Dishing on Julia - Episode 6
The Woman Who Brought Us Anne Frank & Julia Child
Francis Lam:
In the business of publishing, you're doing two things at once, all the time, right? You're reflecting your society, but you're also trying to push conversations forward in your society. That's the purpose of creating culture, because otherwise what the hell else are you doing? Go make car tires. You're going to make more money.
Kerry Diamond:
That's cookbook authority, Francis Lam. And he's joining us to talk about the brilliant editor, Judith Jones. We have Judith and her remarkable instincts to thank for both Mastering The Art Of French Cooking and the diary of Anne Frank, two vastly different books, but each seismic in their influence. How Judith did this, we will discuss in just a little bit, but first welcome to Dishing on Julia, the official companion podcast of Julia, the HBO Max original series inspired by the life of Julia Child.
I'm your host, Kerry Diamond, and each week I recap a new episode of Julia and chat with special guests about the making of the show and the cultural impact of our culinary icon. Before we talk to Francis, we'll check in with Julia cast members, Fiona Glascott, who plays Judith Jones. And are you ready for this? The one and only Judith Light who plays the imperious publisher, Blanche Knopf. Yes, we've got two Judith, one Julia and lots to discuss. So let's dish on the latest episode, the bread's episode.
Russ:
I thought she was doing donuts.
Kerry Diamond:
Sorry to disappoint. There is no donut content ahead. The episode opens with Julia on the set of The French Chef making Poulet au Porto, a rich dish that consists of roast chicken covered with cognac set on fire. We know Julia loves that. Then smothered with a creamy mushroom and port wine sauce. As divine as it sounds, Julia is tired of chicken and producer Russ Morash, well, he's just tired. Turns out he's a new dad.
Russ:
Goo goo, gaga for baby. What was I talking about?
Kerry Diamond:
Russ's sleep deprivation is making him a little loopy, and the Poulet au Porto episode everyone thought was in the can, it has to be scrapped because of a wrinkle in the film, which means Julia's scheduled time off is not happening. She's not happy because she was going to use the time to recipe test for her next cookbook.
Julia:
I marked it in very bold letters in my diary, "week off."
Kerry Diamond:
Back home, Julia spars over the phone with her cookbook partner/nemesis, Simca Beck.
Julia:
Well, I mean it's a wonderful start to the mountain of work we still need to do.
Simca:
Meaning?
Julia:
Bread.
Simca:
No, no, no, no, no, no. Julia, no. No. Bread, no.
Julia:
No. Hear me out.
Simca:
French don't make bread.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, they don't make bread at home. That's what boulangeries are for, but Julia does not care. She longs for the crusty bread she enjoyed in France. Julia was known to rail against spongy American white bread, like Wonderbread, which she considered neither wondrous nor bread. Anyway, because she has to re-shoot The French Chef episode, she enlists Paul to recipe test with her editor, Judith Jones. Now Judith is aggravated having given up her vacation time to spend what she thought would be quality time with Julia. Paul and Julia get ready for bed and it might be worth re-watching the scene just to appreciate Paul and Julia's strong pajama game. Julia reveals that her co-author Simca has hurled the ultimate insult at her.
Julia:
Simca accused me of not being French enough.
Paul:
Simca wouldn't exist outside of her own ego if it weren't for you.
Kerry Diamond:
Ooh la la, fighting words. The next morning, Judith is woken up by the sound of Paul doing calisthenics.
Judith:
Before my coffee? No.
Kerry Diamond:
If you listen carefully, that sounds like the accent of someone born in New York City, which Judith was and me too, but actor Fiona Glascott, who plays Judith, was born and raised in Ireland. You'll hear her real voice very soon. Julia arrived on set and in a bid to get back at Simca announces, "this episode's recipe is sweet breads." The crew is not into this at all.
Alice:
No one will make this dish.
Julia:
Maybe not, but maybe one person will. You'll have a script by tomorrow.
Alice:
Didn't you just tell me to take charge?
Russ:
You are in charge. In charge of Julia's vision, and Julia's vision has led her to sweet breads.
Alice:
Do you know what sweet breads are?
Russ:
No. Like a Danish, right?
