We all need heroes.

Hello all,
No health news from me to report. I am very saddened this week by a colleague's sudden loss of her husband. It was unexpected and devastating. I am thinking of her. Now, go hug someone you love.

I've been asked several times recently if I plan to see the movie about Julia Child. I'm not sure about this. Before her cult status was resurrected recently she was my hero. Mine.

I grew up watching Julia. My mother learned to cook in part from her. Let's just say the culinary tradition from which my mother sprang was a barren dessert of dry roasts and scalloped tomatoes (the latter are actually good). My grandmother would boil a bunch of corn in the summer and call it dinner.

As a child I grew up with Coq au Vin, Navarin of Lamb, chicken a l'orange and other delights. And these were on week nights! My mother used to, and probably still can make a sit down dinner for 30. She cooked everything from chicken pate to the pork tenderloins to the holy trinity of deserts: the walnut roll, the lady finger thing with strawberries, whipped cream, and grand marnier, and an almond meringue cake filled and glazed with a chocolate ganache.

We'd watch Julia Child on public television on the weekends. I loved her. She took such pleasure in what she was doing. I especially loved at the end when she'd set forth the whole meal as if guests were going to walk in at any moment. She usually had a glass of wine and it wasn't much of a stretch to think that the bottle had been open a while.

As I got older I liked how she conveyed her love of those classic dishes as if they were old friends. They weren't dishes you just ordered in a restaurant. If you really loved food you would want to cook it. That is how I feel too. I haven't read a book in bed in a while but I have read countless cooking magazines cover to cover. One cannot truly love food without knowing something about cooking. I'm sorry. I know everyone does not share my love of the stove. I've said it before; git yer own blog.

One Saturday Julia was shucking oysters. Not something young children should watch. Also needing a PG-13 rating is a middle aged woman sucking one of those slithery beasts out of it's shell and exclaiming "they have a wonderfully sea-bottomy flavor!" Ewww! Sorry Julia, ya lost me and the rest of the under 12 crowd with that one.

Later as a young adult I shared an apartment with both my brother and sister for a while. It actually worked pretty well. Sure we yelled at each other but that was the beauty of it. We could yell at each other. It was easy to go food shopping and just split the bill three ways plus we knew automatically where everything in the kitchen was supposed to go. When it was just Kate and me together we also watched Julia Child every now and then. There she was one Saturday doing oysters again. Kate and I, now worldly adults watched intently. "Oh, you open the back side not the flat side!"

Julia took up one of those shells of glistening goodness and sucked it back. "they have a wonderfully sea-bottomy flavor!" she exclaimed once again. She wasn't doing oyster again; it was the same show.

Not long after this Julia's huge tome "The Way to Cook" came out. Of course I had to have it. I already had two other signed books of hers. My brother went to a book signing and stood in a long line at the end of which he regaled Julia with some version of this tale. How much he actually conveyed to our heroine I don't know but I am the proud owner of a this book inscribed: "To Beth, Wonderfully sea-bottomy flavor! -Julia Child.