Dishing on Julia - Episode 1 transcript
Julia Child: The OG Food Celebrity
Julia Child:
Is that everyone?
Avis DeVoto:
Yes. Yes, it is.
Julia Child:
Wonderful. Then I'll begin.
Kerry Diamond:
That is the one and only Julia Child. And this is Dishing On Julia, the official companion podcast of Julia, the HBO Max Original series inspired by the life of Julia Child. The show explores a pivotal time in American history, covering the emergence of public television as a new social institution, feminism and the women's movement, the nature of celebrity, and the country's cultural evolution.
My name is Kerry Diamond and I'm the founder of Cherry Bombe, a magazine and podcast that's all about women and food. I'm also a Francophile, an enthusiastic home cook, and a huge fan of Julia Child. Each week, I'll be recapping a new episode for you and talking to the amazing cast and creative team behind Julia. We'll also have special guests like Paula Johnson, one of the curators who helped acquire Julia's kitchen for the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History.
Our guests will share their thoughts on the show and Julia's legacy. Get ready for some delicious conversations. And if I were you, I would have some snacks nearby.
Julia Child:
There was something about being in front of a camera like that, that just felt right. It was as if I came into focus.
Kerry Diamond:
Right after the recap, I'll be speaking with Julia creator and executive producer, Daniel Goldfarb, and executive producer, Kimberly Carver. Kimberly, who is a lover of all things Julia Child, had the original idea for the series. In the second half, well, I hope you're sitting down, Ina Garten, yes, the Barefoot Contessa herself is swinging by.
Ina actually taught herself how to cook via Julia's masterpiece, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. These two goddesses of food have much in common and we'll get to that later in the show. But first, let's dish on Julia. If you haven't watched the first episode, be forewarned, spoilers abound.
In this episode, we're introduced to our cast of characters, the colorful folks who surround Julia, supporting her and sometimes even thwarting her. First of course, there's Julia Child herself, played by Sarah Lancashire. Julia, born in Pasadena, California to a wealthy conservative family, didn't find her calling until she was middle aged and living in post-war Paris. You might not realize this, but her first cookbook was published when she was 49 years old.
Then there is Julia's devoted husband, the diplomat and artist, Paul Child, played by David Hyde Pierce. Julia's BFF, the feisty widow Avis DeVoto is played by Bebe Neuwirth. We also meet Julia's champion, Alice Naman, an assistant producer at public television station WGBH, played by Brittany Bradford. Alice's frustrated boss, Russ Morash, played by Fran Kranz, and Julia's brilliant editor at Knopf, Judith Jones, is played by Fiona Glascott. And how could I forget Albert Duhamel, TV host, art professor, and a bit of a blowhard, played by Jefferson Mays.
The first episode begins on a snowy evening in Oslo, Norway, 1961. Julia is making sole meunière for a dinner party. And Paul is opening a bottle of white wine. Oslo, you're asking? What happened to Paris? As a cultural attaché, Paul was dispatched to various cities by the U.S. government, including the bustling French port city Marseilles, and Bonn, Germany. Here's something else to chew on.
Julia and Paul met while working for the OSS, the precursor to the CIA. So a few folks thought they were spies. I hate to burst everybody's bubble, but Julia experts have debunked the spy theory. Anyway, Paul is summoned back to the U.S. and forced into early retirement. So the couple retreats to Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Paul pursues his art and Julia struggles to finish her second cookbook.
WGBH's Alice Naman books Julia as a guest on a program about literature, much to the displeasure of its host, the aforementioned Albert Duhamel.
Albert Duhamel:
Today, we're going to do something that's a little bit different. Instead of, say, Steinberg, Capote, Heller, or even Rand, my guest this afternoon writes cookbooks. Yes, you heard that correctly. Cookbooks.
Kerry Diamond:
Julia hijacks the show and makes a French omelet. Alice is thrilled. The sea of preppy white men around her? Mm, not so much. Cooking, you see, is what their wives do. Julia, Paul, and Avis celebrate later that evening at a French restaurant in Cambridge. Paul, despite his deep affection for his wife, does not watch her TV debut and gets caught in a lie.
Avis DeVoto:
She didn't tell the fucking sole meunière story, Paul. She made an omelet, with a hot plate on a coffee table.
Paul Child:
We don't have a television, Avis.
Avis DeVoto:
Oh.
Paul Child:
And I was in the midst of a burst of creativity in my studio.
Avis DeVoto:
No excuse. Shame on you, Paul.
Kerry Diamond:
Their escargot French onion soup and pâté are served in silence. So, no TV in the Child household? Being an artist and having spent so much time abroad where television was much less popular, made Paul immune to its charms.
Paul Child:
We're not suckers, Julia, falling for the latest fad.
Julia Child:
Or maybe TV's not a fad.
Paul Child:
Good Lord, it has to be.
Kerry Diamond:
Julia, however, likes this TV thing. She types out a pitch letter to Alice and proposes an entire French cooking series, starring herself. Alice loves the idea. But Russ and his gang?
Russ Morash:
Feels flimsy to me, not substantive. This is public television for God's sake.
WGBH Producer:
Not to sound crass, but if we were to do an educational show involving cooking and food, shouldn't we go with someone more relatable?
