Backstage with Julia (37 page)

"Won't matter," she said.

We went to the nursing home, gathered Paul's belongings—including the ties he'd still worn there and his weathered baseball cap—and returned home. I was sensitive to Julia's emotional state, but she was more pensive than despondent, so she startled me when she stopped on the sidewalk in front of her house and gasped.

"Look," she said, staring at the yard.

I didn't see what she saw, so I asked, "At what?"

"The wisteria is blooming."

"Oh, yes, it's lovely," I responded, completely unaware of the significance until she told me that it had never bloomed before—never in the thirty years that the Childs had lived there. Paul had planted and nursed it and Charlie the gardener had pampered and fed it, but they'd finally given up hope, deciding that the location was much too shady for the plant ever to flower. That day, the blossoming pale lavender flowers struck Julia to the quick.

Back in the kitchen, I said, "Don't you think that's a sign that there is a life afterward? That it's a message from Paul?"

I could see that she was trying to make sense of it, and she spread her arms wide, trying to wrap them around something she could not describe. "Perhaps there is a greater . . . something," she said, struggling for the words. She never said "God" or "afterlife," just "something," but we both felt that the something was from Paul, and we cried quietly together. We never discussed the possibility of an afterlife again, but I like to think that if she could be here, she would make sure that my funeral procession would travel by country roads.

We resumed taping of In Julia's Kitchen after Paul was cremated but before his ashes were scattered in Maine. I again moved into her house, and although she rallied during the daily activities, I was heedful of her emotions when the crew left at the end of the day. Even though Paul had not lived at home for many years, he was still there, and I wanted to keep Julia's spirits buoyed as much as possible. To that end, I had an exceptional ally. Her nephew David McWilliams, her brother's son, was living in the third-floor apartment while studying for his graduate degree in business at Boston University. David was a constant delight. Moreover, he had an insatiable appetite, so we could count on him to bound into the kitchen smiling and happy whenever Julia called up the stairs, "Boop-boop. Hungry, David?" Not only did his presence soothe Julia's spirits, but his good counsel made me realize I didn't need to walk on eggshells; I found I could easily talk to Julia about Paul without making her sad. In fact, mostly it made us laugh.

Julia always kept an ironing board open in her bedroom during shoots so she could quickly press a blouse or skirt if necessary. One day, I noticed that along with the iron, the board held a bowl of fresh peaches and one of ripe garden tomatoes. They were gifts from Charlie the gardener, and Julia wanted to keep them for family meals rather than have them gobbled up by the production crew. In between the bowls sat what I quite suddenly realized was an urn, although I had never actually seen one up close.

"Is that Paul?" I couldn't help asking.

"Yes," Julia said.

"On the ironing board, Julia?"

She smiled that wonderful big, twinkling smile of hers. "Oh, I think he's very happy with the peaches and tomatoes. He loved both."

Close to the end of the shooting schedule, Julia's sister, Dorothy, came to visit. She slept in the room next to mine and was always up and dressed, ready to walk down to breakfast with me, at six. But one morning, instead of joining me in the hallway, she called me into her room. She was sitting on the corner of the bed, with her hands folded in her lap. I could tell by the look on her face that she was grappling with something.

She patted a spot on the bed next to her. "Can you sit for a minute, Nancy?"

"Of course. Is there anything wrong? Are you okay?"

"I wanted to talk to you about Julia. What do you think about her doing these shows?"

"In what way, Dort?"

"Julia made me promise to tell her when she should stop. You know, when she was too old to do it anymore. She didn't want to appear a fool. Is she?"

I knew what Dorothy was asking and why. Julia did of course look older on the programs. She was more stooped, she sat more, and sometimes displayed a rare lack of energy. But it was more than that. The culinary genius who so expertly communicated the intricacies of French cooking to generations of cooks was often left asking chefs a third her age how they chopped their onions. On my own tours, students often asked me what was going on. They described Julia's co-hosts as being patronizing and condescending.

"I don't think it's Julia, Dort. I mean, look at the Norway show Russ Morash did with her. That was only a few years ago, and Julia was absolutely classic Julia. I just think this is bad producing and a bad format for her unless she's with someone like Jacques, who excites and stimulates her to perform her best."

"Do you think I should tell her to stop?"

I don't know if Dorothy made her decision based on my response, but I told her what I felt. "This is her passion, Dort. I think asking her to give it up would be more damaging than any criticism she receives for keeping at it."

Dort and I never discussed it again, and Julia agreed to do another series in 1996, Baking with Julia. Thank heavens, for that series neither of us had to write the book. Dorie Greenspan, author of a number of superb baking cookbooks and a master baker if ever there was one, wrote the beautiful book that accompanied the show. Julia appeared on camera with the chefs, and I was culinary producer.

Her television work was not all that kept Julia busy in the mid 1990's. She continued to give demonstrations, attend conferences, and teach classes from California to Italy. There was simply no turnoff switch for the passion she had for what she was doing. In late February 1996, Julia and I spent six days at the Highlands Inn in Carmel, California, where Julia was the guest of honor at a truly posh culinary extravaganza. The Masters of Food & Wine event is held yearly for no reason other than the celebration of the finest in food and wine. Three hundred guests from around the world enjoyed gala dinners, truffle and foie gras lunches, wines of great distinction, and buffet tables laden with the world's premium unpasteurized cheeses. Food luminaries mingled with elegant, passionate gourmands, who paid an obscene amount of money to experience the best of the world of gastronomy. Vineyard owners from France, California, Italy, Spain, and Australia, to list but a few, were there with a handpicked selection of their productions. There was even a beer maker from Germany whose family had been making the brew for seven hundred years.

