On the Passing of Mrs. Child

When someone famous passes, especially someone of a slower culture that is passing (see "Out of Time" series), the media usually misses the boat when they attempt to reduce that life to a sound bite. At the death of Julia Child, it may very well be the sheer force of her personality that prevented any mistakes in the obituary.

Anyone that knows me, knows that I have a pretty intense relationship with good food, one that occasionally elicits an annoyed but affectionate roll of the eyes from family and friends: "Geez Mike, do you have to ask the guy about the pizza dough? It's pizza, fer Pete's sake." However, as I read, see and hear the obits and stories about Mrs. Child I remember why I love cooking and eating well--because it's not really about the food.

Like most of us, Julia Child found her path quite by accident. It all started because she wanted to help the war effort and she thought (without any prompting) that the best way to go about it was to become a spy. How many people do you know that think they can be a f@#&ing spy? Yet as a typist for the OSS in France, she met her husband and the journey pretty much began from there.

Thus, when I curl up with someone's ditherings about the high gastronomic life, like Mrs. Child or the brilliant (and occasionally soused) M.F.K. Fisher, I remember that the author and I aren't really talking about eating. In the end, my burger-loving friends and family are right: food is just fuel. But good food is an effort, an act of love and life-affirming concentration. Take a basic requirement to keep your metabolic processes moving and turn it into art--an exclaimation that you are alive and glad of it.

I often wish I believed I could be a spy.
Bon Appetit, Julia.