Russ Morash:
More attractive?
Kerry Diamond:
Ouch. Julia puts on some sensible heels and marches over to WGBH to deliver her Queen of Sheba cake and a second proposal. "Give her a chance," she tells Russ, "And she'll pay for the whole production." Now, it's Julia's turn to fib. "A red steak, free, and red wine," she tells Paul the idea of a show is pitched to her, not the other way around. Paul is aghast at the thought of his wife on television.
Avis suggests that Julia enlist the help of her editor, Judith Jones. As a young assistant in the Paris office of Knopf, Judith had rescued the diary of Anne Frank from a pile of rejected manuscripts, also known as the slush pile. Judith also convinced her bosses to take a chance on Julia's book. The rest is publishing history. Judith comes to the rescue. As Julia serves roast chicken and green salad in her Cambridge kitchen, Judith lays it on thick.
Judith Jones:
You were a diplomat for so many years. Think of it as cultural diplomacy, and Julia as our attaché.
Kerry Diamond:
Soon, a royalty check from Knopf arrives in the mailbox, Julia cashes it and heads to a local department store. Is she there to buy more sensible heels? A new omelet pan, maybe? Nope.
Julia Child:
Hello, young man. If you wouldn't mind helping an old lady like me, I would like to buy a television.
Store Clerk:
If you'll follow me.
Kerry Diamond:
And with that, a star is born. Now, I'd like to welcome our first guest, Daniel Goldfarb, creator and executive producer of Julia, and Kimberly Carver, also an executive producer. Let's jump right in. Kimberly, I understand this whole project started with you. How were you first introduced to Julia Child?
Kimberly Carver:
I was introduced to Julia Child as a kid watching my mom watch The French Chef. We came to this country from Vietnam. And my mother, being very unfamiliar with American culture, she really felt that Julia helped her make this connection between French cooking and Vietnamese cooking. And I think it was just so wonderful for her to see someone who was American do that.
And then of course, my family just we never really went out to any restaurants and we didn't even know the concept of frozen food or canned food. So it was really interesting for my mom to watch Julia cook with fresh vegetables and herbs and wine. So it was something that was really familiar, but at the same time, something she really enjoyed. And she was so funny.
And that's what I really liked about the show is she was wacky. She would hit pots and pans. She would spill food. That was what's so interesting about Julia Child. She was almost like a Johnny Carson. It was like a talk show, instead of a cooking show. So I thought that was really funny, but I wasn't as enamored with Julia Child until I was older.
Kerry Diamond:
How did the project start to take shape in your mind?
Kimberly Carver:
Well, I really started with just watching the movie. I loved Julie & Julia. Meryl Streep, just every time she was on camera portraying Julia Child, I just loved it. And I realized that the story needed to continue. It ended really with her getting her cookbook. I really wanted to tell a story about a woman who really found her purpose in the second half of her life and how she became really the most celebrated television food personality.
Kerry Diamond:
Daniel, tell us how you came to join the project.
Daniel Goldfarb:
I met Kimberly for coffee. I was writing on The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. Every January, February, Amy Sherman-Palladino and Dan Palladino, my bosses, would bring the writer's room to Los Angeles when they had to go to award shows every Saturday night or Sunday night. And we would work from a hotel. And while I was there, my manager had me meet with Kimberly about a Julia Child project. She told me what she was thinking and I told her what I was thinking. She had read a pilot of mine that was about a marriage, a mature marriage. And I got really lucky. I got the job.
Kerry Diamond:
Is this the first time you two met?
Daniel Goldfarb:
This is the first time we had met.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow. Okay. Daniel, did you know who Julia Child was growing up?
Daniel Goldfarb:
Yes. I knew who Julia Child was growing up, because my mother cooked from her cookbooks. My mother didn't watch The French Chef. I knew Julia from the books. My mother herself wrote a cookbook when I was a kid up in Toronto, and my mother was a wonderful cook, and really admired and loved the challenge of actually tackling a Julia recipe.
And then I knew Julia as a television personality, because I would see her on ... I saw Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live and I saw her on David Letterman, and I just thought she was hilarious. But I didn't really know The French Chef. I knew I love food and I love writing about food, and I've written about food before, which was why I think my manager submitted me to Kimberly for Julia.
But then once I got the job, there was this overwhelming feeling of this is the most valuable intellectual property in the food universe and I have to do it justice. So I watched a ton of The French Chef and actually started cooking while I was watching it. Just to get into the zone with it. There's a million books about her and collections of interviews. So I read everything.
But more than the reading, it was watching her and cooking with her that got me excited. And when I finally sat down to write the pilot, it actually was a joy. The challenge just washed away and it was one of the most thrilling writing experiences I've ever had. It's like it just birthed itself. It was pretty amazing.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, my gosh, I have goosebumps. Kimberly, why do you think the world was ready for a fresh look at the life of Julia Child?
Kimberly Carver:
She was decades ahead of her time, and she is just as relevant and influential today. Really, to a new crop, I think of younger home cooks, of chefs, and of really in food influencers. And I think the younger generation who may not know her story because the movie didn't really tell that story of her when she came back to America and was discovered, as I call her the Lady of Our Ladle. She was the person who started ... She wasn't the first, but she was really impactful. And impactful in so many ways.
