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AUGUST 2012
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HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
JOHN DOMINIS/TIME LIFE PICTURES/GETTY IMAGES
IN THE EARLY 1990S,
Bob Spitz—then a young food
writer on assignment in Italy—received an unusual
request. “The tourist board called and asked if I’d be
interested in escorting a woman around. I said no. Then
they told me who it was and I said, ‘Be right there.’”
For a month, Spitz and Julia Child toured Sicily, “eating and talking.” He’s not sure
why they clicked (though he suspects she had a thing for young men), but click they
did. “She was a hoot. She’d stride into a kitchen, stick her big paw into a pot of sauce
and lick her fingers. Every night she’d drinkme under the table. It was perfect.”
This month, a century a er Child’s birth, Spitz’s
Dearie: The Remarkable Life of
Julia Child
will join an array of biographical material devoted to the 6-foot-2 cooking
icon. Spitz, though, promises a more intimate and revealing treatment. “I could hear
her voice as I wrote,” he says.
In conversation, Spitz seems to pos-
sess an inexhaustible supply of Julia
anecdotes, like the one about high-
profile dinner guests being served
Goldfish crackers and tuna sandwiches,
or tales of those made to cook for
themselves, like “John Updike braising
a leg of lamb with Julia looking over
his shoulder” (while a great cooking
teacher, Child was not a great cook).
Or the time when Child sat down at a
Boston restaurant: “The waiter came
over and said two gentlemen wanted
to buy Julia a glass of champagne, but
also warned her that these men were
mobsters. Julia said, ‘Really? What kind
of champagne?’ She ended up having
dinner with these contract killers.”
In August 2004, as her kidneys shut
down, doctors told this larger-than-life
bon vivant that the only way to save
her life was intensive dialysis. Child
refused treatment. When asked why,
Spitz pauses for a moment. “She’d lost
her taste for food,” he says.
aug. 7
Child’s Play
A new biography provides an intimate look
at America’s sauciest celebrity chef
MOVIES
The Expendables 2
, the rock-’em schlock-’em follow-up to the 2010 hit, featuring none other than The Ahnold
himself
//
The Bourne Legacy
: different Bourne (Jeremy Renner), same Ludlumian intrigue
BOOKS
My Favorite Fangs
,
madcap mashup artist Alan Goldsher’s reimagining of the von Trapps as a vampire brood
//
Diaries
, a collection of
discursive musings from George Orwell, with foreword by Christopher Hitchens
TV
“Married to Jonas,” a reality show
about the nuptial adventures of Jonas brother Kevin and his wife, Danielle
MUSIC
Listening
, in which Ben Taylor, son of
James, takes languid man-folk to new extremes
//
Antibalas
, the self-titled album from Brooklyn’s afrobeat legends
The Dish
Bob Spitz’s favorite tidbits
Julia and Italian food:
“She thought it was
bogus cuisine. She hated all forms of
cooking except French and Chinese.”
Julia the slacker:
“Until she learned
cooking, she was a prima donna rich girl,
a social butterfly.”
Julia the superspy:
“Working for the OSS
[Office of Strategic Services] inWorld
War II, Julia was responsible for the
placement of every American agent in
Southeast Asia.”
Julia’s doughboys:
“At Le Cordon Bleu
after the war, she worked alongside
these soldiers learning to cook on the
GI Bill. They were doing beef stew. She
was making beef bourguignon.”
Julia’s crisis hotline:
“She listed her phone
number so anyone having a hard time
cooking could call and she’d tell them
what they were doing wrong. She’d be
saying, ‘No, dearie, you take that turkey
and put it right on the counter.’”
A
L
S
O
O
U
T
T
H
I
S
M
O
N
T
H
HARD TO SWALLOW
Child’s recipes were
“100 percent foolproof,”
but the food she cooked
herself could be lacking,
the author says
culture
THEMONTHAHEAD