Read Online Backstage with Julia by Nancy Verde Barr - Free Book Online Page B

think, as follows: 1) Lentils 2) Sausage cakes 3) Meat Loaf (Do you have any great ideas?? I like beef and sausage, and think it useful for leftover meat)" and ended with "But I don't have any desserts here—any ideas?? . . . would welcome the comments from our Exec. Chef!" I sent back three handwritten pages that contained every thought I had ever entertained about the subjects: "I adore lentils—didn't Esau sell Jacob his birthright for a bowl of lentil soup? My grandmother used to make the most wonderful pasta e fagioli soup with lentils, macaroni, sausage, tomatoes, onions—heavenly. Cold lentil salad is good—and of course just lentils hot with butter, walnuts or pine nuts." I droned on about sausage cakes and meat loaf, even suggested having GMA purchase a meat grinder, and then I went on to desserts. "You have never made a crème anglais on GMA . . . you could serve it over poached fruit or macerated orange slices—or stabilize it for something like those wonderful individual size tarte St. Tropez . . . or a trifle with bananas and nuts. " I wasn't finished. I still had Indian pudding, the great American brownie, applesauce, flummery, and a fruit fool to suggest. Had I been Julia reading my rambling list of suggestions, I would have thought the fool particularly appropriate. In spite of my babbling suggestions, Julia never stopped asking me to "send them along."
    Team is a real feel-good word—team effort, team spirit, team goals. Biographies can better discern at what point in her life Julia developed an appreciation for and keen understanding of what constituted a team. But she did, and in every sense of the word, she thought of herself and her associates as one team. She was always right there in the thick of things, working along with us. We never questioned that she was in charge, but she made it clear that she valued and trusted our opinions (babbling suggestions and all) by involving us in all aspects of the work we did together. She even created a team motto—"EOT" (eye on target)—and she set very high standards for that target and gave us very large responsibilities in seeing that it was met. But she never sent us onto the field alone; she was always in the game with us.
    As soon as she promoted me to head of the kitchen team, she assigned me my first major task. We needed an additional kitchen associate for the fall, and she asked me to choose one. "Whomever you would like to work with would be fine with me—it's you who will be in command, anyway, and must have someone you like and trust there," she wrote me from France that summer. I began to search but was having difficulty finding someone with the necessary experience who had the job flexibility to take two days off every month. Plenty of friends who were gourmet cooks offered their services, but we needed a professional, and in 1980, there was not the large number of trained professionals in Rhode Island that there is today. My contacts in New York and Boston were few. Just as I was beginning to feel that I might not be able to accomplish the task, Julia called me.
    "I've asked someone named Susy Davidson to call you. She studied with Anne Willan at La Varenne and worked with Simca [Simone Beck]. Simca's very fond of her and she may be just who we are looking for. Talk to her and see what you think." Perhaps it's a subtle bit of leadership, but it did not go unnoticed to me. Julia did not relieve me of my responsibility to find a new associate because I hadn't accomplished what needed to be done; she left it in my hands while giving me the assistance I needed.
    I liked Susy immediately when she called, and could tell that she was more than qualified to be a JC associate. I relayed my opinion to Julia, and we agreed to give Susy a trial run. That fall when Susy joined us, I quickly saw that she was truly qualified for the job. Moreover, the minute she walked into the prep kitchen, I was immediately aware of just how