Great Aunt Julia

When I was in school at The Culinary Institute of America, we would often have the opportunity to see demonstrations by guest chefs.  I was in the Baking and Pastry program and unfortunately the guest chefs were often geared toward the regular culinary arts. I was not yet at a point in my life where I would have considered myself to be a foodie and did not know the names of many well known chefs so I often did not attend.  But I would have had to live in a hole in the ground to not know the name Julia Child.  And it would have been impossible to not want to see a living legend.

Julia came to the CIA during a time when she was promoting her book, Baking With Julia, so the demonstration was to be focused on dessert.  My classroom group was involved in the preparations for the demonstration.  Much like when you are watching a cooking show on TV and they magically swap out the just made item for the perfectly browned and ready to eat finished product, we were doing that prep.

I was involved in making a Tarte Tatin.  This is a classic French dessert in which sugar and butter are caramelized in a pan and then topped with a layer of fruit, usually apples.  A pastry crust is placed on top of the fruit and the dessert is finished in the oven.  When it is taken out of the oven, the entire pastry is flipped onto a plate and served upside down with the perfectly browned and juicy fruit taking center stage.  In addition to getting the final product ready for its close-up, we also got all of the mise en place (a fancy phrase for the set up of ingredients and tools) together to send to the demonstration theater.

We then headed over to take our seats and see "the great" Julia Child.  Julia was in her 80's.  She did not prepare the Tarte Tatin herself but instead sat on a tall stool in the demonstration kitchen and interacted with one of the chef instructors as he worked on the dish.  She was hunched and showing her age but still bright and cheerful with an easy rapport.  After the demonstration, Julia was available to sign autographs but the line was long and I did not come with cookbook in hand.  A small regret of mine in retrospect.

It was not until recently that I discovered that I share something more in common with Julia Child than just that one afternoon in the late 1990's.  Julia's maiden name is McWilliams.  My mother's maiden name is McWilliams.  I have McWilliams blood.  Could it be that, maybe, if we followed the lines of genealogy far enough, there might be a connection?  We are all connected every day through the food we eat and the memories we share.  We can find connections in a book or on a blog.  It is a very modern world we live in where every bit of information is available at the touch of a button or click of a key but I believe there are some things best left to the imagination.  So, I lift my glass in a toast to my great great great aunt Julia Child and the afternoon that we spent together baking like all good relatives should.