market basket on her arm. Could a warm brioche, a spicy country paté, pain au chocolat, or some other delectable edible be inside? No, this basket held something more delicious. Jeanne lifted the lid, and a black-and-mud-colored ball of fur emerged. Two glittering green eyes traveled up and up and up until they met Julia's. A pussycat! It was love at first sight.
Jeanne patiently explained that French housewives relied on cats to control the mice, and they usually just called them Minou (Pussy). She shrugged and left Julia gazing at her adorable new mousetrap. The cat stared back but couldn't be coaxed from the basket. When Julia finally gave up and went to stir her simmering stockpot, the kitty's curiosity took over, and it leaped to a shelf above the stove and crouched next to a mixing bowl.
When Paul returned from the embassy for lunch, as he did most days, they embraced as if they'd been apart for months, not a few hours. Julia gleefully introduced him to Minou, the purrrrfect answer to their mouse-control problem. Paul studied the newcomer carefully and delivered some interesting news—Monsieur Pussycat was a mademoiselle. Without missing a beat, Julia rechristened her "Minette" and set two steaming bowls of soup on the table.
She had been bending over her stove all morning trying to duplicate the velvety mushroom soup they had devoured at their favorite restaurant the night before. She pulled a baguette from Paul's raincoat pocket, tore the crusty loaf into chunks, and sliced big wedges of strong-smelling Roquefort. She filled two tumblers from an open bottle of red wine and joined Paul at the table, fretting about the potage. It smelled scrumptious, but was full of lumps. Maybe it was the roux—was it hot broth added to flour paste, or the other way around? Paul took a spoonful, paused, then let his diplomatic training kick into gear. Lumpy, but still very tasty. He kissed her hand and told her not to worry so much. Julia vowed to try again even if it took all afternoon. Paul, sensing another chance to show husbandly support, volunteered to be her guinea pig and taste every batch.
From her safe perch, the hungry cat watched and waited. Finally, she bounded to the floor and onto Paul's lap. From under the table's edge, her nose rested just inches from his bowl and the crumbled cheese on the plate. With one flick of her paw, she scooped a chunk into her mouth, then eyed the bowl of soup.
Julia took the hint, spooned some soup into a saucer, and set it on the floor. She watched anxiously, worried that even a starving cat might find her soup wanting. At first Minette ignored the soup, seeming content on Paul's lap. Suddenly she slid to the floor, dipped a delicate paw into the soup, and raised a lump to her mouth, chewed deliberately, then lapped the saucer until it gleamed. Paul marveled at Minette's elegant French airs while Julia refilled the saucer—and their bowls. A drowsy pussycat studied her reflection in the empty dish, then rested her head on Julia's large red leather shoe as the murmuring voices lulled her to sleep.
The mice scurrying under the sink had little to fear—Minette had other menu options.
MéNAGE à TROIS
WITH THE MOUSE patrol more or less in place, Minette quickly became an indispensable member of the Child household during the chilly winter of 1949. The furry newbie was loaded with personality. Sly. Curious. Tireless, unless suddenly overcome with the urge to nap. Clever and resourceful, she was an endless source of amusement. Paul and Julia had always loved animals but never thought of themselves as "cat people," so falling head over heels for Minette took them both quite by surprise.
The snug kitchen was the trio's favorite hub. To make it her own, Julia hung some favorite cooking tools—a Magnagrip knife holder and a Dazey can opener. Back home, her beginner's batterie de cuisine seemed adequate, but here she began to covet the balloon whisks, wooden paddles, and tortoiseshell scrapers she saw in the shops. Were these the magic wands that transformed ordinary ingredients into sublime dishes? She was determined to find out.
Breakfast was still very American: eggs and toast, and coffee brewed in the battered tin percolator. Coffee remained a hot item on the black market, but Julia could get hers from the American commissary. Like most old Parisian apartments, theirs had no refrigerator, and on winter mornings when the air was colder outside, they kept a bottle of milk on the window ledge. The cream rose to the top overnight, a special treat Paul and Julia indulgently scooped into Minette's dish, until they discovered it gave her crise de foie (digestive troubles).
