A Date With Julia For This Reporter, Meeting Julia Child Was A Lifelong Dream Fulfilled

Pinch me.

I must be dreaming. Here I am in Seattle sitting next to my hero, Julia Child, chatting about crab.

“How does the Dungeness look?” she inquires, after I mention my pilgrimage earlier that morning to the Pike Place Market.

She compares the virtues of East Coast crustaceans to the sweet, succulent meat of the Northwest’s most famous crab and says Dungeness remains one of her favorite things to eat.

“You have all that great lobster where you live, though,” I say. Julia lives in Cambridge, Mass., just across the Charles River from Boston.

“Oh, there’s such a difference. Lobster gets stuck in my teeth,” she says, chuckling.

At 82, Julia Child has been called a national treasure, a living legend, the high priestess of the kitchen.

The reason she’s loved by millions, though, has little to do with those heady tributes. For almost four decades, she’s charmed viewers of her many television series and readers of her cookbooks with her gusto for food and her genuine desire to share that passion.

That, along with her unmistakable voice and her good-natured, sometimes goofy charm.

In one classic episode of her program, “The French Chef,” she dropped a chicken on the floor. Julia picked it up, inspected it, said, “Oh, he’s all right” and proceeded with the recipe.

Another time, when she was reveling in the briny delights of an oyster fresh out of its shell, she didn’t seem to mind when some of the liquid dribbled down her chin.

Pots may have boiled over occasionally on the show, but Julia always got the meal on the table in time to sign off with a hearty, “Bon appetit!”

This spring, her newest series, “In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs,” will debut on public television. (Look for it to air this summer on KSPS, Channel 7.) The show finds some of the country’s most respected chefs gathering at her home over the summer of 1994 to cook their specialty dishes with her.

While her pace has slowed somewhat the past few years, Julia still makes a few appearances around the country. One of her pet projects is the American Institute of Wine and Food, an organization she founded with vintner Robert Mondavi.

The Seattle chapter was recently revitalized by an enthusiastic group of foodies - the reason for Julia’s latest visit to the Pacific Northwest three weeks ago.

While the saffron mussel bisque was sublime and the salmon superb, she was the star attraction at a small luncheon at the Sorrento Hotel.

Before Julia arrived the group was positively giddy with anticipation.

“I could hardly sleep last night, I was so excited,” said Lee Gutweniger, who had traveled from Portland for the opportunity.

“It’s just like meeting Santa Claus,” added Martha Marino, a registered dietitian.

Eric Lenard, the chef at the Hunt Club who prepared the gourmet lunch, said he sent back a batch of salmon because it wasn’t fresh enough. “How often am I going to get the chance to cook for Julia Child?”

And Norma Rosenthal, the woman who organized the event, said: “I met her yesterday and she said some very gracious things, but they went right out of my head. I was just in awe being in her presence.”

In the ‘60s, Julia Child started a culinary revolution in this country.

She taught us that food was much more than meat and potatoes and canned vegetables. It could be beautiful. And it should be shared with friends and family.

Most people assume that Julia had spent her entire life in a kitchen. Her fascinating life story reveals quite the opposite.

Growing up in Pasadena, Calif., the kitchen was off limits. Even living in New York after college didn’t flame her culinary curiosity.

During World War II, she signed on with the Office of Strategic Services and was sent to the country now known as Sri Lanka, where she met her future husband, Paul Child. He introduced her to the pleasures of a good meal and fine wine.

After they were married, the Childs moved to Paris and at 36, Julia enrolled in the famous Cordon Bleu cooking school.

There she learned to transform eggs into lofty souffles, discovered the secret of perfectly roasting a chicken and met the two women with whom she later collaborated on her first book, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.”

My first encounter with Julia Child - or her voice, anyway - happened when I was just 10 years old and my Uncle Bob was trying to teach me how to fry a chicken. Instead, I ended up doubled over with laughter at his dead-on imitation of her warbly trill. It wasn’t until years later, when I finally saw her on television, that I realized how accurate his impersonation had been.

I became a devoted viewer. Not so much because I wanted to emulate her style - the woman can create an omelet with a couple of flicks of the wrist, after all - but because I found her shows an entertaining blend of comedy and drama.

And here I was, years later, about to meet my hero.

When she arrived at the lunch, Julia worked the room like a seasoned politician, shaking hands with people, posing for pictures.

She wasn’t soliciting votes, though. She seemed genuinely interested in meeting people who share in her passion.

Between the soup and the salmon, I seized my opportunity to shake the hand that has spent countless hours whipping cream and hoisting glasses of fine wine.

Though journalists are supposed to be impassive observers, I couldn’t resist gushing: “I just wanted to thank you for all the joy you’ve given me and my family. You have been such a great inspiration.”

It wasn’t long before she was asking me how many children I had and what my husband did and asking where, exactly, was Spokane and saying cooking and eating are such fun, aren’t they?

When I got up to go back to my table, Julia wished me well, saying: “Keep up your enthusiasm.”

The danger in meeting someone who you’ve long admired is that they can come off as less than heroic. Not so with Julia Child.

