Julia Visits the Pike Place Market

My mother and my sister have almost the same birthday so that creates a lot of stress for me around the end of February each year. In 1995, faced with this annual dilemma again, I was intrigued to read that Julia Child would be having an autograph party at Sur La Table at the Pike Place Market in Seattle to sign her new book, The Way to Cook. So I conspired with my mother to buy a copy for my sister and with my sister to buy a copy for my mother which didn't leave me with enough money to buy a copy for myself so I got a signed bookmark. We knew the meeting would be brief but we wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to at least glean a little knowledge from her so we debated between asking her how to keep the pie crust on a lemon meringue pie from getting soft and what restaurant she recommended in the market. Lunch was looming so that won out and she acknowledged that she like Maximilien's, the little French restaurant at the southwest corner of the market just past the fish tossers. Just as she promised, lunch was delicious and our lemon pies have continued to languish with soggy crusts. Following lunch the cookbooks disappeared onto the bookshelves at my mom and sisters' homes and I promptly lost my bookmark. Neither of them have ever reported making a dish from the books.



Fast forward to last weekend when our friend Summer and my husband and I went to see the new movie Julie and Julia. You probably know all about it, but in case you don't, it is about this young woman, Julie Powell, who dreams about being a writer while she languishes in a dreadful customer service job answering insurance claim questions. Eventually she decides to make all of the recipes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking, (around 600) in one year and blog about it. The movie then switches back and forth between Julia (played by Meryl Streep) and her life living in France, learning to cook and writing about it, and Julie and her life, which of course ends with her getting famous.

In the days following the trip to the movies I began wordering whatever happened to theose cookbooks. I asked my mom if she still had hers and if it would be alright if I borrowed it. It was still in a near virgin state and incredibly that elusive bookmark was even still holding a spot next to the front cover.

It is written as a more modern cook's how-to book incorporating both modern technology and time and waist saving techniques. This latter was especially helpful as I couldn't imagine how she ended up being average sized after hearing Meryl Streep exclaim over and over, "I just love butter".

It is divided into chapters on soup, bread, eggs, fish, poultry, meat, vegetables, salad, pastry, desserts and cakes and cookies. Each chapter has a number of 'master recipes' ranging from a paltry 3 in cakes and cookies to 23 in vegetables. She believes that once the novice cook has mastered the masters that she can then utilize that skill and wisdom to create the other recipes in the chapters. Okay.

So why do I care? Well it turns out that I am closing in on my 60th year and would like to commemorate it in some way. When I turned 50 I walked 500 miles in one month and I certainly don't want to do that again, unless it is around the deck of a cruise ship. So I'm thinking of something somewhat the opposite of excessive walking-excessive eating preceeded of course, by excessive cooking. Julia has included exactly 100 master recipes in The Way to Cook and I intend to accomplish all of them before my 60th birthday, August 24, 2010.

Tune in to see how it all turns out.

K