Not just teaching us how to cook, but she showed us how she navigated her career. She found her voice in the kitchen and brought it out. And then of course, showed us an incredible time in the kitchen, cooking. And I think that story outside of all the other influences and everything else in her life, that's where I think everyone's going to want to watch. And she's comfort. In this time period, we want to see joy and delight and comfort, and I think she brings it out in everyone.
Kerry Diamond:
There were so many time periods you could have started with. Julia had a rich and very long life. Daniel, why did you choose Cambridge circa 1962?
Daniel Goldfarb:
Well, this feels like the beginning of her second act. This feels like the beginning of the time where she essentially invented food television as we know it. And we wanted to really get into the nitty-gritty of it. The movie covers a 15-plus period of her life in one hour. We're covering less than one year of her life in eight hours. So we're really getting in there, into that workplace, into the world of Cambridge, the world of WGBH, the public television station that made The French Chef. So it just felt like a very exciting time.
There's the portrait of the marriage and the rural reversals that now Paul is retired. They both think they're going to be living a quiet second act. And then Julia, almost by accident, because Paul tells her that he doesn't want her to besmirch the memory of the Sole Meunière story, on a whim brings eggs and a copper bowl and a frying pan too, I've been reading, and makes an omelet on television, and changes television and changes food as we know it.
It was really like lightning struck and inspiration, and it felt like that was just a great place to start the show. And talk about also, a time in America in terms of television, in terms of the women's movement, in terms of public television, in terms of celebrity, in terms of aging, in terms of gender issues, racial issues, it just felt like this was a really ripe, exciting time for an unsinkable optimist like Julia to plunge yourself into.
Kerry Diamond:
It's amazing. It's 50 years later and those are still the things we're debating about, even public television. Yeah.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
People might be surprised to learn that this isn't a culinary exploration of Julia Child.
Daniel Goldfarb:
No, it isn't. And we realized we wanted to show how the sausage gets made of food television, but we couldn't do it all in any one particular episode. So there are some episodes where you see her in front of the camera, but there are some episodes where you see her writing. There are some episodes where you see her in the editing room. There are some episodes where you see her crew hiding behind the counter and helping her.
And we just divvied it up over the eight episodes, as opposed to spending one episode showing all of it. So by the end of the season, I think you have a real sense of how they mastered the art of television. There really was no precedent, so they really had to figure out how to do this, how to make recipes that took multiple hours and present them in a 28-minute episode of television.
Kerry Diamond:
It's interesting. And watching the show so many times now, I think I've seen the full series twice. It's so intimate. And it seems also like a love letter from all of you to this time and place and this person.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Julia was an extraordinary person, but another extraordinary thing about her is that she surrounded herself with other extraordinary people. So all six of our regulars on the show are as extraordinary as Julia is. And really what the show is, is about delighting in their company. There are stories, but when you actually take a step back, they're small stories.
I think they feel very important and big to the characters as they're living them, but really, it's about being inspired by these people that didn't waste a moment of their lives. They really lived their lives to the fullest, which I think is timeless. So few people do that. So when you see a whole crew doing it together, it's very inspiring.
Kerry Diamond:
I would love to talk about the creative decision-making that went into the series. In particular, what were some of the harder decisions to make?
Daniel Goldfarb:
The hardest decision to make was to figure out how much time we would cover in the season, because we didn't want to do this biopic version where we were just jumping from major event to major event, to major event. When we originally pitched the show, we thought the first season was going to end when she was nominated for the first Educational Television Emmy. So we thought it was going to cover three years.
But then actually, when we got into the writer's room and started imagining these characters and figuring out all these steps of how to create the cooking show, we slowed the story way down. And that I think was the hardest thing, when actually looking at all the research and trying to figure out how much story is there. And how do we make this really intimate story feel big and have scope and scale? And I think luckily, the time period and the themes that Julia represents, I think give the show the scope and scale.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about Alice's character as portrayed by Brittany Bradford. The real-life women working at WGBH, the public television station, were white women. What went into the decision to have this fictional character exist in the world of the show?
Kimberly Carver:
Number one, I'm a woman of color, so it was really important for me to have that portrayal of a woman of color in the workplace. Alice, her character is so perfect because I think that when you talk about love letter, it was really the relationship you see. It's not just with Paul, but it's really the love between Alice and Julia in the series too, and how she comes to really …
They start to respect each other in so many ways. In respects, Julia really comes to respect Alice's person, who is by her side, who knows what to do. And I think that was really important to portray that, to bring this character to life. And Brittany does an incredible job playing Alice.
Kerry Diamond:
Brittany is wonderful. I've found that character so relatable.
Kimberly Carver:
Yes.
Kerry Diamond:
I love Julia so much, same as you two. Don't know how much I relate to certain aspects of Julia's life. But Alice? 100%. And I had to keep reminding myself, she's a fictional character.
Daniel Goldfarb:
She's a fictional character. But what was interesting is once the decision was made, we did a lot of research and there were Alices. And we found some Alices. In fact, there's a character, Madeline Anderson, who was a great Black documentary filmmaker, who ended up being a powerhouse at WNET, and being one of the executive producers of Sesame Street. And we even have a scene with her.
