I like to cook. I learned to cook by watching cooking shows on television. My earliest memories are of cooking shows on PBS–long before there was The Cooking Channel. I remember Graeme Kerr and Pierre Franey and Emeril Lagasse and Wolfgang Puck. And now I watch Giana and Bobby.
In 2009 I was captivated by the movie Julie and Julia, a biographical comedy about Julie Powell, a young cook/aspiring chef who had cooked all 524 of Julia Child’s recipes, from her classic “Mastering the Art of French Cooking”, within a one year timeframe. Julie Powell documented this journey on her blog.
Watching the movie got me re-energized to pull out my old copies of Julia Child’s cookbooks and start trying again to make perfect chicken. Imagine how excited I was when my wife announced that HBO Max was launching a series based on the life of Julia Child called, simply, “Julia”.
As with most series and movies, the writers take some liberty with the storyline compared to the reality, so I am not sure that these two events happened exactly as shown. Regardless, the event underlying them is historically sound.
Julia was invited to speak to a group of New York society about the success of both her book and her new PBS series, filmed and distributed by WGBH Boston. At a luncheon, set in Lutece (arguably THE French restaurant in New York City) the executive chef comes to Julia and company’s table to accept her praise for the meal. The chef recognizes Julia and praises her work but, just before leaving, he reminds her to leave real cooking to the men–that women run the household and men run the kitchens.
Later, at the banquet honoring her, she gets into a fairly heated discussion with a woman at the next table. That woman is Betty Friedan, the great feminist author and leader. Ms. Friedan wants Julia to stop teaching women how to be more adept at cooking because the goal is to get women OUT of the kitchen if society is to move forward. Julia, who has just delivered remarks pointing out how mastering cooking is a form of “international travel” and experience without leaving home. And that experience is elevating–empowerment for those housewives who move to the next level in their kitchens.
So we have, in a single episode two conversations, both between Julia and highly accomplished, intelligent and legitimately passionate leaders in their own right who want her to stop what she’s doing because it is interfering with how they want the world to grow and move forward.
What Julia wants to impress upon them, and cannot do so, is that she believes that women of her generation can combine improvement in their own cooking WITH respect and support for impeccably run Michelin starred chefs and powerful, leading figures in the feminist movement. Julia can’t see why you have to choose–can’t male chefs live and prosper WITH female chefs and can’t women build a home WITH a career? The series doesn’t answer the questions, but it adroitly positions the challenge.
Obviously, sometimes choices in life, especially how to live our lives best, need to be made. But can’t we agree with Julia that there are a lot of “with” opportunities to come together that need not become “against” situations that pull us apart?
