Last night my wife and I watched the movie Julie and Julia. We thought it was charming. A little research on the actual people suggested to us that the young woman on whose blog (and book) the movie is based isn’t quite as endearing as Amy Adams but, then, who is?
Oddly, about 35 years ago I did the same thing that Julie Powell did but I didn’t blog about it (obviously) and didn’t get a book deal out of it. That is, I taught myself French cooking by working my way systematically through Julia Child’s Mastering the Art of French Cooking. It was quite an ordeal but, as the movie suggests, quite a treat for the friends for whom I cooked.
I also had the advantage of substantial experience in cooking in quantity and, since I regularly cooked large dinners for 500 or more people at my church, I had venues for honing the skills I was acquiring in a production environment.
That may be why, although I find Julia Child entertaining, I stand awestruck when I watch Jacques Pepin. The man is a wonder. A tremendously skilled chef.
I did much the same thing. I still have my first Pepin book. As much as I still lke to watch him if he is on TV, I have moved well away from French cooking. We mostly do Asian, Middle Eastern, Mexican and I have moved back to good ole boy cooking. Lots of smoking and barbecue. (Actually working on refining my ability to smoke fish.)
I have never cooked for 500. Usually no more than 100-200 (small church). We did the cooking for my son’s tournament this w/e. I will have to admit it is getting tiring making three big meals in a row, and we totally bailed on breakfasts with donuts and bought pastries.
Steve
Through part of college and graduate school I had a job as a breakfast short order cook. I made roughly 300 breakfasts a day, six days a week, for five years.
Over a period of about twenty years I cooked once a week for 100-200 and three or four times a year for 500 or more. Cooking for a large numbers hones skills in a way that cooking for ten or twelve doesn’t.
Two of my most memorable adventures in cooking were pot au feu for 200 and cassoulet for 200. Actually, I think that both of those dishes are better made in large quantity.
Mmmmm, cassoulet. I still use the Julia Child recipe for that, but it is an every other year event. I can see cassoulet for 200. The timing on the pot au feu would make me nervous, but then it is not something I ever made often.
Steve
If you like cassoulet, take a look at the Basque baked beans recipe I posted some time ago. It’s sort of a quick and easy cassoulet and it’s fantastic.
“Ahead of my time?”
On the contrary, I think of you as a Renaissance Man, which would make you a few centuries behind the times.
Ok, I will try that one. Friends of ours raise their own cattle, grass fed, no antibiotics, no feedlot, and we got a quarter from them, including extra marrow bones so this might be a good time to make some beef stock.
Steve