Kimberly Carver:
We meet her later in the show.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Yeah, later in the season. So it was fun as we were crafting and figuring out Alice to discover that there were Alices. And it was important to Brittany when she found that as well.
Kerry Diamond:
And Daniel, this is something you've dealt with before. You've written shows where you blend fictional characters and real people. So you're comfortable doing that as a writer?
Daniel Goldfarb:
Yeah. We always said from the very beginning that this was the Amadeus version of Juliet Child's life. It was-
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. You have to explain that for some of our listeners who maybe didn't see Amadeus.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Okay. So Amadeus is a great movie that is a fictional movie about the life of Mozart. But Peter Shaffer, the great playwright who wrote Amadeus, always said he did a lot of research and he stood by his interpretation of the events. And we try to read between the lines and we try to explore the relationships.
And no one knows what any of these people said behind closed doors or what they said at night, lying in bed beside their partner. And that all has to be imagined. So I really stand by our interpretation of Julia, and Julia and Paul, and all of these characters, but the stories that we've told are invented stories inspired by real events.
Kimberly Carver:
The writers did an incredible job of showing us her struggles, and then of course, her wins. And then the support that she slowly starts to get with Julia. That was so important. And that was to me, so relevant to this day, because it's still happening.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about the writer's room then. I'm curious, did you look for people who knew something about Julia, or who had an affinity for her?
Daniel Goldfarb:
No, we didn't. We looked for people that we thought were wonderful writers and people that we thought were good company. A writer's room is an intimate thing, especially virtually, which makes it that much harder. So people have to be really comfortable with each other and really be able to speak their mind. We hired four women. Three of the four writers we hired started as playwrights.
Two of them were students of mine. And the one who I didn't know, Chris had worked with on his last show. So between the two of us, we knew all four of them and we respected them enormously as writers and as people. And when we met with writers, they had obviously read the pilot and we asked them about their relationship with Julia. But more than that, we were just knocked out by them as writers.
Kerry Diamond:
And we have to talk about Sarah Lancashire for a moment. I found her portrayal of Julia to be so tender. That was the word that just kept popping in my brain. What did Sarah bring to the role?
Daniel Goldfarb:
Well, Sarah brought so many colors in her portrayal of Julia. It's really incredible. But the color I think that's the most surprising is I think she gave Julia gravity. The go-to with Julia is the voice and the body language. And she's daffy and delightful, and optimistic and unsinkable. But Sarah gave her a sort of authority and an interior life where you saw a vulnerability that I don't think ... That feels new.
Kimberly Carver:
I think she brought her to life in her own very unique way, even her physicality of how she moved. And Sarah's not a big cook either. So she was taught how to hold the spoons, how to cut. She did an incredible job with that. And I loved her whole voice and how she portrayed Julia. She didn't overdo Julia's voice, but she was just ... She's just a brilliant actress to me.
Kerry Diamond:
The other thing I absolutely love is this is such a beautiful portrayal of a marriage. And you don't often see that on television. You see the drama, you see the divorce, but you don't really see something like Paul and Julia.
Daniel Goldfarb:
That was something that was very inspiring to me. That was something that Kimberly and I talked about on our very first cup of coffee. That's something that both David and Sarah spoke about when they read the pilot script. It's a beautiful marriage and I think it's a real marriage. And it's a marriage where there are secrets, and it's a marriage where they can be frustrated with each other there at moments.
And it's a marriage that evolves and changes over time in circumstance, but it's a real loving marriage. Chris and I, when we were pitching this with Kimberly and Irwin and everyone, we always talked about the arc of the first season is about the evolution of the first modern marriage, where we start in an old-fashioned 1950s idea of a marriage, a good marriage, but a 1950s idea of a marriage. And by the end of the season, they've become a modern marriage.
Kimberly Carver:
There was a line he said, that Paul said, "I am the part of the iceberg that you don't see above water." And so that's really how he described himself in terms of his role in just being her manager, being her advisor, being her husband, being her partner. And I think for her, she said, "Without him, I don't think this could have ever happened." I do truly think that their marriage worked so well. And without him, I don't think she would've had this success.
Kerry Diamond:
Do either of you have a favorite moment or scene from the first episode?
Daniel Goldfarb:
It's hard, but there are a few Julia moments that I really love. I love when she plugs in the hot plate, I love when she's manhandling the lobsters with Judith, and I love when she kicks Judith under the table. She's so present. She's so in the moment. She's so unselfconscious.
Kerry Diamond:
Kimberly?
Kimberly Carver:
Of course, the hot plate. When she starts to make the omelet, that is my favorite scene. I really loved when she was talking to Alice and she said, "Where are these gentlemen?" And she goes into the office. I love that scene where she starts to school them what she wants to do. Again, it brings out her confidence.
Kimberly Carver:
My also other favorite scene, which was a very small scene, is when Paul is painting and she goes to the typewriter and she decides to write a letter to WGBH saying, this is what I want to do. Again, it's the confidence in her that all of a sudden she felt that she could do it. Those are the scenes that I love the most.
Kerry Diamond:
I happened to interview your food stylist from the show, Christine Tobin, the other day, and she had the most lovely things to say about the set and the team, and just the approach to food on Julia. Kimberly, can you talk about that a little bit?
