Sweet Child O' Mine

Cliffs notes from the discussion last night:

Julia Child thought Alice Waters was nuts. Molly O'Neill, who lived across the street from Child in Cambridge, A.) said that Child preferred male chefs and B.) did a very funny impression of Child saying derisively that "a peach is not dessert.!" The panel then started to veer in this weird jokes-at-Alice Waters'-expense direction, though Dan Barber did try to defend her. But Alice is hardly the anti-Julia. They both love food, they both want to share that love for food. I would hope that Julia Child would have been able to turn her wrath on a more appropriate adversary, like the people who make Uncrustables.

Child was also apparently a big supporter of agribusiness -- The French Chef was sponsored by Safeway for many years, and she didn't give a hoot about where her ingredients were coming from.

Molly O'Neill says she wasn't a very good cook! She was a great teacher, and a great cheerleader for good food, but that her food was just meh.

Laura Shapiro says she preferred the glossy, perfect shows of later years over the funny "Remember, you are alone in the kitchen and nobody can see you" years. (In case your memory fails, she dropped half a potato pancake on the stove, not a chicken, or a turkey, or a turducken or whatever.)

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I must admit that I had hoped in vain to see a French Chef segment Judith Jones talks about in The Tenth Muse (pg. 72):

"Another memorable Julia moment of truth came when I was on the set as she was preparing suckling pig. She was explaining how the ears and the tail could easily burn while the piglet was roasting in the oven, so the thing to do was to wrap a piece of foil around each. Then she paused, looking at the creature in front of her, and said that there was an even easier method for the tail. Fortunately, she pointed out, there's a natural little hole below the tail, so just tuck the tail into that and it won't burn."