Even though there is now a slight stoop in her imposing frame, she will always be 10 feet tall in my eyes.

These are two of my favorite Julia Child recipes. One is fairly involved with a lot of steps to follow, but the results are the best duck I’ve ever tasted. The other is simple, but has proved to be the ultimate sauteed mushroom.

Designer Duck

From “Julia Child and Company” (Alfred A. Knopf Publishers).

Duck is a tough bird to cook. When roasting it whole, the breast meat can dry out by the time the leg and thigh are cooked. This treatment ensures crispy skin, rosy breast meat and delicious legs and thighs by finishing them separately.

Two 4-1/2 to 5-pound roaster ducklings

Salt

Thyme or sage

2 imported bay leaves

1 tablespoon cooking oil Freshly ground pepper and allspice, for cracklings

Final seasoning of breast slices:

1 tablespoon minced shallot or scallions

Salt and freshly ground pepper 1/4 to 1/3 cup port or madeira wine

2/3 cup strong brown duck or beef stock

For finishing the legs:

1/2 cup Dijon-type prepared mustard

1 cup lightly pressed down fresh crumbs

2 tablespoons duck-roasting fat or butter

Special equipment suggested:

A cleaver; 2 roasting pans, one large enough for 2 ducks, and one to hold the crumbled legs; a 12-inch no-stick or enameled frying pan, for breast slices.

To prepare the ducks, chop the duck wings off at the elbows and reserve for the duck stock; remove the wishbone from inside the neck cavity. Inside each cavity sprinkle a big pinch of salt, a pinch of thyme or sage and tuck in a bay leaf. Prick the skin all over on the back and sides where you see yellow fat showing through; use a skewer or sharppronged fork, but do not go down into the flesh or juices will seep out and stain the skin during roasting. Truss the ducks.

Lightly oil the ducks, place breastup in the pan and roast in the middle level of a preheated 350-degree oven until the breast meat is just springy rather than squashy to the touch, about 30 minutes. The meat should be rosy and will be easy to carve; the legs and thighs (which will cook more later) are still firm and very rare.

While the ducks are still warm, peel off the skin as follows: First cut a slit down the length of the breast, then peel it down the sides of the breast and the thighs. Remove the leg-thigh sections along with the oysters of meat lodged at the small of the back and at the side of the tailpiece. Remove the wings also, being careful to disturb the breast meat as little as possible; wings have little meat, and could be roasted with the legs, or saved for duck stock. Peel off any remaining skin from the legs and back, and all visible fat.

To finish the breast meat, lightly coat a frying pan with duck fat or butter; sprinkle in half the minced shallot or scallion. Remove the breast meat on each side in one piece, and carve on a slant into neat thin slices; arrange them slightly overlapping in the pan. Season lightly with salt and pepper, and sprinkle with the remaining shallot or scallion. Pour in the port or madeira and the duck stock. Cover and set aside until just before serving.

Cut through the knee joints to separate legs from thighs. Paint both with a thin coating of mustard, roll them in the bread crumbs, and arrange them in a baking dish. Sprinkle lightly with duck fat or melted butter, and set aside.

(Note: All of the foregoing may be completed several hours in advance and refrigerated until finishing.)

To finish the ducks, roast the legs for 25 minutes at 400 degrees. Half an hour before you plan to serve, set the crumbled legs and thighs in the upper third level of the oven. Roast until just tender when pressed. Keep them warm in the turned-off oven, its door ajar.

To prepare duck skin cracklings, cut the duck skin and fat into strips inch wide. Arrange them in a baking dish and set in a 350-degree oven, tossing occasionally, for about 30 minutes. The cracklings should be nicely browned. Drain the cracklings on a dish lined with paper towels, and toss with a sprinkling of salt, pepper, and allspice. Reheat briefly in the oven before serving.

Just before serving, bring the frying pan with the duck breast slices almost to the simmer, to poach the meat but keep it rare and rosy. Arrange the slices on a hot platter and rapidly boil down the cooking juices until syrupy while you arrange the legs and skin cracklings on the platter. Pour the pan juices over the breast meat and serve at once.

Sauteed Mushrooms

From “The Way to Cook” (Alfred A. Knopf Publishers).

Most sauteed mushrooms turn soggy, but these remain firm. The secret is to thoroughly dry the mushrooms and saute them quickly on high heat to sear in their juices. They make a great appetizer or a natural accompaniment to beef dishes.

2 to 2 1/2 cups of sliced or quartered mushrooms

1 tablespoon butter

1 teaspoon light olive oil or cooking oil

6 cups fresh mushrooms, trimmed, washed, dried and quartered or sliced

1/2 tablespoon chopped shallot or scallion

Salt and freshly ground pepper

Set a 10-inch, non-stick frying pan over high heat with the butter and oil. When the butter foam begins to subside, toss in the mushrooms. Toss frequently, swirling the pan by its handle, for several minutes, while the mushrooms absorb the butter. In a minute or two, toss with the chopped shallot or scallion a moment or two more. Toss with a sprinkling of salt and a couple of grinds of fresh pepper. (Note: Don’t try to saute too many mushrooms at once, but rather do them in two batches.)