Kimberly Carver:
Well, number one, it was really important to showcase that, because that's what she's all about. And that hopefully, I know that's not what the show is about, but we don't get to see a lot of shows about a woman who teaches you how to cook, and also really food in the 60s and 70s. We don't get to see that anymore and the beginnings of that. And it was really important and I think our cast loved it, being able to be around food.
Kimberly Carver:
And obviously, even one of the episodes which you'll see is the baguette episode. I love that episode, but it's the eating, it's the cooking, it's the preparation. And it's just seeing butter and cream. Those are all the things I love, because that's why we flock to Instagram and we flock to Food Channel. It's because we just can't get enough of food. Food is so meaningful to us in so many different ways. And Christine did such an incredible job making really authentic cuisines that Julia herself did.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. I loved that she said there was no food trickery, because I think a lot of people who watch TV and see food on TV think it's all fake food. This was all real food. And it was so real at the end, everybody got to take food home. And there were a lot of communal food experiences on the set, which is just really lovely to know that was going on behind the scenes.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Right. Because if there's a scene where you slice a cake, she needed to make 12 cakes, so we could shoot it 12 times. But once there was the slice in the cake, it could just go to the craft table, craft services.
Kerry Diamond:
All right. This is so painful because there are so many things I want to tell to you about. I want to squeeze in, I loved Avis DeVoto. I loved her so much. I loved Bebe Neuwirth's portrayal of Avis. Tell me a little bit about that character.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Avis DeVoto is really the unsung hero in Julia's life. Every publishing house had rejected mastering and Avis was the one who got it to Knopf. The other thing that's incredible, and Avis is the one who found the Childs their home in Cambridge, and they'd only been pen pals for 10 years. They met as pen pals. So when we meet Julia and Avis, they're best friends, but they've actually only been in the same city for a year. So it's an old friendship and a new friendship at the same time.
Bebe is such a brilliant actor and so funny and so dry, and it just felt like such a perfect foil for Julia. The height, the size, the timber of their voices, because Bebe has a sort of deeper, lower voice and Julia obviously has a more upper register voice. So it just felt like this really fun two opposites, but kindred spirits at the same time. Yeah. Their relationship grew. From the pilot on, we knew it was really a special ... Everyone's relationships to Julia are integral to the show, but that was a relationship that we leaned into.
Kerry Diamond:
Kimberly, talk to me about Judith Jones.
Kimberly Carver:
Judith Jones is such a strong character and really this is true in real life. Judith Jones was so influential in helping Julia Child with her book, and was really there to push in every way to get that book to become successful. But the character, Judith Jones' character, again, somebody who was just so brilliant, also another wonderful actress, she just played it perfectly.
How she was somewhat obviously, with her conflicts with Blanche, but at the same time, she knew her conviction that this was not her thing. But she realized how much there was something that she knew inside, that Julia was this woman who she really wanted to help. And I thought their relationship together was fabulous. I hope there's a spinoff show with Judith and the whole publishing world, because I think that's a fantastic world that we'll see more of, hopefully.
Kerry Diamond:
It absolutely warmed my heart to see this literary cult hero get so much screen time. Like you said, if it weren't for Judith, we wouldn't have Julia. We wouldn't have Edna Lewis' cookbooks. We wouldn't have Lidia Bastianich or Madhur Jaffrey.
Kimberly Carver:
Yes.
Daniel Goldfarb:
And we wouldn't have The Diary of Anne Frank.
Kimberly Carver:
Yes.
Daniel Goldfarb:
And we wouldn't have John Updike, and we wouldn't have the translations of Sartre, Camus. It's an incredible life. In a way, it's almost a bigger life than Julia's. She's really just a formidable woman and a fascinating one.
Kimberly Carver:
And she also becomes a cook later in her life, started to really enjoy food and cooking. That influence came from Julia.
Kerry Diamond:
And thanks to you, everyone knows how to say Knopf now, which everyone has struggled with, even people who think they know how to say it.
Daniel Goldfarb:
I think we got it right. We looked enough. We made a choice, so I think that's correct.
Kerry Diamond:
I think it's correct too. Last question for each of you. You are hosting a dinner party with Julia Child. We've established that the two of you do you know how to cook, which is great. So I'd love to know one dish you absolutely want to serve, and one guest you'd love to invite. Daniel?
Daniel Goldfarb:
I wouldn't make a Julia dish if Julia was there, just because what's the point? But I'd make-
Kerry Diamond:
It's like wearing a concert tee to the concert.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Correct. I make a really good lemon meringue pie, so I think I would make Julia my lemon meringue pie. And I know this is sort of a cheat, but if I got to have dinner with Julia, I wouldn't want to invite anyone else. I'd really just want to have a night. I've spent so much time reading and exploring and thinking about her. The idea of actually having a couple of hours with her to myself, that would the way I would choose to have that evening.
Kerry Diamond:
Kimberly, don't let Daniel shame you out of inviting someone. Tell me what you would make and who you would invite.
