(photo old postcard found on the web)
I grew up in Whitney Point, New York, a dairy farming community where there were (literally) more cows than people. Everyone in our small village looked like me, with dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and pale skin sprinkled with freckles. The biggest difference was when someone had dark hair or brown eyes. Television was still shown only in black and white and programs were only in English, which further cemented my childish idea that the “microcosm” that was my little world, was what the whole world looked like and sounded like. It was the end of the 1950s/beginning of the 1960s. Frozen and canned foods were the future! They made the chore of cooking a thing of the past and freed up American women to do other important things, like laundry and vacuuming. We ate a typical American diet, which meant cereal with milk for breakfast. We took lunchboxes with a sandwich (baloney, American cheese, and mustard on squishy white bread) 1 apple, and 2 cookies. We bought a box of milk at the lunch counter for 10 cents. Dinner depended on the day of the week. Friday was fish-sticks with macaroni and cheese, Sunday was roast beef, mashed potatoes and mushy-canned-green beans. Other nights brought culinary marvels like a tuna-noodle casserole, meatloaf or hotdogs and beans. The closest we came to gourmet food was Good Seasons Italian salad dressing mix on iceberg lettuce. I thought pies came from a box in the freezer section of the Grand Union grocery store. I had no idea one could actually “make” a pie.
Photo of a postcard vintage school bus found on the web.
One very normal, very average fall day, I hopped off bus number 57 and walked up the hill amongst a gaggle of other blond-haired, blue-eyed, white bread eating kids, to our house. I dropped my lunchbox, a handful of important papers, and my books on the bench by the side door threw my jacket on the coat tree and went into the living room. The TV was on, even though mom wasn’t there. I plopped myself down on the red couch and watched Julia Child on PBS.
Her ubiquitous dishtowel looped through her apron strings, she tossed flour, yeast, salt, and water together to make real, homemade, bread. Clouds of flour flew all over the place, settling both on the counter and her ample bosom. She man-handled that dough. Using a dough scraper, she scraped up the blob and then “THWAP,” slapped it back down again in a white-out pouf of flour. At one point the scraper flew out of her hand and skittered across the counter, exiting stage left. This elicited a simultaneous laugh and yelp from Madame Julia.
I was glued to the TV, mesmerized by her performance, loose and seemingly off the cuff, yet full of confidence. She plopped the dough into a glass bowl, set it aside to rise, and began a story about bread making in France…
Chattering on about yeast and rise, taste, and temperature she eventually brought out a bowl of already risen dough for comparison. Pillowy, you could sense its softness as the camera moved in. Talking about the first rise, second rise, and deflating dough, she explained that these stages of bread-making were what developed taste and texture. She continued, talking about resting, relaxing, forming, and shaping the dough…”
“Forming is so important,” she went on, in her breathy, husky voice, “That I took a private lesson at the École professional de Meunière, in Paris, with the renowned French Chef Raymond Calvel.”
The picture on the TV switched from her PBS kitchen to a bakery in Paris and a long, low counter studded with blobs of dough in various stages of rising. A serious-looking, gray-haired man in a white smock began (in French of course…)
My pasty-white-bread, English-hearing ears had never heard any language other than English.
“Nous allons commencer par la baguette. Passe moi un baton, alor la.”
“Voila! Bien sur.”
I was transported, as if by magic, to a foreign world with a flowery language rising up out of clouds of flour. I was transfixed!
Julia was gigantic and towered over the diminutive Chef Calvel. With her hips swinging, she asked, in that distinctive voice,
“Je peux essayer?”
She went on to make baguettes alongside the most famous bread maker in all of France.
It was at that very moment that I became anaphylactic about France. I plotted and planned, took French in high school, and dreamed of the day I could visit France and eat a baguette. It was not until 1981 that I had the chance to travel to France. I went with a friend, an art teacher who had the summer off. We spent 2 glorious weeks in Spain and France. There was nothing I did not like, stepping in French dog poo was something out of a movie. Clouds of cigarette smoke smelled “oh so French.” No amount of French eye-rolling at my-decidedly casual-dress and giant American smile could dissuade me, France was heaven on earth.
We had dinner with ‘A REAL FRENCH FAMILY!!!” (exactly as written on my postcard home.) What I remember is that they served beef (I was a vegetarian) with mustard (huh? Mustard?) and that they took about 35 minutes to discuss which wine would be best with the beef (I hated red wine.) Appetizers were a handful of smoked almonds and olives (with pits!) Needless to say, I’d never had either. They instructed me to try a bit of meat with a dab of mustard with a sip of the red wine. I did as instructed. I had never had a more delicious bite of food in my entire life.
Fast forward to the mid-2000s. I was married, divorced, married again, had adopted 4 kids from China (in my mid-40’s), and cared for 3 elderly relatives (lived with me) until they passed (all in their 90’s.) I had a Master’s in Social Work but quit that to write and sell antiques. The antique shop became an excuse to go to France, treasure hunting for the shop. By chance, I met someone at the Brimfield Antiques Fair who knew the blog “Tongue in Cheek” and knew Corey personally. I shamelessly begged for an intro and the next time I was in France we met. I was verklempt! I was so excited I gave her a big American grin while squealing “You’re real!” We have been long-distance friends ever since.
I hope one day to live in France and have been working on that plan since, well, let’s face it, since 1971 when I first saw Julia flinging bread dough in a cloud of flour on PBS.
PS
In my humble opinion, Corey is a Priest (ess,) a bringer-together of people from disparate backgrounds with loving grace. An adventurer, a poet, a woman of incredible wisdom, generosity, and strength. I am so very grateful that we’ve met and forged a bit of a friendship. Her blog, by example, has been a beacon of light in what, for some, has been a trying time. She has gracefully shown us, with dignity and respect, how to proceed. Having guest writers is an example of her genius, slinging aside what divides us and having us all dig into what brings us together in this wild and wonderful world. Many thanks, Ms. C.
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