Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
The L.I.C. is in the house!
  

    
I "hid" it for you, Julie -- although I think it reads perfectly well
according to local standards. (There's no rule against recycling blog
posts over here, is there? And the pasted stuff actually was an
example. But if you want to repost sumthin' else, go ahead, and then
you (or I if you'd rather) can get rid of the other one. Or leave it as
it is. No big thing, either way.)

Did you ever seriously consider quitting in the middle of the Project?
And what made you not--how much was commitment, how much risk of
losing face since you'd been doing it in public, and so on?
  

    
This is the bit I meant to post:

“Can’t you fucking people leave me alone for one fucking second?!!!! 
Can’t I have ONE evening when I’m not talking to some fucking reporter
or being interviewed by some Australian at nine o’clock at fucking
night or baking some fucking French fucking thing for some TV show
where they don’t even really give a shit what I’m doing or answering
emails on my shitty-ass dial-up internet connection that kicks me off
every goddamned second?!!!  Huh?!!  And why is it so goddamned HOT in
here???!!!!!!!!”

Here I'm talking about the media stuff, not individuals, "fans."  I
don't ever get angry with the people who reach out to me.  It does
take
me a long time to answer the emails I get from people, not because I
don't want to, but because -- and this may have something to do with
my dial-up connection, I admit -- each one really exhausts me.

To the "serious writer" question, I think it would be very
arrogant of me if, when I finally get something of a Big Break, I were
to turn around and say, "But no, see, I'm a Real Writer."  I'll take
my good luck where I can find it.  That said, of course I don't want to
become known as the Cook-Through-The-Booker.  A career does need
management.  I'm lucky enough to have some smart, great people helping
me out with that.

Speaking of taking your good luck, I've got a meeting with a publisher
to toddle off to.  I'll be back in a couple of hours...
  

    

good luck..
y
  

    

E Ross writes:


Julie, re: cookbook writers/authors: Have you discovered John Thorne? If
not, you are in for a real treat.
  

    
John Thorne -- noted!  Thanks.

So as far as France goes... no I have not been there since my Project.
 I mean jesus, I only just finished!  I also was hardly ever there
before the Project.  I'd like to go now, though before I started this
whole thing France was not one of my dream destinations.

For one thing, I'm so bored by every food writer in the world getting
their inspiration in old Paree.  Fucking Tony Bourdain (have started
Kitchen Confidential and am LOVING IT)had his culinary epiphany on a
boat to France.  God, yawn.  Sure, I'd love to go to Paris with pots
and pots of money.  Would like to go to El Bulli or whatever it's
called in Spain, too, with all the foam shit.  But you know, there's
some good goddamned shit right here.  You can get your epiphanies
anywhere.

Oh, and I said I'd list my favorite restaurants.  In New York, it's
hard because we don't eat out much.  But I'd say:

Peter Luger
Lupa
Prune
Casa Lingua (decent pasta and quite convenient to our favorite bar)
Grimaldi's
Milo's in Sunset Park (potato pancake stuffed with pork chop, anyone?)
Papa Johnny's Diner!!!!!

In Austin:

Z Tejas
That French Place my parents like downtown
The Salt Lick
Dan's
El Sol y la Luna
Fonda San Miguel (of course)
Angie's
Pappa Deaux (yes, yes, big obnoxious Houston chain, but omigod,
boudin)

And then there's the restaurant I can't remember the name of in
Montreal, where Eric and I had the most perfect meal of our lives,
during my sophomore year in college, in the cave-like ancient place
that we walked into by chance.  

God those are the real meals you love, no?
  

    

Casa Lingua on 1st Avenue in the E.V.?  I've lived within a couple blocks
of it for 15 years and never been there. 
  

    
John Thorne: (www.outlawcook.com). 
  

    
Don't get me wrong.  It isn't great.  But it's easy, and not
pretentious, and -- key point -- across the street from my favorite
bar.
  

    

What bar is that?  

My initial impression of "Mastering the Art" is that it is about high
gastronomy, but working through it over the years I've found quite a few
down-home recipes in it.  We never really think much about French food as
ethnic cuisine but having made it through the book do you see it as a
collection of high culture or folk food or what?
  

    
I think that MtAoFC is the techniques of haute cuisine channeled into
manageable food for home cooks -- a sort of hybrid of high and low. 
Nobody does en croute much, to speak of, but chicken with bacon and
onions and mushrooms is just plain old good stuff.  Also, of course,
it's these two things as interpreted for 1961 Americans, so that adds
this whole nifty anthropological aspect.  

It's fun to think of French as an ethnic cuisine.  It makes all the
sauces and preparations named after places -- Lyonnaise, Nicoise,
etc... a lot more fun.
  

    
Oh, and -- god bless Johnny Cash.  For now, I'm the secretary in
black.
  

    

Tanis Evans writes:

RE: Julie's response, #106, about restaurants in Austin, TX.

