Patricia Barey - Julia’s Cats: Julia Child’s Life in the Company of Cats

Une maison sans chat, cest la vie sans soleil.

When Julia Child arrived in Paris in 1948, she was a thirty-six-year-old newlywed, a late bloomer about to begin a journey that would transform her and forever change the way Americans eat and think about food.

Madly in love with her husband, Paul, and the sights, sounds, and tastes of her beautiful new city, she thought her happiness was complete, until the day an adorable French kitty appeared at the door. Minette came to catch mice in the kitchen but captured Julias heart, igniting a passion for poussiequettes she would always identify with that magical time in Paris and the blossoming of her new life. As Paul once confided, a catany catis necessary to Julias happiness.

Filled with rare personal photos, and based on fresh anecdotes found in Julia and Pauls letters and on the reminiscences of people who knew her best, Julias Cats tells the story of Julia Childs charmed life in the company of cats, from Paris to Provence, Cambridge to California. The book follows her progress from insecure culinary novice to TV superstar and beloved American iconand the parade of pussycats that helped put the joie in her joie de vivre.

Editor: David Cashion
Designer: Darilyn Lowe Carnes
Production Manager: Ankur Ghosh

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Barey, Patricia.

Julias cats : Julia Childs life in the company of cats / Patricia Barey, Therese Burson.

p. cm.

ISBN 978-1-4197-0275-4 (hardback)

1. Child, Julia. 2. Women cat ownersUnited StatesBiography. 3. CatsAnecdotes.

4. CooksUnited StatesBiography. I. Burson, Therese. II. Title.

SF442.82.C55B37 2013

636.800922dc23

2012004512

Text copyright 2012 Patricia Barey and Therese Burson

Recipe on from FROM JULIA CHILDS KITCHEN by Julia Child, copyright 1975 by Julia Child. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

All the photos reproduced in this book, with the exception of those listed below, are by Paul Child and published with permission from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Paul Child photos and images on pages The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts.

Additional photos provided with permission and courtesy of the following: Sandy Shepard/collection of Rosemary Manell ().

Published in 2012 by Abrams Image, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

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Frontispiece:
Julia Child with copper cat. Photo by Paul Child, 1964

A REPORTER ONCE ASKED Julia Child what she might whip up for her creator when she got to heaven. Julia wasnt a religious personshe believed heaven was right here on earth, in her own cozy kitchen, hovering over a skillet sizzling with shallots and butter, then sitting down to share a meal with people she loved, a cat wrapped around her ankles, meowing for treats.

She lost count of how often shed been quizzed about what she wanted for her own last meal. She once composed a detailed menu that left nothing to chance: Begin with Cotuit oysters on thinly sliced and buttered homemade rye bread. Caviar and vodka, then fresh green California asparagus. For the main course, her favorite duck recipe, the one in which you roast the duck until the breast is rare and then cook the legs and wings separately en confit, with a very nice light port wine sauce. Serve it with peas and pommes Anna and a big Burgundy or Saint-milion from a very good year. Crusty French bread, of course. Follow the entre with lettuce and endive dressed with lemon and French olive oil. A classic creamy dessert, Charlotte Malakoff, paired with an ambrosial Chteau dYquem. Top off the meal with some ripe grapes, a Comice pear, perhaps chocolate truffles with the coffee and liqueurs.

As time went on, she came to see the question about her final meal as beside the point. The menu she would choose didnt really matter as long as it was soignprepared with respect for the ingredients and the process, cooked with care and presented with love.

In the summer of 2004, Julia had been in failing health following complications from knee surgery, and after a brief hospitalization, she refused further treatment for a massive infection. She wanted to be at home, having decided her time had come to slip off the raft. One August night, just four days before her ninety-second birthday, she asked her longtime assistant to make a batch of soup. Stephanie took down Julias own copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and opened it to page forty-three. She knew the recipe by heart but wanted The Book nearby. Soon a cloud of rich scents rising from the bubbling beef stock and onions sauting in butterlots of butterfilled the apartment.

The fragrant aroma worked its magic. Julia savored the bowl of her own French onion soup. A beloved dinner companion that night was a wild little black-and-white kitten named Minou, who shared Julias home in a retirement community near Santa Barbara. Full of feline joie de vivre, Minou was the soul mate who brightened Julias days. When she was ready for bed, the kitten curled up in his customary spot on the right side of the pillow. Minou kept watch through the night as Julias charmed life ebbed away, where she said it all truly began, in the company of cats.

THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD newlywed Julia Child was feeling queasy as she peered out the porthole of a heaving SS America. There were no stars in the November sky, but she could make out dim lights winking through the grimy fog. Julias first glimpse of France made sleep impossible, so she bent over her tiny writing table and added a note to the letter her husband, Paul, was writing to his twin brother, Charlie, back in Pennsylvania.

She tells everyone that she misses them terribly but cant wait to finally see Paris. She sends her love especially to the family dog and Mimi, her favorite cat-in-law. She pleads for news of their latest mischief.

Julia had married into a letter-writing, animal-loving family that warmly embraced its dogs and cats, and the tall, two-legged newcomer with the warbly voice. Cold noses, sloppy dog kisses, and purring balls of fur were highlights of every family reunion. They reminded her of growing up in a rambunctious Pasadena household where frisky Airedales were the favorite playmates of Julia and her two siblings.