Tim and Julia and a few recipes for life

Caught up in the summer re-fascination with Julia Child via the movie Julie and Julia, I ordered two sets of DVD's containing collections of Child's old PBS television show, The French Chef. First airing during a period of my childhood when I was more interested in Batman than boeuf bourguignon, I have only a vague recollection of her show. I'm sure I must have happened upon the broadcast from time to time -- after all, there were only four networks on the air at that time -- but I am sure I never landed there. Cooking might have been something necessary to do, but who would want to learn about it, especially from an odd-sounding woman on TV?

Now, learning about food and its manifold preparations is most of what I love and want to do. It fascinates me as a delightful field of inquiry equally deep and wide that no one will ever completely explore. It is part science, many parts art. It lends itself to following the directions, and equally well to experimentation. It is universal, but simultaneously cultural and finally intimately personal. There is room for triumph in a way that can be communally enjoyed, and soft-landing failures that might leave the diners hungry but not injured.

And so Julia has been fun to rediscover. Last month I consumed her memoir, My Life in France; this month we are devouring her TV shows. And she is a delight. If I couldn't fathom it at the time, it's easy now to understand her enduring popularity. She is at once expert and klutzy. At the same time that she is perfectly at home in front of the stove, she is awkwardly childlike in front of the camera. And she makes mistakes. In her "potato show" she was cooking a large potato pancake that was ready to flip over; she began to talk about the action of doing so. Lifting the skillet, she gave it a quick and dipping jerk. About half of the potato mixture wound up back in the pan with the rest scattered in globs around the stove top. "Well," she matter-of-factly observed, "I made a mess out of that. But no problem. You can just put all this back in the pan." And then she reflected, "it takes practice -- and the courage of your convictions."

We are only beginning our journeys with The French Chef, having learned so far about stewing beef, roasting a chicken, making French Onion Soup, using potatoes, and both cooking and eating lobsters (most people need help with both, she kindly observed). Some of it has looked easy. Some of it has looked impossible. Most of it has looked delicious. All of it has made us wish we could spend endless hours with her in the kitchen -- learning about food and its preparation, to be sure, but also a few things about life.

Who, after all, couldn't use a reminder to be willing to make mistakes, to act with the courage of one's convictions, to be at home with both one's giftedness and one's awkwardness, all with an enlarging spirit of curiosity? That's all pretty powerful, even in black and white.