Julia agreed to give a demonstration as well as do several radio and television interviews. Somehow, at Julia's insistence, we also found time to cut out and tour the area. She especially wanted to see if we could find the whales that were in the Pacific waters running by the inn. So we drove to a number of popular lookout sites and did indeed see them. We were both in great spirits. Julia was in California, and there was no place on earth that she loved more. And I was in love. Earlier that month, I'd met Roy Bailey. I knew as soon as I met him that he was the one, but I wonder if I would have realized it if I hadn't already known Julia so well. Roy was just as bold and outspoken, just as outrageous and naughty, and just as funny if not funnier than Julia was. His personality might well have overwhelmed me if I had not had so many Julia years to prepare for it.

I told Julia that I was pretty sure I had met "him," and she was delighted. Up until then, she had been supportive of the few boyfriends I had, but although she didn't come right out and say it, I could tell that she didn't think they were right for me. The day we arrived in Carmel, there was a card from Roy waiting for me at the hotel desk.

"It's from Roy," I said, all smiles, holding it up for her to see.

"Let's see," she said taking the card and examining the address. "He has a strong, fine hand. I approve."

I don't know if it was because Roy was a professional artist and she felt a connection because of Paul's art or if she just sensed that all the pieces fit, but from the get-go she liked him. The day I introduced them to each other, I let us into Julia's house and yelled hello as Roy and I walked up the back stairs. Julia met us at the top and Roy put out his hand to shake hers, but instead Julia reached her long arms around him and gave him a huge, warm hug. "Anyone who is with our Nancy deserves a hug," she said. Approval noted.

So Julia and I floated happily through our days at the Highland Inn. For the gala meals, the inn invited twenty or so well-known chefs, including Julia, to each prepare a course. Knowing what a hectic schedule she planned for herself, she might have chosen to prepare a simpler dish for her contribution to the gala dinner, but she didn't. She decided to prepare her Designer Duck, which involved roasting the duck until the breast meat was just "springy rather than squishy to the touch" then skinning and disassembling the bird so the breasts could be pan-sautéed briefly to finish cooking and the legs and thighs breaded and sautéed a longer time in another pan.

The day of the dinner, Julia spent the morning doing a television interview and the afternoon giving a demonstration. Cooks from the inn were supposed to get the ducks ready for the sauté stage, but when we arrived, we saw that nothing was finished beyond the roasting. With the dinner hour perilously close, there was no time to lose, so Julia and I grabbed knives, donned aprons, and began removing breasts, legs, thighs, and skin from enough ducks to make hunters weep. Bless the late chef Jean-Louis Palladin, who, realizing what was happening, called to all chefs who were not up their necks in their own preparations to grab their knives and get to our table. He had alerted the kitchen to our needs in French, so the entire brigade that came to our aid was French. Julia explained in French what we were doing, and I sincerely regretted that my knowledge of the language was so limited. I had no trouble, however, translating Julia's statement when she looked up from her duck, knife poised in front of her, smiled, and said in perfect French, "Cooking together is such fun." Oui a hundred times over.

Even with all that expert help, we were not finished by the time the guests began to arrive for the evening festivities. Julia and I were expected to join the guests in the dining room in time for the cocktail hour, but she didn't want to leave the kitchen and I had to chase her out.

"We still have so much to do," she said.

"I'll stay and make sure it gets done," I told her. "No one will miss me, but you
have
to be there." Reluctantly Julia left the kitchen, and when I finally made it into the dining room in time to sit down for the first course, she caught me by the arm. "How'd it go?" she asked.

"Great," I said. "They're all set to be sautéed."

"I wanted to stay," she said resolutely, and I knew she meant it. Schmoozing over cocktails did not come even close to boning ducks with a group of friends. Cooking was her passion, and I never saw it wane. Nothing ever eroded her energy or joy for being in front of a stove. It was a wise choice for Dort not to tell her to stop. And Julia never did.

She continued to do what she had always done with all the energy and passion she'd always had. But our work together did stop. In 1997, I signed a contract with Knopf for another book, which was larger and more involved than my first. Roy and I were juggling our lives in homes in Nantucket and Providence, and for me that was enough.

Julia and I did continue, however, to play together, and keeping up with Julia was no less of a challenge than it had ever been. In 1997, when she was still living in her Santa Barbara condominium at Montecito Shores, she invited Roy and me to stay with her for a few days over New Year's. We didn't need any reason to go other than to celebrate with her, but she had a specific one on her mind: she had decided to sell her Montecito unit and move to the retirement community of Casa Marinda. The apartment at the Casa was considerably smaller and she was in the process of furniture downsizing. Much of Paul's painting equipment was still in the condominium, and she wanted to see if there was anything that Roy would like. And she wanted to show us what would be her new digs. As she warned, they were much smaller, and when she gave us the tour, she said that the man living in the unit next door to hers was not well. Perhaps "when he slips off the raft, I can buy his place and break down the wall," she told us.