It was August 2002 … and I was working on the eighth issue of Foodservice Monthly. Our wonderful marketing columnist, the late Karen Cathey, a national officer in the American Institute of Wine & Food (AIWF), was busy making arrangements for Julia Child’s visit to Washington D.C. for the opening of Bon Appetit! Julia Child’s Kitchen at the Smithsonian. She also celebrated her 90th birthday at 1789 with the help of AIWF during her visit when Ris Lacoste gathered an A-team of Washington chefs to cook for everyone’s favorite woman of food.
The National Museum of American History Media Event
Karen made sure I was on the press list for the media opening the morning before the 1 p.m. public opening on August 19, 2002. I was there (with my camera, of course) … maybe one hour early so I wouldn’t miss my first live opportunity to meet Julia Child, the genesis of my culinary journey.
A Little History
I still have my yolk-stained Mastering the Art of French Cooking (with Simone Beck and Louisette Bertholle, Knopf, 1961) that I used to learn how to make the joy known as Béarnaise sauce from page 84. Oh, I can’t forget the Coq au Vin (page 263) I made for the first French chef I worked for at the Atlanta Sheraton Biltmore. For some curious reason I thought this novice could cook for a chef. For a kid who grew up in Macon, Ga., I was in a non-drug induced (it was circa 1972) food nirvana whenever Julia was on television … teaching this young hotel food and beverage purchasing agent to be confident in the kitchen. The coq au vin was spot on (at least the chef said so).
The Press Forms a Line
Short interviews/photos with Julia were scheduled in advance and I was in third position that crazy morning … ahead of some national morning television crews who were upset they couldn’t bump the “unimportant” news outlets from the lineup. The important folks who showed up late were a little tense that morning with the word that Julia at 90 was recovering from back surgery and when she tired, the press session would end. I got in and maybe two or three others did before an obviously exhausted Julia asked to leave.
A No-Shoes Interview
You’ve seen the pictures taken from outside the kitchen looking in. On this day Julia sat at her table and for the interview, we were allowed to enter and join her … that is after we took our shoes off – socks only for entering the domain of JC. If you read the diary online of project manager Nanci Edwards you will learn what I did that day … the floor is not a floor, rather it’s a digitized copy of her home kitchen Armstrong linoleum flooring. We were walking on, in reality, a photo of her kitchen floor. There were asbestos fears in dismantling the Cambridge floor and the pattern had been discontinued. In comes the Smithsonian graphics department to take over and paste the image on top. I talked to Julia Child that morning sans shoes ... in her kitchen.
In the end, my interview (with a couple of pictures that I took) was simply an exchange of pleasantries. She asked me about Foodservice Monthly and we talked about when I saw her from afar at the Monterey Wine Festival in 1979 where she appeared on stage with an up and coming chef from France Jacques Pepin.Twenty years later they worked together in the award winning Julia Child & Jacques Pépin Cooking at Home. She smiled. I was thrilled and wished her a happy birthday.
Julia Child's Kitchen at the Smithsonian was originally scheduled to close in February 2004 ... but the crowds kept it open until January 8, 2012. But don't despair if you missed it, the Smithsonian will take the show apart, clean it and then rebuild it later this year for another larger show that will be announced soon.
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