A Visit from Julia

      It was a bleak morning in March. Dark and gloomy. A nor’easter was skirting up the coast – typical for a beach town at that time of year when it’s not quite spring, or not quite anything for that matter – the sidewalks rolled up for the winter and one bar in town open for those on unemployment to commiserate together.

And it was a Tuesday.

I was sitting at my desk on the third floor of the building where the town’s newspaper had published its weekly for over 150 years. It was a dusty old building with printer’s ink still clinging to the walls for dear life. The old Heidelberg presses were long gone to a local museum for simple nostalgia.

Tuesdays at five was the weekly deadline for the Wednesday morning editions. Being March, news was hard to come by and this was a Tuesday with absolutely nothing for anyone to write about.

In fact, I was joking with the rest of the newsroom staff that we ourselves just might have to make the news – pillaging the town first came to mind – for any front page stories. The phone rang. It was for me.

“This is Joe Colanero,” said the voice at the other end. I didn’t know the name “I read your food column every week and really enjoy it.”

Well, here was something to at least cheer up the day, a little. It was a happy call. Sometimes we received happy letters too. Bless us.

I wrote two food columns – “Dining In” and “Dining Out.” “Dining In” detailed recipes I tested at home as well as the history of American food, the how’s and why’s and so forth; “Dining Out” offered readers a chance to test the waters before spending a dime or having to find a parking space during the town’s summer season. It also offered me a lot of free food.

“I’m with the IACP,” he continued. “We’re bringing Julia Child into town next Tuesday for the day to explore the seafood industry. She doesn’t want any fanfare. She just wants to slip in and out unnoticed. No key to the city. No reporters. I’m only telling you, she only

He said the group would meet at a well-known seafood restaurant early the following Tuesday and for me to be prepared to spend the day. And then he hung up.

It took a few moments for me to hang up the phone wondering what to make of it. We always took phone calls like that. Usually during full moons. They weren’t crank calls per se, more of ‘Did you hear about so and so…?’ and the ‘I know something you don’t know’ type. Nine times out of ten they didn’t pan out. Simply small town over-the-clothesline and through-the grapevine-talk.

           I’d never heard of a Joe Colanero or the IACP – there was no internet highway, then – and by God, visiting in March? My love of food and all things French led me to Julia at an early age so I knew Julia Child was at least in her eighties. The likelihood of her visiting seemed slim to none. Figured I was better off not mentioning it to anyone anyway.

On the following Tuesday morning, I was running late, dropping my daughter off to second grade and being handed a note from the teacher – my worst nightmare, but I digress – another story, another time.

I pulled into a parking spot, turned off the car and immediately heard her voice.

Larger than life in frame, fame and fortune, there she was walking the docks talking with fishermen unloading the day or week’s catch.

As she walked, fishermen yelled from boats of all different sorts, “Hey, Julia!” and “That’s Julia Child!” and “I love you, Julia!”

“Hello,” she yelled back in all her Julia Child glory. “Bon Appetit! And do you cook?” asking as many of the men individually as she could. “Monkfish,” yelled a fisherman in yellow foul weather gear. “Stripers,” shouted another with great enthusiasm.

The restaurant property was comprised of commercial fishing fleets, a fish-packing facility, a raw bar, a take-out window and an obligatory gift shop.

I followed her and the IACP group, who turned out to be 36 members of the Internal Association of Culinary Professionals much to my chagrin, to the restaurant’s second floor meeting room where they, those 36 members, were to see a presentation by the Fishing Council of Somewhere – the FCS, I suppose – about locally-farmed oysters, clams, mussels and the array of local “Riches from the Sea.”

Julia settled in at a front row table with Joe and I joining her. She was delighted by the presentation – the only word fitting for Julia – and asked fervent questions about the industry, pleased with the answers.

  Then the food arrived.

“There wasn’t supposed to be any food served,” grumbled Joe – we were now on a first name basis – obviously perturbed. “Why is there food?” he demanded.

I looked at the dishes placed in front of us and saw the basic seashore fare of crab fingers with a mustard sauce, Clams Casino, fried this and fried that, hardly the restaurant’s finest dishes. Julia was very gracious and complimented the chef, though

I did overhear her whisper to Joe, “It wasn’t very good, was it?”

I found out later the chef had taken it upon himself to “feed Julia” and was fired the next week. Such is life.

The next stop on the tour was a newly renovated Victorian hotel restaurant where Julia was scheduled to have lunch. Joe – now my new best friend – seemed relieved.

This was planned and the chef was well-known locally and lauded by publications like mine as well as in national publications. Its opening was then the talk of the town.

We were all seated – me once again with Joe and Julia – and the wait staff began taking drink orders. “Iced tea, coffee, water, perhaps a soda for you madam?” asked the chef’s wife personally taking the table.

“Isn’t there any wine?” asked Julia, matter of factly.

She explained the wine was being served with the lunch entrée because the hotel had not yet obtained its liquor license and had to buy the wine by the case.

“My God,” she said, again with the matter of fact. “Can’t we have it now?” And of course we did.

Because she wished to arrive unannounced to anyone – the city fathers, the chamber of commerce and the wannabes and the know-it-alls of the town who would have more than likely greeted her with a 10-piece band playing John Philip Sousa’s “Congress Hall March” – another story, another time again – no permit had been issued for the bus to drive the narrow, one-way bumpy street to the hotel.

With no pomp and circumstance and nonplussed, Julia marveled at the town’s architecture, its hidden gardens and its people who saw her on the street and said hello.

      Wine served and lunch savored after a bona fide Bon Appetit toast and praise from Julia herself, the final destination was a visit to an arts center where the bus was waiting for the voyage home.

Still wearied and unable to explore the three-story she and I sat on the wide wrap-around porch and chatted – about the way of the world and the way of food.

And she was interested in me. She wanted to know who I was. Who I really was. And, of course, which food inspired me.

I told her I was studying the cooking techniques of her great friend Jacques Pepin.

“We cooked a roast beef together just the other day,” she exclaimed with such pleasure it was hard not to smell it cooking right there on the porch. “Meat! It's been a while since I've cooked beef,” she said referring to the current food trend of leaner fare.

I savored her pleasure in the cooking of a simple roast beef and relished in her constant interest of the world around her. 

As she was boarding the bus to leave, she asked me to send copies of that I would write. I asked for her address. She asked for my notebook where she wrote her address.

I still have it.

I mailed her copies. Three weeks later I received a thank you note from her.

I still have that, too.

It was one fine day.