Cooking moments

It has been a long time, maybe a few years, since Alice and I have been able to spend any more time together than having breakfast at the Nevada Diner or lunch someplace. Alice spent all last week with me, reintroducing me to my own house and working herself to death on my behalf despite the warm weather. Her visit was wonderful in so many ways.  We had time to really visit, and to talk about so many of the things that are important to her. Alice is a force to be reckoned with, and when she sets her mind to accomplishing something, whether it's graduate school, taking charge of her health, or cleaning my house, she does not stray from her mission.  Alice is also a wonderful cook.  We got our own breakfasts, but Alice fixed lunches and dinners and they were superb. Her crowning glory was a blueberry/raspberry/blackberry tart. Heaven on earth, it was.

Alice left Saturday morning, and I went to the office to get some work done.  I am really behind, because working at home was a complete failure, thanks to dial-up, and working at Thelma's was OK but not great because I had no access to the Norwich network.  In any case, it was growing close to 4:30 pm when I realized that I hadn't taken anything out of the freezer, and that I had to make my own dinner. Luckily, a co-worker showed up and at about 6 we went out to eat!   Good grief, it's been seven weeks since I had to get my own dinner. That will take getting used to.

On this Wednesday, August 15, Julia Child would have been 100 years old.   In 1966 four of us young women, who carpooled together to our first-job-out-of-college, learned about cooking from Julia Child.  One of our group of four went to Kroch and Brentano's, the fancy and imposing NYC bookstore, and wangled a "group discount" for our copies of "Mastering the Art of French Cooking".  Whatever weeknight The French Chef was on PBS, we went from work to the home of whoever had the TV (not me) and watched the program, with our cookbooks open in front of us.  Then we went to our own apartments and during the rest of the week tried to cook what Julia had cooked on the show.

If you followed Julia's directions carefully, you could not go wrong, you learned a lot, and you ate a good dinner.  It's still true, and I still use that cookbook.