Finding Your Inner-Julia Child

[This essay originally appeared in a very small magazine, issue 23]*

More and more American men and women are discovering that there is an angry, hurt "inner-Julia Child" inside them, an "inner-Julia Child" which has been abused by a culture that cares more about calories, convenience and cholesterol than it does about (in Julia Child's words) "wonderfully good eating".

Your inner-Julia Child may have been wounded in any of the following ways:

• By adherence to the too long-lingering, low-fat, non-cholesterol dietary fad of the last decade.

• By your worrying more about what your food might do to your waistline than how it tastes; as a result of this, you have been far more likely to drink diet sodas all day than to let yourself have one satisfying glass of dark beer; to glop chemical goo on your potatoes rather than risk the extra but pleasurable calories of real sour cream; to forego the unique richness of butter for the plastic taste of margarine.

• By your inability to plan or shop ahead, causing you and your family to rely upon your microwave to quickly cook or, more likely, to thaw out your frozen dinner.

• By your so readily accepting the great cultural lie that a night at McDonald's offers a great evening of dining, or that pizza, hot dogs, and french fries constitute the extent of our national cuisine.

While you fill your belly, meal after meal, without truly savoring anything you chew, your inner-Julia Child is secretly yearning for gigot en chevreuil, filet mignon with madeira sauce, triple chocolate mousse. It is begging you to roast a succulent pig, to whip a cup of heavy cream and ladle it onto a bowl of sweet red strawberries that have been lovingly and lightly dredged with confectionary sugar.

There is no way to free your inner Julia Child but to cook, and then, to eat. But nothing prepared in a microwave, nothing labeled “low fat/low-calorie” will satisfy the yearnings of the inner-Julia Child. Your inner-Julia Child may be starving, which may be why you keep eating, growing fatter and fatter, all the while praising yourself for avoiding sugar/red meat/milk/cholesterol or complex carbohydrates. Deep down, you are achieving no real satisfaction or pleasure, no real nourishment.

There is no way out of such toxic habits but through our rich, twelve-course program in which we teach you to cook AND to eat. We don't call it self-help, but "Help Yourself!" Once you begin a pattern of eating truly delicious, satisfying and sometimes rich food, you may find yourself not needing second or third helpings. You will be sated on both a physical and spiritual level. There are many variations to the 12-Course menu to free the inner-Julia Child; the ingredients or the center of the menu is not as important as achieving the goals outlined in the examples below; the menu might include:

• COURSE (STEP) 1 - Pate (en croute) -- ("We acknowledge our fear of cholesterol")

• COURSE 2 - Lobster Bisque -- ("We believe that Julia Child and/or the power of French cuisine can restore our senses")

• COURSE 3 - Braised duck with chestnut stuffing -- ("We have made a brave and conscious decision to eat delicious and nutritious food, however long it takes to prepare and eat it")

• COURSE 4 - Asparagus with Butter and Egg -- ("Fearlessly, we continue to eat, even as we loosen our waistbands and belts")

• COURSE 5 - Dandelion, Spinach and Bacon Salad -- ("We realize that Course 5 is here for no other purpose than to give our palates a break") ... and on and on into:

• COURSE 11 - Chocolate soufflé -- ("We have sought through eating well and much to improve our contact with the gods"); and

• COURSE 12 - Fruit (in season) -- ("Having had our taste buds reawakened as the result of this meal, we will henceforth strive to eat only delicious food, in quantities and qualities that nourish and delight us, trying to use our microwave ovens no more than twice a week, for anything other than the thawing of food, the melting of butter, or reheating something we ourselves have lovingly prepared").

If you are on a budget and/or are a vegetarian, an alternative menu might include vegetables served as separate courses, each in its own, unique butter- or wine-based sauce, with fruit as the final course.

For more information on finding and pleasuring your own unique inner-Julia Child, contact us at: cookingforfour -AT- gmail.com. (The full course menu, along with individualized meal plan, is available for $99.95).

For those who can't afford a private consultation, please study Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Volumes I and II.

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* Reprinted with permission (M wrote the essay and published the magazine).

We're reprinting this essay because, within certain boundaries, it represents our family's food philosophy. We eat to enjoy food--not to lose weight, avoid cholesterol, etc.--although, to be honest, we rarely cook French food anymore given that PE and TA probably won't eat it and it takes too long to cook.