Kimberly Carver:
I would make a Julia dish, because I've made it so many times and I'm so proud of it. It's the Tarte Tatin, because I'm a very good baker, more so than a cook. But I've made it so many times. And just knowing her, just who she was, I'm sure she would be very gracious if it was a terrible Tarte Tatin. So I definitely would bring that, just to see what she thought of it. And then of course, I would bring my mom.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. Well, I have to thank you both so much. This is such a beautiful show. And you have added this gorgeous new chapter to the legacy of Julia Child. And as a Julia fan, I can't thank you enough.
Daniel Goldfarb:
Oh, thank you so much.
Kimberly Carver:
Thank you for having us.
Kerry Diamond:
Kimberly and Daniel, that was so much fun. Now, let's chat with the one and only Ina Garten. She's the Barefoot Contessa, cookbook queen, and food TV star. As we're about to find out, Ina has a lot in common with Julia Child. Ina Garten, welcome to Dishing On Julia.
Ina Garten:
I always want a dish about Julia.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, fantastic.
Ina Garten:
One of my heroes.
Kerry Diamond:
Ina, I remember you telling me that you taught yourself how to cook from Julia's first cookbook, Mastering the Art of French Cooking. So, you didn't learn how to cook growing up?
Ina Garten:
I was never allowed in the kitchen, so I didn't learn anything about cooking. And I always wanted to cook, but my mother was like, "Your job is to study and get out of the kitchen." I think she just didn't want me in her kitchen is really what it was. But no, I never cooked until I got married. I learned a few basics from Craig Claiborne's cookbook, which is such a great book because it's got like three recipes on each page. It's very international. So you get a taste of Greek and Italian and things like that.
But then Jeffrey and I took a camping trip for four months in Europe, mostly in France. And I came face to face with French food. And when I came back, I bought her two volumes and worked my way through it. And that really was the beginning of my culinary education, my self-education.
Kerry Diamond:
We have to go back to this camping trip. I'm trying to imagine young Ina and Jeffrey on the Metro with the backpack. Was that you two?
Ina Garten:
That was us. We had literally no money, and we had four months that we had to do something. We couldn't even afford an apartment. You could get a student ticket from New York to Frankfurt and it was $99. So we got two tickets to Europe and brought a tent and all kinds of camping gear, and a tiny camping gas stove because I couldn't afford to go to a restaurant.
So I had to go to the markets and buy food and cook in the tent. And that's where I learned about French markets. I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. Peaches tasted like peach jam. And cheese, I'd never had cheese that hadn't been ultra pasteurized. And French baguettes, that was an era of ... In 1971, it was like Wonder Bread. You couldn't even get a freshly baked loaf of bread.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you turn to Julia's books?
Ina Garten:
We'd spent a lot of time in France, both in Paris, Normandy. And then we came down through Brittany and Provence. And I was really enamored with French food. And so that was just a natural place to go. Also, because she is so specific. It's not like sear the beef and do this and do something else. The recipe for beef bourguignon is several pages. But it tells you step-by-step-by-step, exactly what you need to do and what you're looking for. She was a great teacher. I knew if you followed her instructions, it would come out fabulously. And it did.
Kerry Diamond:
Ina, did you ever meet Julia?
Ina Garten:
I never did.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh.
Ina Garten:
I was in a restaurant where she was once. That was as close as I got.
Kerry Diamond:
That was close. Okay.
Ina Garten:
I have some friends who know her very well, but I never actually met her personally.
Kerry Diamond:
What did she come to represent for you?
Ina Garten:
The thing that she did that is so remarkable and I admire so much in any field, is that she had, as she said, the courage of her convictions. She believed in what she was doing. She got knocked down time and time and time again. She had publishers turn away from her book. I'm sure nobody thought anybody would want to watch somebody making an omelet on TV. And yet she believed in it.
She really believed in it and she just kept going. And I admire people that ... It's what I call “get the train out of the station.” That they start with nothing, the train's at a dead standstill. And with the courage of their convictions and their just gutsiness, they just keep going. And then all of a sudden, you realize the train's on a fast track. The only thing you can do is just run and catch up to it.
Kerry Diamond:
That's so interesting because we see a lot of that persistence in the first episode. In your wildest dreams, Ina, did you ever imagine you would follow in Julia's footsteps?
Ina Garten:
No. In my wildest dream, I wouldn't have imagined that you'd be talking to me about Julia Child. No. Never. But then everything that's happened in my life, I never would've imagined. In a funny way, people say what are your goals, and I'm like, I don't have any because what's happened to me is so much more outrageous and wonderful than I could have ever dreamed.
Kerry Diamond:
So the show doesn't cover this, but like Julia, your first career wasn't in food. It was in government. So Julia famously worked for the OSS, which was the precursor to the CIA. What was your job in government?
Ina Garten:
From 1974 to 1978, I worked in a group in The White House that writes the president's budget, called the Office of Management and Budget. And it's still there. And I worked in Nuclear Energy Policy. I'd basically write the president's budget for nuclear regulation and for enriched uranium, which is the fuel that the government produces to power nuclear reactors.
Kerry Diamond:
Some people think Julia might have been a spy. I think you know this. You were not a spy, Ina, correct?
Ina Garten:
I was not a spy. Some people think Jeffrey was a spy.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, really?
Ina Garten:
But he wasn't either.
Kerry Diamond:
I did not know that about Jeffrey. Did you ever want to be a spy?