"The French Place my parents like downtown"...has gotta be Chez Nous.  I
don't "cook" with making sweetbreads anymore cause they do such a "yummery"
rendition....and their Salad Lyonnaise is TDF: fresh greens, tossed with a
great wine vinegar, arranged like a bird's nest with a warm poached egg in
the center.  Julie could probably enjoy that now that she's taken a semi-
liking to egg things.

Bay's Sis
  

    
No...... it's not Chez Nous, actually.  I want to say it's called
Jacques, or something.  Shit.  I'll have to ask my mother.

Chez Nous, however, is also good.
  

    
Agggh. It's something upstairs, right? There sure aren't many French
restaurants in downtown Austin. 
  

    <scribbled by captward Fri 12 Sep 03 12:15>
  

    
Or, since you've got a Well membership, you could ask over in
<texas.ind.> and wind up with an answer quickly. 
  

    

Mary Wachsmann writes:

Perhaps it's Jean-Luc's French Bistro or Aquarelle?
  

    
Jean-Luc's!  That's IT!!
  

    
This discussion made me realize I had a half-unread copy of Richard
Olney's Simple French Food lying around, so I picked it up last night
and finished it. It's not the kind of cookbook you pick up when you're
contemplating going to the store and thinking "Wonder what's for
dinner." No. It's a polemic by a very fussy man who clearly lives
alone.  And it's also a book that makes you appreciate Julia's
contribution. 

His stew "recipe" is nine pages long. His discussion of roast and
grilled meats argues for doing these dishes in the fireplace, not the
oven. No fireplace? No help here. Two pages are given over to a
discussion of cooking lamb testicles or "frivolities," as he calls
them. Having rabbit? He tells you how to kill it so that you don't get
a blood clot, which makes it easier to thicken the recipe with some of
the blood. There is much untranslated French. And his writing style is
so arch that it's clear this is not an endeavor to be undertaken by the
average person.

Of course, once you have a little experience in the kitchen, you can
see through him, but if this is what I'd been presented with when I
started to cook, I'd never have begun. 
  

    
The thing, of course, is that Julia herself would tackle all of that
kind of insanity, cheerfully.  And she might even encourage someone
else to do some of it.  "Encourage" being the key word here.  It's all
about spreading the wealth with Julia.  I love that.

Going to Sammy's Roumanian tonight, to celebrate the husband's big
thirtieth.  Figure we'll clog up our arteries just a bit more before
heading back onto the straight and narrow.  Oh, and then there's the
shrimp, andouille and okra gumbo I'll be making on Sunday.  But then
it'll be all lettuce all the time.  Starting Monday.  Swear.
  

    
Maybe with a nice Roquefort dressing . . .
  

    
Of course French is an ethnic cuisine. So many different cuisines, and
wines, and climates, all packed into a place that can't be much bigger
than Texas. You should be able to spend a lot when necessary, but we
find a place to stay with a kitchen, and can market-shop-cook when we
want to, and pick our reataurant targets at will. 
Do you LIKE big cities?  I've liven in New York, and San Francisco,
but I seem to prefer the countryside.  In France too.  But the French
are so organized, the Guide Michelin really has a lot of places that
are inexpensive, almost anywhere....  Do go.  
  

    
Yes, I should go, no question about it.  Just as soon as I can afford
airfare.  

And no, I'm not really a big city girl.  My husband is (a big-city
BOY, that is) more.  I've been enjoying the city more lately, probably
because my circumstances are a bit better, but if nothing else, I'm a
thirty-year-old woman with maternal aspirations, and every time I see
some poor woman trying to wrangle a stroller up the subway stairs I vow
to myself one more time that I will not have a child in New York City.
 Will not do it.

I'm more of a high desert sort of person.  As annoying as that is to
say.
  

    
How's the butter withdrawal going?


Another great result of the blog is that your trials and tribulations
encouraged a lot of people to take on recipes that they'd previously
been intimidated by - that's definitely the true spirit of JC.

Speaking of the JC spirit, early in the Project you mentioned the
Julia-Martha continuum - on one end, Julia Child who is down-to-earth,
realistic, and determined to get people to actually cook, and on the
other end, Martha, who is obsessed with obscure 275 year old balsamico
and diabolically complicated presentation. Alice Waters seemed to get
an even bigger dose of your wrath than Martha.

I have no problem with slagging Martha (hell, I hope she gets convicted
and sent to Guantanamo so we can shave her head and find out what the
Mark of the Beast really looks like), but I think Alice is far closer
in spirit to Julia than she is to the Evil One. In fact, her efforts
to encourage suppliers to produce high quality produce and artisinal
products is the next logical step in America's culinary redemption -
Julia woke us up from our Chef Boy-ar-dee stupor, and Alice has been
striving for thirty years to get agricultural production back in service
of cooks and eaters rather than the agricultural industry.

Still, I wouldn't mind seeing you slap the hat off her head on Pay Per View.