This isn’t about the movie. I haven’t even seen “Julie and Julia” yet–even though my sister calls me every few days to check and to nag. But the previews and my sister’s reminders have started me thinking about my long term relationship with Julia.

I can’t credit Julia Child with instilling in me a love of cooking. My mom and dad did that. Mom was Irish and she was raised on a working farm. Meat, potatoes, bread, and butter were the mainstays of her cuisine. She always followed recipes, and she canned the best dill pickles and chili sauce that I’ve ever eaten. My dad was Italian and he was what I would describe as a performance cook. When he was in the kitchen, he wanted an audience. And cooking was his second passion–right after practicing medicine. He was pretty ruthless in his pursuit of new recipes. One time when we were at a restaurant, he excused himself from the table, walked into the kitchen and charmed the chef out of his secret recipe for minestrone soup.

There is an old saying that too many cooks spoil the broth, but in my home, the rule was the more cooks, the merrier. I was invited to join in the fun from the time I was seven or eight. I made my first pumpkin pie when I was ten. I remember it because I used whole cloves instead of ground. And no one said a word. There were no snickers, not a word of criticism. As we came across them, we took the whole cloves out of our mouths and deposited them on our plates–just as if that was the normal way to eat pumpkin pie.

And that brings me back to Julia. She was the first chef I ever saw on TV (and I watched many of those early shows). She confirmed what I’d already learned in my parents’ kitchen–mistakes are okay. In fact, they’re to be expected. The important thing is to pick that chicken up off the floor and get on with the meal. Being able to carry on after mistakes–both big and little–is a practice I’ve carried through life and I hope I’ve passed it on to my children.

I’m also connected to Julia in other ways. I was married with two sons when I bought my copy of “The Art of French Cooking.” I had quit my day job as an English teacher and I was looking for some kind of creative outlet. Experimenting with French cuisine gave me that. I certainly didn’t cook my way through the cookbook. (Kudos to Julie, but she didn’t have two boys clinging to her legs so that she had to stumble around the kitchen like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein while she was whipping up coq au vin.)

Two of Julia’s recipes became traditional favorites in my home. The first was the above mentioned coq au vin. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Paris twice, and both times I’ve ordered coq au vin at this little bistro on the Seine where it’s supposed to be the best in the city. Julia’s is better. But be warned. It takes hours to prepare; you have to peel all those little pearl onions, you have to have the courage to flame brandy, and you have to use as many pots as you have burners on your stove and then clean them up. But it’s always worth it.

Her recipe for Coquilles St. Jacques a la Parisienne became the dish I served traditionally on Christmas Eve and it too became a family favorite. (Of course, as the two boys grew older and we acquired a third one, I added fish filets to the scallops to make the dish affordable.) In the early years, we would eat this wonderful meal after attending an early Christmas Eve Mass where one or more of the boys would act in a Christmas pageant and drop the frankincence or gold–and once even the Christ child. Thank heavens Julia always recommended a good wine.

Aside from the memories and traditions I’ve created in my own family, thanks to Julia, I also owe her for showing me that you should always follow your passion. That’s really how I became a writer. Joseph Campbell writes about it, but Julia Child lived it.

Thanks, Julia. Are there women who’ve influenced you and inspired you?

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 29th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Cara Summers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.