Ina Garten:
No, I'd need nerves of steel to be a spy. I could never be a spy. I'd be found out in 10 seconds flat.
Kerry Diamond:
So, what led to you changing careers?
Ina Garten:
I think in my 20s, I always wanted to grow up to be Jeffrey, because he was like the grown up in my life. He was smart and accomplished, and he worked on Policy Planning Staff at the State Department for Kissinger and then for Vance. And so I got much more serious than I had been in college. And when I hit 30, I thought this isn't me. This is Jeffrey. I really want to do something that pleases me.
And while I was working on budgets at the time, one project was $25 billion, which in 1975 was a huge item that we were trying to take out of the government. Congress had a particular interest in where it was. They would put it back in, and then we would take it out the next year, and they'd put it back in. I was like, okay, I need to work somewhere where it's not 25 billion, but it's $25, and it's my $25, and where I make something, I do something.
So I had been very involved in Washington in both ... I like to renovate old houses. So I've done a lot of real estate in my 20s. And I also taught myself how to cook. So I was trying to decide, should I go the real estate route or the food route? And I saw an ad for a business for sale in The New York Times, in a place I'd never been, The Hamptons. And it was called Barefoot Contessa, and the rest is history.
Kerry Diamond:
You had never been to The Hamptons when you bought the Barefoot Contessa?
Ina Garten:
Never been to The Hamptons. I'd never been here. I vaguely knew what it was, but for all I know, it could have been nowhere. I just had no idea.
Kerry Diamond:
That is the courage of your convictions, as Julia would say.
Ina Garten:
Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
How did you make that? That's a huge leap. How did you make that leap?
Ina Garten:
I'd never had employees. I'd never run a food business. I'd never been a professional cook. I'd never been in The Hamptons. I had no idea. So I made a deal with the woman who sold me the store, that she would stay with me for a month and teach me what I needed to know. Thinking of course, in a month you could learn how to run a specialty food store. And she was a great teacher. Great, great teacher. It really was Jeffrey. He just said, "If you do what you love, if you love it, you'll be really good at it." He just encouraged me to follow my dream.
Kerry Diamond:
A big part of the show to is the relationship between Julia and Paul, which as you know, was very loving. And it immediately made me think of you and Jeffrey.
Ina Garten:
Aw. Well, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Aw. Well, Paul was opposed to Julia going on television though, and he didn't even want a TV in their house. So I was curious. So Jeffrey was in favor of the Barefoot Contessa, but what did he think when you said you were going to try your hand at television?
Ina Garten:
Well, I was quite reluctant about television. I just really didn't understand why anybody would want to see me on television. And so Food Network kept coming after me again and again and I kept saying, no. Finally, they said, "Oh, there's a production company from London whose work you love. They did Nigella Lawson's show and I thought it was a great show. And Food Network called and said, "They're coming to your house in a month and I just need you to film 13 shows or something." I was like, "Well, I told you I don't want to do it." They said, "Oh, just try it."
And so I think Jeffrey's attitude always has been, he doesn't encourage me to do one thing or not do something. He encourages me to do what I want to do. And so I thought, okay, I'll do 13 shows. They'll see that I don't know what I'm doing. I'm not a trained chef. I'm not any of that. I'm not a TV person. I had no training at all. They'll go away and leave me alone. And here we are, it's literally 20 years later. It was 2002.
Kerry Diamond:
Congratulations. What was the state of Food TV at the time?
Ina Garten:
At the time in 2000, Food Network was chefs with toques and they were making these extraordinary three layers of mousse, chocolate, caramel, and vanilla mousse, which you could never make at home, but it was fun to watch. And along came a woman whose name is Eileen Opatut at Food Network, who decided it should be home cooks. And she reached out to me, to Paula Deen, and to Rachael Ray. She's the one who came to me and said, "I'd like you to do it.”
And she's the one I turned down so many times it's ridiculous. I kept saying it, so she kept coming back with better offers. And I was like, "Eileen, I'm not negotiating. I just don't want to do it." But thank God she saw something. I have no idea what she saw, but she saw something. And just talk about the courage of her convictions. Eileen just wouldn't let it go, and I'm forever grateful for her.
Kerry Diamond:
So, what was going through your mind when you were doing those first few episodes? Were you just like, this is never going to see the light of day?
Ina Garten:
Exactly. I was just terrified. Actually, before I started, I decided I should go have media training. That just seemed like a rational thing to do. And the person I went to see tried to make me into somebody who did, "And you do this, and then you do that." And I was like, "That's not who I am." I just felt intrinsically that I just needed to be myself and it needed to feel real. I'd taste something and I had it in my mouth and go, "Oh, that's really delicious." And Eileen just loved it. And I was like, okay.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, you look like you were having fun. I went back and watched the first season.
Ina Garten:
Did you, really?
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, it's great. You're on the beach in The Hamptons. There are hydrangeas everywhere around your house and all your friends are coming over. You looked like you had a blast.
Ina Garten:
Well, it was fun. It's hard. Talking to a camera is not the easiest thing in the world. And we did that for, I think probably, five or six years. We did two months, twice a year until. And every year at the end I would quit and say, "Okay, I'm done. We're not doing this again." And they'd find some way to do it easier. So they would slowly draw me back into it. And then finally, I bought the property next to our house and we built a barn and we were out of the house, which was great.