Julia went off to Berlitz classes three mornings a week, then rushed home to make lunch for Paul and maybe steal a little snuggling time. Afternoons she wandered the streets of the quartier, map and French phrase book in hand. Minette was content to sit by the large windows in the curved hallway that joined the wings of the L-shaped apartment. There she stared out over the green slate rooftops of Paris shrouded in fog. On damp winter days, pigeons cooing under the dripping eaves set her teeth to chattering.
When Julia returned from her afternoon jaunts, she often found Minette in the kitchen sitting next to her preferred toy, a long piece of string with a gnawed brussels sprout tied to its end, patiently waiting for a playmate. Sometimes she seemed spellbound by something, anything, even dust bunnies beneath the cold stove. Nothing could break her Zen-like concentration—unless Julia dangled a fat sausage from her market basket and was willing to share. On rare occasions Minette pranced into the kitchen, head high in the air, to deposit a hapless and no doubt very slow mouse. Paul figured this display of hunting prowess was an attempt to prove she was earning her keep. But all three of them knew Minette's place was secure—she had them at "Meow."
NO ORDINARY CATS
EVENINGS, JULIA, PAUL, and Minette huddled around a potbellied stove in the drafty salon. Julia, swaddled in a long woolen scarf and tweed coat buttoned to the collar, fumbled the pages of her Berlitz with gloved hands. A shivering Paul leafed through stacks of photographs and maps for an exhibition on the Berlin airlift, his first major project for the US Information Service. Minette, lost in pussycat dreams, curled in her regular spot on the threadbare Persian carpet, close to the stove that barely glowed despite being stoked all day.
When Julia tired of memorizing irregular French verbs, she daydreamed, mostly about food since she was always hungry. She couldn't stop thinking about that fish lunch in Rouen. The thought of sole meunière swimming in brown butter was like Proust's madeleines, releasing a flood of mouthwatering memories of her first meal in la belle France and the start of her new life.
When the memory grew too tantalizing, she and Paul would kiss the cat goodnight and head for a neighborhood bistro, a loud and bustling place that served simple, hearty fare. Bistro regulars were once assigned a drawer to keep their napkins, and poodles sat on their own chairs.
Paul and Julia, not yet regulars but well on their way, were amazed to discover there were five thousand restaurants in Paris alone. The French practically invented the idea of dining out and even gave restaurants their name—the first ones served "fortified" dishes they claimed could restore (restaurer) digestive health. For Julia and Paul the healing power of good food, for both body and soul, made perfect sense. They began to set aside Julia's monthly income from a small inheritance for their gustatory adventures.
Paul wrote home that Julia was positively obsessed with tasting sole every place they went, and since the legendary chef Escoffier catalogued 185 ways to prepare it, he figured it might take a while—and a bundle of cash. They would skimp on taxis and cleaning supplies, but never on food for themselves or Minette. With American currency propping up the French economy, one dollar would buy a bistro meal with a small carafe of table wine. A splurge at a temple of cuisine like Maxim's cost a princely sixteen dollars, but the taste sensations—priceless.
Once, while strolling the arcades of the Palais Royal, they came upon a Parisian food shrine, the elegant, two-hundred-year-old Grand Véfour, and couldn't resist. During their meal, they spied a short woman with a bird's nest of hennaed hair, tucked into a banquette at the far end of the dining room. She seemed oblivious to fawning waiters and diners' stares. Their waiter silently mouthed, "Colette"—the grande dame of French letters, now almost eighty. Like the other patrons, they were awestruck. The first woman elected to the venerable Académie fran?aise lived in the hotel and, when she didn't dine upstairs with her cats, presided at her regular table.
If she and Julia had a chance to chat, they could have swapped stories about their pussycats. Colette was the most famous "cat lady" in France. In her chorus-girl days, she starred in the pantomime La chatte amoureuse in full cat suit, and her wildly popular novel La chatte featured her kitty, Saha, as the romantic heroine. It was Colette who once famously pronounced, "There are no ordinary cats." Julia and Paul, already crazy for Minette, totally agreed.
POUSSIEQUETTES EVERYWHERE
JULIA HAD BECOME a flaneuse—a stroller, a saunterer, and (she happily admitted) a loafer. As she soaked up the two-thousand-year-old city's history, art, and culture, she began to see cats everywhere. And no wonder—since Roman times, the City of Light has been a haven for pussycats. In museums and cathedrals, she noticed cats hiding in plain sight—chasing rats in carvings on wooden choir stalls, romping on the pages of richly illuminated prayer books, and adorning the crests of fierce medieval knights.