Kerry Diamond:
Not exactly. Sweet breads, or Ris de Veau, according to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, are the thymus gland of a calf. Julia was a big fan as evidenced by the six different sweet bread recipes in the book. I can attest sweet breads definitely taste better than they sound. Back in the Cambridge kitchen, Paul and Judith start the bread experiments. Dozens of misshapen baguettes litter the table. Back at WGBH, the crew remains ambivalent about sweet breads. Russ pitches a weekly show on civil rights, and Alice tries to fire Avis. Paul and Judith finally succeed in turning out a perfect baguette. In real life, it would take Paul and Julia almost a year and they reported 284 pounds of flour to get the perfect recipe. And the asbestos tile that Paul used, that was a real thing. We don't use those today.
To celebrate their success, Julia, Judith and Paul have dinner at Joyce Chen's Chinese Restaurant in Cambridge. Joyce, interestingly, self-published a cookbook in 1962 and in 1967, Joyce even filmed 26 episodes of her own cooking show on the very same set as the French Chef. The trio arrives home and Julia receives a call from her sister that their father has passed away. The next day, Julia dedicates the Sweet Breads episode to her father. Later, WGBH boss, Hunter, summons Julia to his office. He's not a fan of sweet breads, but what he really wants to talk about is a second season. Julia is a little wiser this time round and a little more popular and negotiates to her advantage. Will Hunter's wife be the only person to make Julia's sweetbreads? Will Judith get to take a real vacation? And will Simca finally relax?
Simca:
C'est impossible!
Kerry Diamond:
We'll find out more next week. Now let's chat with our first two guests. Actor Fiona Glascott who plays the New York born Judith Jones. And Judith Light who plays Blanche Knopf and who so many of us know and love from so many shows. Judith joins us from LA, Fiona is in London, and I am in Manhattan, and we've been brought together by the miracle of Julia Child, and Zoom. Let's welcome them to Dishing on Julia. Judith Light. Fiona Glascott. Welcome to Dishing on Julia.
Fiona Glascott:
Thanks. Great to be here.
Judith Light:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Judith, let's jump right in with you. I'd love to know, when did you first learn about Julia Child?
Judith Light:
When I was a child. I mean, I remember seeing her program on PBS. So it's been forever. I mean, she was always part of my world, always part of everything that I knew about, and my mother was a great cook. My grandmother was a great cook. So anything that had to do with cooking was of interest to everybody, and that's how I found out about her.
Kerry Diamond:
Fiona, how about you? You grew up in Ireland. Did Julia have much of a presence in Ireland?
Fiona Glascott:
No. Didn't know who she was. I actually didn't know who she was until I saw the Julie and Julia film with Meryl Streep. And I thought Meryl Streep had just created this extraordinary character and why wouldn't she? She's fantastic. So I thought, "wow, fabulous, interesting, amazing choices. This is so extraordinary." And then someone said, "no, that's a real person." And then that's how I learned about her, and then learned much more about her once I got the script and once we started working on it.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh that's so interesting. What drew you to this project?
Fiona Glascott:
Well, the writing, first of all, which is just genius and funny and sweet and it explores all of these people in very real situations. I really believe every conversation. That and Judith Jones, when I read about her, looked her up and totally fell in love with this extraordinary woman. I couldn't believe that I wasn't aware of her existence until then. And that was really joyful because learning all the things, reading about her, watching her, all the interviews with her.
Kerry Diamond:
Judith, you've played a lot of formidable women on television and in film, what interested you in playing Blanche Knopf?
Judith Light:
For exactly that reason, because she was so formidable, and most people don't even know anything about her. And I'd have to second what Fiona said about the writing, the depth, the substance, the awareness and the creation of these characters and their relationship I thought was so powerful and so interesting. Blanche Knopf was married to Alfred in 1919. And he said then, "we will create Knopf Publishing." And I know a lot of people say it's Knoff. It's Knopf. I had to go back in and do some ADR to correct the way I was saying it. Nobody knows about Blanche and all that she did to create that company. Alfred sort of basically pushed her out of the way. I thought it was time, and they did too, the producers and the writers, Chris Kaiser and Daniel Golfer, they said these are women that are very important that people don't know a lot about. And it was just like what Fiona said about Judith Jones. We don't know about these women and they were the support around Julia Child.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah, Blanche isn't someone closely associated with Julia. Tell us a little bit about where she fits into the Julia child's story.
Judith Light:
The way they fit in is that Judith was very connected to Julia and felt strongly about Julia's work and what that would do for the world and for Knopf Publishing. And so Blanche pushed that away. She didn't want to have anything to do with it. Blanche was a literary snob in a lot of ways. Judith, in her intuition and her awareness of Julia and the power of Julia and who Julia was as a person, she was the one that kept saying to Blanche, "you have to pay attention. You have to pay attention." So that's how Blanche really fits into the story, but it's only through Judith Jones.
