My Life in France Read online

  We had indeed. The next day, Judith telephoned the hospital and located the doctor in charge of the asbestos research. Without telling him exactly why she was interested, she asked about their findings. The doctor said something like: “We have reason to believe that there may be a causative relationship between certain types of cancer and asbestos, and we advocate not using it in connection with any form of food preparation. Asbestos cement may be less harmful than plain asbestos, because it is compacted with cement, but we do not wish to theorize about this until our research is complete.”

  “About how long will that be?” Judith asked.

  “Oh, about five years,” he replied.

  “Thank you,” Judith said. She hung up and immediately called us in Cambridge.

  Quel désastre! We had already recommended using tile made of asbestos cement in the book, and now we were days away from taping our two bread shows for TV. But we couldn’t recommend using a potentially carcinogenic tile in our simulated baker’s oven! What to do?

  We had eight days to find a substitute. Any new tile must be affordable and available to the average American; it must be tough enough to get very hot and not split when cold water was dropped on it; it must adapt to bread loaves and ovens of various sizes; it must not weigh too much; and its glaze must be “high-fired” (baked at over 2,250 degrees), so as to avoid lead poisoning.

  At 103 Irving Street, Paul spent hours researching all manner of tiles, in various sizes, thicknesses, and prices: silicon-carbide plaques for $19.00 each, Pyrex slabs for $14.50, and slate for $5.15. The first two were too expensive, and when we tested a piece of slate it split in the oven’s heat.

  On Friday night, February 5, I made bread on three different tiles: quarry tile, tortoise-glaze tile, and firebrick splits. All three produced excellent loaves. None broke. Hooray!

  Then we had a long talk with Dr. Rothschild, a lead-poisoning expert at Sloan-Kettering Hospital. Not only was he a charming and careful scientist, but he and his wife had already read Volume II, bought a sheet of asbestos cement, and successfully made a loaf of French bread. He said that he didn’t think there was much, if any, danger from asbestos cement, but he would test it anyway.

  In taping the first bread show, we decided not to mention asbestos tile on air; we would simply suggest that people use ordinary red floor tiles. Judith reached much the same conclusion about the book. It was selling well, and in subsequent printings of Volume II, she made several corrections, one of them a quiet altering to red floor tile or quarry tile for use in the simulated baker’s oven. We never got any letters on the subject, and I’m not sure anybody even noticed. I began to suspect that French bread was the recipe I worked hardest on that the fewest people bothered to try!

  The taping of our bread shows went off quite well, though there was one last scare to get through. Hanging over the set were sixty-five very hot lights that burned like the Saharan sun. Arrayed in front of me were several bowls of rising dough, so I could show how bread dough should look at different stages. But the heat from the lights got the yeast going and, as they say, “Time and rising dough wait for no man!” Then I misplaced my reading glasses, on camera, and couldn’t read the little labels on the bowls. I kept up my patter, but picked up the wrong bowl of dough to demonstrate with. When I began to knead it, the dough didn’t behave the way it was supposed to. But I was already deep into my explanation, and managed to muddle through the scene. À la fin, the loaves rose perfectly just before going into the oven, and everything worked out fine at exactly 28.57 minutes.

  Whew!

  But there was no time to rest. We were on to the next show, and the next—“Pizza Variations,” “Chocolate Cake,” “Pressed Duck,” “Working with Chocolate,” etc. It was a hectic spring, fully taken up with rehearsing and shooting two French Chef programs every week, reviewing our French footage, and so on.

  IN MAY 1971, Paul and I slipped away from the telemaelstrom to the peace and quiet of La Pitchoune. After landing in Nice, we celebrated with our traditional lunch at the aérogare. The food was perfect, the wine was perfect, and the service was perfect. Ahhh! Where else in the world would you find airport food of such quality? As always, this ritual meal signified an internal shifting of gears: it reminded us not only to slow down, but to open up our senses. “You’re not in the U.S.A. anymore, kids,” it seemed to say. “You are here in la belle France! Faites attention!”