Cats fired the imagination of writers from Montaigne to Victor Hugo to Cocteau. Some say French cats changed the course of history when they drove the plague-bearing rats from Europe. Parisians have always prized the practical cats that patrol rooftops, elusive cats that lurk in alleyways, beautiful cats that sun themselves on park benches, and regal cats that take their owners out for strolls and stop traffic on the Champs-élysées. Pussycats accompany Parisians from birth to their final resting place—feral cats still prowl the Père Lachaise Cemetery, comforting mourners and begging for handouts.
Everywhere she went, Julia began to listen for the high-pitched "Minouminouminouminou" of housewives calling "Herekittykittykitty"—an invitation to a meal or just a doting pat. The sound triggered a ripple of delight, and she greeted every kitty that crossed her path, especially the black ones, like a long-lost friend. To celebrate their unique je ne sais quoi, she coined a Julia-ism, poussiequette, her favorite term of endearment for pussycats from then on.
When her feet gave out after an afternoon window-shopping on the fashionable avenue Montaigne or ducking into tiny galleries in the Marais, she liked to plop down at a sidewalk table among all the tourists, expats, and colorful locals. Every café seemed to have at least one resident pussycat wandering among the marble-topped tables.
Julia's favorite hangout became Café des Deux Magots, at one of the busiest corners on the boulevard Saint-Germain. It was a good place to linger over a café complet and study her map, sort out impressions, or just watch the afternoon light fade on the ancient stones of the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Prés across the street.
Everyone there seemed to be Somebody. Janet Flanner, the New Yorker's Paris correspondent, had her own regular table where she nursed a cassis and watched le tout Paris pass by. Albert Camus, wreathed in smoke from a stubby Gauloise, often sat scribbling in a back corner, while Paris's power couple, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, preferred the Café de Flore just down the street. Spotting someone famous required a certain Gallic nonchalance that didn't come naturally to the effusive Julia, but she learned to suppress her excitement until she got home and could regale Paul and Minette over an aperitif.
Celebrity spotting was a pastime she shared with columnist Art Buchwald, whom she met at an embassy party. He was in love with Paris too, and so enamored of felines he made his cat the hero of a detective novel. Buchwald gossiped about the characters who filled his "Paris After Dark" column and confided that many famous Parisians were fellow cat people. Camus, for one, doted on his cats, Cali and Gula, and called them "a necessary element" in his life. Paris cats fascinated Chagall too. Floating through several of his paintings is a mysterious cat with a haunting, human face.
Picasso adored his Minou, an elegant Siamese who often posed for him. Because he painted cats so often, some say it's a shame Pablo's oeuvre doesn't include his "Pussycat Period."
Poussiequettes around every corner intensified Julia's passion for all things French. In a letter home, she gushed, "I cannot tell you how much I adore this France and this Paris, these people, their language, their pace, their food, their apartments, their streets.… We have found nothing but exquisite friendliness, charm, politeness, warmth, gaiety, downright pleasure.… The cats here are, for the most part, big, sleek and wonderful.… I am never coming home, so you will just have to come here."
PARIS, PICTURE-PURRFECT
ON WEEKENDS, PAUL joined Julia on her sojourns, toting a tripod and a bag stuffed with a sketchbook, cameras, film, and filters. Every so often he'd drop to his knees and peer down a cobbled street to frame a man on a bicycle with a baguette tucked under his arm, or chemises billowing in the breeze from a balcony.
While Paul studied the scene, Julia studied Paul as he squinted through his viewfinder. Over time, she began to see what he saw—the poetry in a curlicued lamppost, a fog-shrouded steeple, or cats' eyes staring out from shadowy doorways and lace-curtained windows. Like Julia, he began to see cats everywhere. As he fiddled with his light meter, she couldn't resist making friends with his feline subjects. Even the most skittish tomcat answered her falsetto siren song.
High on the sights and sounds of Paris, Julia and Paul thought nothing of walking to the far edges of the Right Bank, through the red-light district of Pigalle, then climbing to the top of Montmartre for one more glimpse of the city below, wreathed in the amber glow of sunset. When the light was just right, they'd scramble to set up his gear before it faded.