Kerry Diamond:
I didn't realize she passed away in 1966. So never really even got to see what Julia became and what Knopf became because of all that Julia brought.
Judith Light:
Those were two women that listened to their intuition and their instincts. Judith Jones in relation to Julia and Julia in relation to her doing the work that she wanted to do, that she knew and understood. And Blanche only got pieces of that through her relationship with Judith.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, Fiona, let's talk about this magical creature, Judith Jones. Judith is responsible for two major moments in publishing history. The first involves the Diary of Anne Frank when she was a young assistant at Double Day, which in and of itself is such a remarkable story. Even if she did nothing else, she could have just coasted on that for the rest of her career. Can you tell us about that story?
Fiona Glascott:
Yeah. I love this. I love. This is one of the first things I learned about her as an assistant for Double Day in Paris, because she loved Paris and she loved food. She loved French food, and her job was to go through the reject pile and write back to everybody, the usual, "sorry, whatever. We're not going to do this for you." And she came across Anne Frank's book and that beautiful picture of her that we all know on the cover. And she was really struck by that photograph. And so she started reading and sat there and read the book, covered a cover into the dark of night. Finally, when her boss came back, she was in tears. She was obviously hugely moved like we all have been by that book. And she said, "we have to publish this book," and her boss said, "what, that book by that kid?" And she's like, "yes."
Fiona Glascott:
One of her many traits that I really admire is her belief in her gut. And she's like Julia, like Blanche. These women, when they believed it and they felt it down there, they were tenacious. There was no taking them away from that point.
Kerry Diamond:
What made Judith Jones such a visionary?
Fiona Glascott:
I think with Julia Child's fantastic cookbook, it was something that Judith Jones had been looking for for her whole life. She had always loved cooking, food, France. She had gone to France for three weeks and ended up staying for three years. And as she says, this enormous tome landed on her desk, almost an answer to her prayers.
Kerry Diamond:
There is so much about Judith Jones out there. There are photos, there are videos, there are interviews. There's her own memoir. How did you prepare for playing Judith Jones?
Fiona Glascott:
I basically did it two ways, which I went through all her, read her memoir, read other books about her, what she said about herself, what other people said about her. What was really precious to have was the videos of the interviews because from the accomplishments that she achieved, you don't get the wit of Judith Jones and the warmth and the interest in other people and the readiness to smile, and also the steeliness that's there and the strength. That's what I found just invaluable because it helped me create a well-rounded person and character. You have a responsibility to perform with respect when it's a real person, especially somebody like this who is so important.
Kerry Diamond:
Judith, did you bring any particular mannerisms or characteristics to Blanche that you had learned about?
Judith Light:
We have this wonderful costume designer who made sure that what we were wearing really suited the characters. And so in some way, as soon as I put one of those suits on, I could feel my body change. When I put on those particular shoes, the walk changed in some way. So whether that was Blanche or not, there was something that he was giving me, and I think us, I think Fiona would totally agree, that we were given a way to feel in the wardrobe that affected the way we moved and walked. And there's one prop that Blanche has, which is a green pen, the editing pen. That's probably what I would say is that the team helps to create those, the feelings and subsequently the characteristics.
Kerry Diamond:
Now, Fiona, you had to do a New York accent, and I had no idea you were Irish until I got to know you.
Fiona Glascott:
Thank you for saying that.
Kerry Diamond:
So well done. As a native New Yorker, congrats on nailing the accent. How did you even start to approach that?
Fiona Glascott:
Well, luckily having so many videos of Judith was incredibly helpful, but one of the main things is I worked with a fantastic dialect coach a couple years ago called Catherine Charlton, who I work with every now and then. One of her main tips with a new accent was to fall asleep listening to it, just very likely in your ear, because you can pick up the cadence of it and the tone. And so that's one of the things that I do now since I've worked with her. I fall asleep listening to Judith and I go for walks with the dogs listening to her, and just that of watching her and where the sound is placed in the mouth and how open her mouth is and all of those kind of things, how nasal it is, certain words that she uses.
Judith Light:
It is so subtle the way you do it. And it isn't one of those over the top New York accents, which of course Judith didn't have. But to capture that is very difficult. To capture the sound and the accent, but also not to have it be over the top is just, that's a triple summersault to me. So just have to say.
Fiona Glascott:
Awe, thanks ladies.