  At first we thought we might spend a week or two roaming the Côte d’Azur, but once we settled into our satisfying little house there was no question, we’d stay put. Our zest was worn out. We needed to be incognito, do nothing but sleep late, eat well, and enjoy the sound of the cuckoos and the smells of the countryside. But we were so keyed up that it took at least a week to adjust to our peaceful surroundings.

  La Peetch was as cold and dark as a dungeon. It took hours to get the radiators working, sweep out the cobwebs, and replace the burned-out lightbulbs. The carpenter and mason had done their work, but the plumber and electrician had yet to appear—and when they did, they discovered that our new dishwasher had the wrong voltage and was missing certain pieces. What with the holidays of Ascension and Pentecôte upon us, no work could be done for days. We shrugged. The big new parking lot at the top of the driveway looked magnificent, and behind the stone wall a line of pretty rosemary sprigs was sprouting. It had been an unusually cold winter in our corner of Provence, and all of the mimosas and a good many other plants had been killed off or badly stunted; now the survivors were full of bright-green shoots, and there was a profusion of enormous orange and yellow rosebuds.

  Before we’d arrived, the International Herald Tribune had published an article by a former Paris embassy colleague of Paul’s, who wrote about knowing us in the old days and how to find La Pitchoune. This was irritating, especially after two sets of American tourists and a Canadian family in a minibus drove right up our driveway asking for us. As instructed, Jeanne and Laurent told them, “The Childs aren’t here.” It seemed to do the trick.

  We had two of our TV shows, “Spinach Twins” (shot at La Pitchoune) and “Meat Loaf” (shot chez Boussageon, the butcher), made into sixteen-millimeter sound-and-color films. One evening, we invited a group of the locals over for a movie night. The audience numbered about a dozen, including Jeanne Villa, the Boussageons, the Lerdas, Umberto, Gina, Les Fischbachers, and so on. At nine, just before the lights went down, there was slight nervous tension in the air: our guests were not used to being invited into an American’s home, and they had probably never seen themselves in a movie before. They all smiled stiffly and sat ramrod-straight in their seats. The lights dimmed, and as they watched me, Simca, and themselves in the sequences shot right here, no one budged a muscle.

  The lights came up, we served champagne, and suddenly everyone was talking boisterously. It was interesting to note that the women scarcely wet their lips, while the men indulged in at least three or four glasses of champers each.

  By eleven-forty-five that night, we were ready for bed, as I’m sure the early-rising locals were, too. Only, they didn’t know what the protocol was for departing politely, so they just sat there waiting for some kind of mysterious signal. We didn’t know what the signal might be, either. Finally, Paul pulled Jean Fischbacher into the kitchen and in a whisper asked him to leave first. Entering the living room, Jean said in a loud voice: “Well, thanks a lot, it’s been a very good evening!” As he ushered Simca toward the door, the entire crowd rose out of their seats as one and rumbled outside in happy confusion.

  CHAPTER 9

  From Julia Child’s Kitchen

  I. MA CHéRIE

  IN JUNE 1971, Réalités sent a writer-photographer team to interview me at La Pitchoune, and, bearing in mind Simca’s hurt feelings over the Vogue and McCall’s stories, I insisted that we include her for lunch. It was important to show the two of us working together as a team, I felt.

  “Simca will ride in on that interview like one of Patton’s tanks—
innocently, to be sure, but with total egocentricity,” Paul warned. “I mean, she hasn’t even tried out your recipes, not even for French bread. It’s incredible!”

  “Not entirely true,” I replied. “But it is a fact that she has never considered me a cook worth bothering about.”

  I sighed. Simca was my “French sister.” I responded tremendously to her verve and creative flair, and I was grateful for her generosity with La Pitchoune. But there was no doubt that she and I had grown further and further apart. Maybe it was inevitable. I called her La Super-Française in part because she was typical of the old school: her opinions were fixed; she wouldn’t listen; she told you what was what. That left no room to bat around ideas or have any real conversation.

  A few months later, I was standing with Judith Jones in my Cambridge kitchen when I opened a letter from Simca. In it she criticized a recipe from Mastering, Volume II, saying something like, “C’est pas français! You Americans can’t possibly understand that we French would never use beef drippings to baste with!”