Exhausted at the end of a day, they settled into a tiny bistro where a resident bird chirped in one corner and a fat white puss lay fast asleep on a pile of ledgers in another. A dog sporting a green turtleneck sweater watched as two "furiously animated monkeys ate peanuts … filling the place with clatter and squeals." It struck them both as "wonderfully Parisian."
They set out to explore a new quartier almost every week and kept track of their mission to make the city their own on a wall map that soon bristled with pushpins marking favorite spots. Paul's portfolio showcased his growing photo artistry and preferred subjects—his wife, the treelined boulevards of Paris, and pussycats at play or in repose.
LOVE, JUPAULSKI
LETTER-WRITING WAS still a vital art for Parisians, who sent pneumatiques, messages stuffed into vacuum tubes that whooshed underground to the nearest bureau de poste. Telephones were scarce, service erratic, and calls overseas too expensive. When Roo de Loo finally got a phone, Julia and Paul used it sparingly, preferring their ritual of quietly recording impressions in letters and daybooks, even when the salon was so frosty they had to huddle in bed and write with gloved hands.
Throughout his life Paul craved contact with his twin brother, Charlie, his sounding board and alter ego. He composed an almost daily journal, suffused with wit and intimacy, in an elegant longhand. His nimble mind ranged far and wide—his State Department exhibits, Cold War intrigues and prickly office politics, his search for creative fulfillment, and of course, his Julie, "this darling, sensitive, outgoing, appreciative, characterful & interesting woman."
She preferred to pound her typewriter keys, cramming every inch of the tissue-thin blue airmail paper with single-spaced tales of people they met, food they ate, and the escapades of their new love, Minette: "This pussy of ours is just a darling. I have never seen a cat I liked so much; she gallops all over the house, lies in wait for us, sits in her own chair in the dining room, just loves to be right with us all the time … and just couldn't be more fun or nicer."
Letters to Charlie and his wife, Fredericka ("Freddie"), began "Dearest Chafred," an affectionate blend of their two names, and were signed jointly "JuPaul," "JuPaulski," or "Pulia," a symbol of Julia and Paul's deepening bond—two hearts had become one.
When Julia had no time for a letter of her own, she added chatty updates to Paul's wherever she could squeeze in a few lines around the edges of the page, often asking about the animal kingdom in Pennsylvania: "Send more photos of cats & nephews, as well as selves." She complained when no news arrived—"Mimi [Chafred's cat] hasn't written us a word and we are a little hurt"—and she made sure that Minette kept up her end of the correspondence: "Minette wants everyone to know she caught a bird on the roof."
Charlie topped that achievement by claiming that his Mimi was the superior feline because she had invented several cat games. The brotherly competition escalated when Paul bragged that Minette had personally informed him that she—not Mimi—was the gaming genius nonpareil. To prove it, he described her biggest crowd-pleasers, helpfully translating from Minette's native tongue:
? "Tu te souviens de moi?" ("Do You Remember Me?") Minette, perched on a dining room chair, bestows a gentle paw pat on the arm of a tablemate every ten seconds to remind them of her undying affection—and appetite.
? "Où est cette Minou?" ("Where's the Cat?") When Julie makes the bed, Minette burrows under the sheets and rolls on her back, wriggling and clawing furiously. This game has a championship round, "J'irai à la blanchisserie" ("I'm going off to the laundry"). When it's time to gather up the dirty linen, Minette wraps herself in the bedclothes and gets buried in the hamper as JuPaul enact a mock funeral.
? "La Cavallerie vient au secours!" ("The Calvary to the Rescue") In a quiet salon, with her roommates absorbed in their books, Minette hides in a corner until they forget all about her. She suddenly streaks through the room, thudding like a herd of buffalo, and vanishes out the opposite door.
? The most challenging game, "La chute de la nourriture" ("The Falling Food"), starts with careful selection of le football, a small potato from a bag under the kitchen table. Minette noses it to the middle of the floor, stalks it, then pounces and rolls it to the edge of the stairs. With one swat it thump-thump-thumps down to the salon, with Minette scampering after. She retrieves the ballon and, Sisyphus-like, hauls it back up. Multiple rounds ensue. If no pomme de terre is available, substitutes may include onions, walnuts, or chicken gizzards.