Judith Light:
True. Honey, it's true.
Kerry Diamond:
It is true. You only heard it. There were a few words where you'd hear it and you were like, "oh, she's a New Yorker."
Judith Light:
Yeah.
Fiona Glascott:
Oh great. Thank you. Well, I think, again, Judith, thanks to Judith Jones because that's where I got. I got it literally from her because of the videos and watching her on video and that's so great. So I'm so pleased. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about some of your scenes together. In the latest episode, Blanche's worst fears have been realized. Judith has crossed from editor to recipe tester and is making all that bread with Paul, played by David Hyde Pierce. Fiona, how was that scene to shoot?
Fiona Glascott:
Oh fabulous. Fabulous and funny and amazing and long and fantastic.
Kerry Diamond:
And long.
Fiona Glascott:
Yeah. Fantastic. David, just such a joy.
Kerry Diamond:
The scene with you two kind of fighting over Updyke and whether Judith should go up to Cambridge to help out Julia or stay and have this lunch with Updyke. I just thought that was such a brilliant scene.
Fiona Glascott:
Thank you. That's our first scene together.
Judith Light:
Well, I mean, you see and hear how warm Fiona is and how lovely. So just coming to the set, she made me feel incredibly comfortable. You know, when you come and you bring something and then you find that people appreciate it, it always makes the working experience really lovely. And when you have an actor to play opposite, like Fiona, there is this connection. I believe that the connection between the characters is something and the energy translates through to the audience and you can't fake that. You have that in these two characters, and I feel a very strong connection with Fiona, so we have a chemistry. So that comes across.
Fiona Glascott:
Well, we had that instantly. I mean, Judith is such, you are such a beautiful, open, lovely person that I felt the minute I met her, I felt like I knew her forever. And I remember us giggling together, walking up the stairs in our heels talking about our costumes and getting into it. It's great because obviously I know Judith's work and have adored it for years. And then what you don't get, obviously until you're in a scene with someone like Judith or with Judith, is just how for you she is. And for the character, for the scene, for the moment, our characters are so connected in many ways, complicated ways too. Not always the great, happy ways. And there's a real mentor/mentee situation and the slight pulling away. But yeah, it's very exciting. I love all my scenes with Judith. It's a Judith Day. Everybody's jumping up and down, the whole crew, not just me.
Judith Light:
Oh, you're so sweet.
Fiona Glascott:
Oh it's so true.
Judith Light:
It's really a joy to be there. And everything that Fiona has said about me is true of her. So there's this kind of comfort in the way of working that you hold each other in a way that nobody can make a mistake. So everybody gets to try whatever they think of and we all see if it works, but nobody feels judged.
Kerry Diamond:
To make a terrible pun. Do you think Blanche might blanch at the thought of Julia being the most lasting aspect of her legacy?
Judith Light:
That's a terrible pun. Yes.
Fiona Glascott:
I love it. I love a pun, Kerry. I'm on your side.
Judith Light:
I did. I do too. No, I don't. I believe that Blanche was instructed and guided by Judith Jones' passion. Judith became her eyes, ears, heart. She listened. She began listening to Judith in a way that she had not always in the very beginning. And I think her gratitude toward Judith and her gratitude toward Julia would have definitely changed her mind. Julia Child kept the lights on. I do believe that Blanche came to recognize that and have real gratitude for that and to Judith for helping her change her, really supporting her to change her position about Julia Child.
Kerry Diamond:
And Fiona, what do you hope viewers take away from the trio of Julia, Blanche and Judith?
Fiona Glascott:
It's kind of the things that we have talked about already, that these three women believed in themselves. They felt it in their gut and they kept going. And I mean, they were all knocked back at different times. It's not been easy. And I think that's something that I want people to look at and go, "it is possible with hard work and determination to get where you want to go," but it is hard work and it will be tough and nothing is easy. But also, you really see the support that these women not only gave, but got.
What I get from these three women's story is many things. But one of the things is that you don't have to do it on your own. And even if whatever it is that you want to do is so different to what anyone else wants to do, for example, Julia Child with a cooking show sounds completely insane and she changed the way we know cooking shows. But she was supported by this confederacy of women. That is very important to lean on other people and be supported and to support.
Judith Light:
And also, I mean, look at Julia's relationship with Avis, her good friend and her relationship with Simone Beck. The theme is you don't do it alone. These are women supporting other women and their passions and where they want to go and what they want to do. Even if you're a stoic stalwart like Blanche, you can be impacted on by other women or other people.