  For years I had brushed off Simca’s slights and insults, but now I was sick of it. This letter was the final straw. I was so angry that I threw the pages to the floor and stomped on them. “No more!” I swore. “I won’t be treated this way any longer.”

  Judith raised her eyebrows.

  “That’s it,” I declared. “End of collaboration!”

  SIMCA AND I never had a frank discussion about our contretemps. There was no need to. After so many years of working together, we knew each other inside and out. Now we were graduating from each other and going our separate ways—me to my television teaching and books, she to her private life and cooking classes. Still, she would always remain my “adorable grande chérie bien aimée.”

  Simca was sixty-six years old, and after twenty-two years in professional cooking, she said, she “wanted a rest.” But she wasn’t really the resting type. In a stroke of good fortune, Judith Jones made a contract with her to write a book of her own. Simca’s Cuisine would be a combination of stories about her life with menus and recipes from her favorite regions of France—Normandy (her native terroir), Alsace (where Jean was from), and Provence (where they lived together). Her book, Simca wrote in the Foreword, was for those who were “no longer quite beginners, who adore to cook and partake of la véritable cuisine à la française—the true French cuisine.” It was also a good repository for some of her many recipes we did not have space for in our two Masterings.

  Writing an entire book on her own proved to be tough going. Part of the problem was that it was to be written in English, for the American market, and Simca didn’t have as full a grasp of the language as she thought she did. I lent a helping eye and tongue where I could, but did not involve myself in any meaningful way. Eventually Patricia Simon—the American who had written about us for McCall’s—was hired to help midwife Simca’s Cuisine. With a good deal of encouragement from Judith (to whom the book was dedicated), they eventually finished. It was a very French book, with ambitious menus that demanded a lot from the American cook. But it was charming and packed full of Simca’s creativity. I even recognized a few of Jeanne Villa’s earthy touches woven in.

  Simca’s Cuisine was published in 1972. Sales were decent, but not as brisk as Simca had hoped for. Publishing is a tricky business, and for better or worse sales are closely tied to an author’s celebrity. I tried to console her by pointing out that even the great Jim Beard’s Beard on Food had not sold all that well.

  BY NOW JIM was a regular guest at La Pitchoune. He was bald, stood about six feet two inches tall, and must have weighed at least 260 pounds. He was a kind, funny man with a remarkable palate. Whenever I was stumped on a cooking question, I’d call Jim, who knew most of the answers off the top of his head, or, if not, who to ask.

  When Jim Beard arrived at La Pitchoune in January 1971, he looked heavier and more tired than usual. He had been traveling practically non-stop for months, doing cooking demonstrations, teaching classes, and writing food articles all over America. He had come to visit us in France to take a break. The usual pattern was that, after a few days of R & R at La Peetch, his vigor would bounce back. But this time he never felt quite right. Concerned, Paul and I drove him to Grasse, where Dr. Pathé bluntly told him: “Monsieur Beard, you are overweight and overstrained. You must make major changes in your life-style immédiatement, or you will certainly suffer une crise cardiaque!” That put the fear of God in him, and within six months Jim had dieted off some sixty pounds.

  That October, we had scheduled a lunch date with him in New York. But at four-thirty in the morning, Jim was awakened by sharp chest pains. He just lay in his bed, breathing heavily, not daring to move. Finally, a friend forced him to call his doctor, and Jim was whisked off to the hospital. There he was hooked up to a machine, which probably saved his life.

  It was a close call. We were now at that age where some of our oldest and best friends were “slipping off the raft,” as the saying goes, and heading into the great blue yonder. Paul Mowrer, our beloved friend from the Paris days, had died over the summer.

  To forestall the inevitable, Paul and I went in for our annual physical. I was fifty-nine, and the doctor said my health was fine. Paul was sixty-nine, and the doctor said to him: “Your electrocardiogram could be printed in a medical textbook. . . . Everything about your condition is just great.” (Now, that’s my idea of a good doctor!)

  IN JUNE 1972, Jim Beard once again flew in for a rest stay at La Peetch. He was coming from Norway this time, where he had traveled about advising the ’Weegians on how to please the American palate. He stayed at Le Mas Vieux, partly because the bedrooms were more Jim-sized than at our house, and partly to keep Simca company.