Paul delivered the coup de grace when he informed Charlie of a painful truth—Minette, not their Mimi, gave the world "la Morsure," known as "Love Bites," the ultimate kitty pastime.
Julia's high spirits often bubbled onto the page too. She embellished her letters with playful drawings of hearts and arrows and, if Paul was the recipient, lipstick kisses. Though they were rarely apart, when Julia traveled with her father and stepmother to Italy in the spring of 1950, she yearned to return to her Paulski.
If a letter cried out for an extra-special dose of Julia joie de vivre, she rummaged through her cat stamp collection and squished one onto the paper. A pussycat chasing her tail or curled fast asleep suddenly materialized. To Paul her stamps were "like a bank of organ-stops ready to be interpretively used by Mme l'Artiste. They provide one of the outlets for a quality of Julie's which I particularly cherish." The impish images of pussycats that adorned her letters were a nod to Minette and a sign of the indelible imprint kitties would leave on her heart from now on.
JULIA GOES TO MARKET
JULIA'S LETTERS HOME hinted that her passion for French food had moved beyond the simple act of eating. She sent fewer descriptions of restaurant meals and more ecstatic accounts of her daily trips to local markets. She was beginning to see that a good meal begins with the best ingredients, and to get them you need to make friends in the right places. She later said that discovery changed her life. It certainly improved Minette's.
Marketing meant visiting dozens of shops, each with its own specialty—the crémerie for cheese and butter, the boucherie for veal chops and venison, the patisserie for apple tarts and gateaux au chocolat, the charcuterie for country hams and sausage, and of course a stop at the boulangerie, often twice a day, for a crusty baguette or batard, fragrant and warm from the oven. Yesterday's loaves became pain perdu, "lost" bread suitable only for stuffing or croutons. If there was no time for the daily trip to les Halles, the sprawling food market in the heart of Paris, open-air produce stalls closer to home offered whatever local farmers picked that morning—tender artichokes, sweet baby peas, or pale pink radishes.
Julia loved feasting her eyes on the shop displays. How perfect to learn that the French call window-shopping lèche-vitrine (licking the glass), as if mere looking was like savoring an ice-cream cone. Once inside she could sample to her heart's and tummy's content.
But when she stepped to the counter to buy, some of the jauntiness left her and she became uncharacteristically tongue-tied. Her Smith College French, though rapidly improving, fell short, and she was reduced to pointing and making strange nasal sounds. The vendors weren't impressed.
Even though at six foot two she towered over the petite French housewives, she was awed by the way they muscled their way through the markets, poking, pinching, and squeezing the produce like persnickety government inspectors. Only the very freshest would do. Later she complained to Paul about the pushy matrons with the sharp elbows. He only shrugged—they were just being choosy, and in a country that boasted three hundred cheeses, there was a lot to be choosy about. He encouraged her to be persistent. Once these proprietors got to know her, they'd take to her. He called this gift for winning everyone over "the Juliafication des gens."
A fish head was the turning point. One day the market crowds thinned and Julia found herself alone with the fishmonger's wife. She pointed at a filet of sole and the woman nodded curtly, then wrapped it. Julia haltingly asked if there were any fish scraps left. The woman smiled, held up a large fish head, and added it to the package.
The next time Julia came into the shop, the fishwife had set aside another, larger fish head and, with a wink, asked about her pussycat. Julia's French magically improved and the two began exchanging cat tales. Before long, they were gabbing about the fine spring weather, the first salmon of the season, and Julia's plans for cooking her sole. Which wine to go with it. Where to find tender asparagus. Who had the freshest, tastiest pears. And best cheeses. Local gossip. Politics. In-laws. Edith Piaf. Cats who like to go in and out but can't make up their minds. Enfin, kisses on both cheeks, two packages of fish in the basket, and fond greetings to Minette. à bient?t, Madame Child. Come back soon. Remember the salmon will be in next week. And fish heads for Minette. Toujours.
