Here are two pictures from my yard – the rose was taken on Friday when the approximately ONE hour of sun was out. The stock and petunias shot was taken a couple of weeks ago when I put them in a planter. I love stock and its lovely fragrance. A few years back we used this very effectively in wedding centerpieces, in special order Guy Wolff pots, for a family wedding at our home in Orleans, MA. Today I am off to the Farm in Green Village to look over their early selection of Heirloom Tomatoes and new flower selections. I am hoping to find some good things!
What makes a food icon? Last night, I caught an episode of Baking with Julia on the Create channel. If you are not familiar with this channel on PBS, definitely check it out. They have the best selection of cooking and travel shows currently on PBS and I find I have this on my tv much more these days than other venues. The episode happened to be one with Nick Malgieri, the director of the baking program at ICE in NYC where I attended. He and Julia made Sicilian Fig “X” Cookies and Pizza Rustica. I have most of Nick’s books and have made many of his recipes at home as well as in school. His recipes do not disappoint. Last week I referenced his High Ratio Fresh Ginger Pound Cake with Lemon Glaze. This recipe is in his book, “Perfect Cakes” which is a great book, and can be readily found on the internet. This is an outstanding cake and I highly recommend you try it. I love using fresh ginger, especially in baking. I made it several times this Winter and am tempted to just keep one in my covered cake plate at all times for “emergencies”. This is dangerous business!
But, now back to Julia. I grew up watching Julia Child with my Mother in the afternoons on PBS. TV was black and white then and my Mom loved watching every episode of Julia (and of The Galloping Gourmet) over and over again. A picture of this is forever etched in my mind. For some reason, I still think of Julia as being “with us”. I don’t know why but it just seems that way to me. She is like a major thread through my life in cooking and baking going back to the very beginning; I don’t know maybe I was 8 years old. I can hear her voice and see her in her little shirt waists working in her tv kitchen in the earliest days talking about souffles and other, then- mysterious french foods . For awhile after her death, aside from Sara Moulton’s tribute and the Julie and Julia phase I felt that her memory was not properly sanctified, but now she seems to be getting a little more proper recognition. I still think someone should start a Julia Child Institute in her memory and continue her dedication to the teaching of cooking and baking. To not do this just seems wrong to me. As I think about Julia’s overall impact, I am reminded of some particular feelings I had when I was in pastry school last year. All of the other students in my class were much younger than me. They were almost exclusively contemporaries of my daughter – in their twenties. I quickly realized that I had a very different perspective on the food world than they, mostly due to my advancing age. I have been exposed to a totally different media set than they have and they are basically of the “cupcake wars” generation. I felt a little sad that they had missed the Julia generation. Bottom line to me, Julia Child and her long-term and wide-arrayed contribution definitely set a tough standard to follow. She was a great teacher, worked incredibly hard at developing her wide-ranging knowledge of cooking and baking, had a great sense of humor, and showed the love of her craft in her presentation to others.
Julia’s book, “Baking with Julia”, which was published in 1996 was, I believe, the last cookbook my Mom gave to me before her decent into the throes of Alzheimer’s. When I got it out this morning, I was hoping she had signed and dated it, a habit of her’s when she gave me a cookbook (something she loved to do), but she hadn’t. But, I could see she had untidily cut out the price from the dust jacket. I love this book, for its great content but, more of course, because my Mom lovingly gifted it to me and was thinking of me in an inspiring way even as she became ill.
This current world of media saturation – print, television and internet, presents a huge challenge – to sift through and find what stands out as true quality, useful and will have substantive duration and positive value in the years to come. This sifting process is one of my primary motivations in the world of food. Over the past 10 days I have commented on just a few of my favorite publications, cooks and shows. I’d love to hear feedback on your favorites and finds.
So, in this vein, I leave you with my three criteria for high quality food media:
Must:
a. inform about or teach something useful and enduring about food, persons or places in a logical and constructive
format
b. be visually appealing
c. not evoke anxiety
I leave this with you – Just food for thought……