Kerry Diamond:
In addition to your fabulous TV career, like Julia, you've also had an amazing cookbook career. Your 13th book will be out this fall, Go-To Dinners. What's this book all about?
Ina Garten:
I know exactly the kind of recipe I want to do. I do it on my own. I have people helping me shop and retest recipes, but every single recipe comes from me. And I know what I'm looking for. I'm looking for extraordinary flavor. I'm looking for an easy recipe to make and with ingredients that you can find in the grocery store.
Kerry Diamond:
How did your first book come about?
Ina Garten:
I had run Barefoot Contessa for I think it was 18 years at the time. I made a deal with my employees that they would buy Barefoot Contessa, since they knew how to run it, the chef and the manager. I built myself an office above the store in the building and I sat there for almost a year with nothing to do. And it was really, I have to say really hard.
And after about nine months, Jeffrey said to me, "So, what do you have to do this week?" Because he was leaving for New Haven on Monday and coming back on Friday. And I said, "I have nothing to do. I have absolutely nothing to do." He said, "You must have something to do." And I said, "Yeah, I have a manicure on Wednesday. That's it"
And so he said, "You love the food business. Why don't you try doing something that's different, but still in the food business?" So I said to him, "Well, people have asked me to write a cookbook, but it didn't sound very appealing. It sounded like a lonely adventure, not with people." And I didn't have anything to do, so I thought, well, at least I'll have something to do today, which is write a proposal.
And I wrote a proposal, I found an agent, and I knew two people that had the same editor, Martha Stewart and Lee Bailey. They both sent me to Roy Finamore, who was the top cookbook editor at Clarkson Potter. I did the proposal and I sent it off to him and I thought, well, I'll never hear from him, but at least I had something to do for a few days.
And the next day, he called and said, "Let's have lunch. I accept your proposal." And I was like, "Oh my God, I'm going to have to write this book." So I had no idea. And the rest just happened.
Kerry Diamond:
Wow.
Ina Garten:
It was just quite extraordinary. But Roy saw something that I didn't know. And I think that my clarity about the book I wanted to write was 75 recipes that were really good, like roast chicken and roast carrots and coconut cupcakes. Everything else being written at the time was like 250 recipes with no photographs. And I just thought, this is the kind of cooking that I know people wanted for takeout from specialty food stores, so I'm just going to write that book.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, first, I can't imagine you not having anything to do for nine months.
Ina Garten:
It's not pretty. I don't recommend it as a fun thing to do, but I highly recommend it as a career shift, because nothing else would've happened if I hadn't gotten really bored and I was desperate. And it turned out writing cookbooks is the most fun I've ever had. It's just extraordinary. It's a team of people testing recipes and photographing them and designing them. It's absolutely a team sport and I just adore it. Absolutely. And also, I feel for Julia writing with co-authors, because I don't have to discuss it with anybody. I know what I want, I know the flavor I have in my head, and I just keep going until I get that.
Kerry Diamond:
It sounds like your TV experiences were slightly similar, but not your cookbook experiences. Famously, the book was turned down by so many publishers.
Ina Garten:
Well, that's why she's Julia Child. Anybody else would've thought, well, I'm just not meant to write a good book. And she was so determined. It was just great. And thank you to Judith Jones.
Kerry Diamond:
Why do you think Julia endures?
Ina Garten:
Well, because of her joie de vivre, because of the quality of what she did. And she also wrote recipes and they were French recipes, but things you really know what they are and you really want to eat. She loved her life and you felt that, and she loved what she did. And she wasn't doing it for commercial success. She was doing it because she really believed in it.
Kerry Diamond:
My last question. Julia is coming to dinner. What is one dish you'd make and who is one guest you'd invite?
Ina Garten:
I think I'd invite two very good friends of Julia's, who are also friends of ours, Patricia and Walter Wells. They were great friends and they lived near each other in Provence. And I think Julia would love to see them. That's probably who I would invite. And maybe I would make one of Patricia's recipes for Julia, because she's a fabulous cook and a great cookbook writer. And of course, Jeffrey.
Kerry Diamond:
Do you have any recipe in mind?
Ina Garten:
It depends on the season. I think Julia liked seasonal cooking. So it depends on say, if it was spring, I would make some kind of wonderful roast asparagus dish and some chicken thing, like a chicken with 40 cloves of garlic and roasted asparagus. That sounds pretty good, doesn't it?
Kerry Diamond:
Ina, thank you so much for your time, and for sharing your story and your thoughts on Julia with us.
Ina Garten:
Thank you, Kerry. It's wonderful to see you. And it's always fun to talk about Julia.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for the first episode of Dishing On Julia, the official companion podcast of Julia, now streaming on HBO Max. Dishing On Julia is produced by Cherry Bombe Media. Our executive producers are Catherine Baker and Audrey Payne, our special projects editor is Donna Yen, our associate producer is Jenna Sadhu, and our editorial assistant is Krista White. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. And special thanks to Steven Tolle and the team at CityVox for the audio production. Check back next week as we dish on the latest episode of Julia and chat with our cast and crew and special industry guests.
Paul Child:
To Julia.
Julia Child:
To us.