JACKDAW JULIE
JULIA HAD A WEAKNESS for gadgets and loved to hunt for bargains at Dehillerin, a kitchen gear bonanza in les Halles. Paul's salary was stretched thin by the end of the month, so the proprietor was persuaded to let her buy on credit. Her skill at picking through bins of kitchen junque reminded Paul of a scavenger bird, so he began calling her "Jackdaw Julie."
Occasionally Julia asked him to join her as she trolled the marché aux puces, the giant flea market. The invitation usually meant she had seen just the perfect doohickey, a real steal she couldn't pass up or carry home by herself. One time the object that caught her eye was an enormous marble mortar and pestle Paul described as "big as a baptismal font." He followed her through a dark labyrinth of stalls to reach this treasure, gamely shifted it onto his back, and staggered toward the Blue Flash, breathing hard while Julia chattered about the lovely quenelles she wanted to try, and all the other delights she would soon be grinding, mashing, and pulverizing.
Minette welcomed this latest find after giving it a thorough sniff test. It didn't take long for her to see the potential for quiet naps in the cool, curved marble bowl, especially on warm summer days when ovens were roaring and stockpots bubbling.
Julia's growing collection required new rows of hooks higher up on the wall to hold her acquisitions—a ricer, three sizes of balloon whisks, and a set of measuring cups she had shipped from home after she discovered that the French preferred to add a "handful of this" or a "dollop of that" until the dish tasted just right. Beneath each cup Paul neatly inscribed its size on the wall. Several heavy iron skillets dangled from the lip of the coal stove—irresistible playthings for Minette. She padded on the stovetop, swatted at the dangling spoons, ladles, and saucepans, and set the whole batterie de cuisine crazily clanging, a carillon of cookware that brought a halfhearted scold.
The kitchen came with an erratic gadget of its own, meant to compensate for the awkward upstairs/downstairs layout of the apartment. Like waiters who come and go as the spirit moves them, the balky dumbwaiter seemed to deliver meals to the dining room below only when it pleased. In cold weather Minette often dozed inside the contraption, preferring what little warm air might be trapped there to the chilly embrace of the marble mortar.
Julia's lunchtime repertoire was expanding. She found some charming pastry tins and wanted to try her hand at tartelettes, the tasty munchies she often snacked on at the market. She lined the little tins with butter and pastry dough, fluted the edges with the back of a knife, pricked the bottoms with a fork, and baked them to a golden brown. The sides collapsed and they weren't as pretty as the ones she bought, but they smelled heavenly. She put them in the dumbwaiter to cool while she whipped up the filling, fondue de volaille (chicken in a cream sauce)—one of Paul's favorites.
She sautéed some shallots, brought the cream sauce to a simmer, and finished just as the door slammed below. At that moment a frantic scrabbling came from the back of the dumbwaiter, and before Paul could get up the stairs, Minette shot by him in a blur.
When Julia pulled out the rack of cooling tartelettes, every one had been thoroughly tasted and little was left but crumbs. Paul got quite an earful of Julia's growing vocabulary of colorful French expletives, but he soothed her by offering to eat the delicious filling all by itself, as long as it was accompanied by a nice Sauvignon Blanc. They agreed that from now on Julia should always thoroughly check inside the dumbwaiter to be sure a hungry cat wasn't waiting for le déjeuner.
THE JOY OF COOKING
WHEN IT CAME to food and cooking, the embassy wives and Julia's friends back home thought she was becoming a bit eccentric. Her curiosity about the flavors in a new dish and her habit of begging the chef for the recipe were seen as odd and slightly déclassé. In the postwar years, American housewives had been led to believe it was shameful to spend so much time in the kitchen. Convenience ruled, with Bisquick, Jell-O, and Gravy Helper lining pantry shelves. Preparing meals for their families was considered a chore, not the joyous experience Julia found in hunting for the freshest ingredients, then peeling, chopping, simmering, and sharing with friends.
Cooking at home in Paris, however, could be a challenge, although she'd finally managed to buy one of the ice-block coolers the French fancifully called le frigidaire. Shortages persisted and political unrest brought strikes, so gas and electric service were unpredictable. During one outage, the iceman didn't cometh, and Julia lamented that several weeks of Minette's frozen dinners had melted.
Through it all, Julia was undaunted. She'd never been happier. She lived in a country obsessed with food, married to a man who adored her and adopted by a cat who made the perfect kitchen companion.