  She had broken her right leg and had been housebound in a wheelchair for forty days; her spirits were in the dumps, and she was desperate for fresh air and visitors.

  The evening Jim arrived, the weather was gorgeous and the frogs’ chorus croaked loudly in the background. Jeanne produced a lovely tarragon chicken, and we had a fun conversation around the dinner table, mostly about food. As the night wore on, the sometimes stern and intense Simca suddenly burst forth with a girlish joie-de-vivre.

  Every morning, Jim wafted slowly across the field to La Peetch, dressed in a vast, billowing Japanese kimono, for breakfast. We’d sit on the terrace in the shade of the olive tree, drinking Chinese tea and eating fruit, while chatting about cooking, restaurants, and wine. Jim knew what everyone in the food world was doing, and filled us country bumpkins in on all the big-city gossip.

  One midmorning, we climbed into our little French rental car—Paul behind the wheel, Jim seated Buddha-like next to him (still in kimono), and me accordioned into the backseat. Then we bumped down our old rutted driveway—the kind of road known as “a jeepable track” during the war—around the corner and up the hill to Plascassier. While Paul emptied our big paper sacks full of trash at the local garbage depository, I bought two rabbits from Boussageon, and Jim chatted with passing Plascassiens, many of whom he recognized from his previous visits. From there we drove on to Grasse.

  What a fabulous city! Jim and I bought fruit in the Place aux Aires, while Paul snapped pictures with his trusty Rolleiflex, and then we strolled slowly through the crowded medieval streets, taking in the layers of history and smell and sound. We returned to the car laden with swollen shopping bags, and transferred the perishables to our “traveling fridge,” a large Styrofoam box lined with bags of ice cubes—an excellent system for preserving things like fresh fish or greens in the heat. That afternoon, we Gigis experimented in the kitchen with a beer-and-flour batter for deep-frying the big orange zucchini blossoms we’d bought. They made lovely crisp eating.

  II. CHEF

  ONCE A YEAR, a fascinating cooking contest was held in Paris: to the victor went the lifelong right to put the initials “MOF” after his name. These magical letters stood for “Meilleur Ouvrier de France”—which roughly translates to “Bes
t Chef in France.” And in the competitive and rigidly hierarchical world of la cuisine française there was absolutely no higher glory. The challenge was to cook a whole meal drawn from the classical repertoire. Everyone cooked the same dishes, and the menu was announced a week ahead of time, so that there were no surprises. The competition took most of a day, and was open to any chef who dared pit his skills against the best in France. The judges were a group of former contest-winners and venerable cooks. They watched every step in the competitors’ preparation of the dishes, and judged them as much on presentation as on taste. The contest was avidly followed by the public and widely reported on. It was said that triumph in the MOF was more prestigious for a chef than earning a Ph.D. was for a graduate student, because in the cooking competition there could be only one winner.

  That year, 1972, there were forty-eight contestants, and at the end of the day the winner proved to be none other than Roger Vergé, chef of Le Moulin de Mougins. How lucky for him—and for us! The Moulin was our favorite restaurant in all of the Côte d’Azur, or perhaps in all of France, and it was right down the road.

  A culinary star, Chef Vergé, had spent time in the States and knew all about James Beard (he had even seen an episode or two of The French Chef, which hardly anyone else in France had heard of). When he learned that Jim was in town, he asked us to make sure to stop by and say hello. So one day Paul, Jim, and I drove to his restaurant in Mougins, a small hilltop town long favored by artists.

  Chef Vergé and his wife, Denise, were a charming couple, the most attractive of the well-regarded chefs we had met. He was in his early forties, with thick hair and a bushy mustache turning prematurely gray, and a melodious voice. Not especially tall or big in stature, Chef Vergé had tremendous charisma. His personality was on display everywhere at the Moulin: in his great skill in the kitchen, his handpicked wine list, his brigade of personally trained young men, his clearly thought-out conception of what a first-class dining room should look like, and his ability to live up to that ideal on a daily basis. (A little-known fact about this “chef to the stars and artists” was that he judged people by their hands: out of some personal superstition, he shied away from those with small hands—something I didn’t have to worry about.)