Kerry Diamond:
I do think that is the beautiful message of the show. You don't do it alone.
Fiona Glascott:
You don't.
Judith Light:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely.
Fiona Glascott:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
Judith, if Julia was coming to dinner, what would you make and who would you invite?
Judith Light:
I would test out a vegan recipe on her that I have for tofu with scallions and soy sauce and teriyaki and sesame seeds that's done in a wok. And I would see how she felt about tofu. So I would try that. I certainly would not make any of her recipes for her. That would be a really ridiculous mistake. I wouldn't. I mean, as lovely as I know she would be about it. I would be mm-mm.
Kerry Diamond:
And who would you invite?
Judith Light:
Of course it would be James Beard. It would be Jacque Pepin. Every executive from the Food Network. I would have people like Eleanor Roosevelt and Ketanji Brown Jackson and Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Maya Angelou and Henri Cartier Bresson, the photographer that I think Paul would be very interested in. Dolores Huerta, who was married to Cesar Chavez. Beethoven. Seriously, I could go on and on because her interests were so expansive and so wide ranging, and so were Paul's. Friends of theirs from the OSS, which eventually became the CIA, there would be this mixture of people from politics and music and art and heads of museums. So, I mean, I really could go on. I'm stuck. Now, that's it.
Kerry Diamond:
So this would be a giant banquet? You'd have to make a lot of tofu, Judith.
Judith Light:
I don't think Julia would be so happy about that.
Fiona Glascott:
If I could have Julia Child, I would want to have Judith Jones and Anne Frank. They would be just to get those for Judith, to have her with those two people. If I could have Anne Frank, you know? And Judith Jones, would get my hands on Judith Jones. You know what I mean? Or Julia Child. I just think that just I would love to see those conversations. The many things that I listened to and read said that when she used to go up to Cambridge and work on recipes with Julia and Paul, they would work till maybe 11 o'clock in the evening.
They were just all such hard workers and then Julia would go, "you'd get off, let's have dinner." And the one time said to Judith, "Judith make something. Make some side dish." And Judith was very nervous. She made a little potato dish and I don't actually know what it is. I need to try and find out what it is. And Julia child loved it and it made Judith feel fantastic. And she'd been so nervous making this little potato dish, but she did it. Wow. So I think I'd do that potato dish. Find out what a little potato dish at that time was. Maybe it's in one of Judith's books. I'd make that, and probably, I don't know, probably maybe some chicken. I keep it easy.
Judith Light:
Wouldn't it be fun just to have everybody over somewhere, all of us from the show and just everybody cook one of Julia's things?
Fiona Glascott:
Wouldn't that be great?
Judith Light:
Wouldn't that be just so grand?
Fiona Glascott:
Yeah. We should do that. We should make it happen. That sounds like a beautiful thing to do. I love that.
Judith Light:
Yeah. Just lovely
Kerry Diamond:
Judith and Fiona, I've loved every scene that been in together and as an English major and a book nerd, my heart soars every time there's a scene with the two of you. Thank you for bringing these two people to life.
Fiona Glascott:
Mine too.
Judith Light:
Yes. Well thank you.
Fiona Glascott:
Oh God. Thank you so much, Kerry. And thanks. It's lovely to have a chat today.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Fiona Glascott and Judith Light. Next up is Francis Lam, editor in chief of Clarkson Potter, a division of Penguin Random House known for its cookbooks from the likes of Ina Garten and Toni Tipton-Martin who in 2021 receive the Julia Child award from the Julia Child Foundation for gastronomy and the culinary arts. Also, some of you might recognize Francis' voice from the Splendid Table, a popular radio program about cooking from American public media. Let's welcome Francis to Dishing on Julia. Hi Francis.
Francis Lam:
Hey Kerry.
Kerry Diamond:
How are you?
Francis Lam:
I'm so happy to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
Francis, would love to know, when did you first learn about Julia Child?
Francis Lam:
I have to tell you, I can't pin the moment. I didn't have that relationship with Julia where I was like, "ah," and then like this magical omelet fell on the stove and I couldn't believe what I was seeing on TV, the chickens were lined up by swords. Like what? I didn't really have that, but I do remember liking watching food TV when I was a kid. And when I was a kid, it was before the Food Network was around. So it was really mostly on public television, episodes of great chefs and things like that. The Galloping Gourmet and the Frugal Gourmet and all those folks.
I remember seeing reruns of Julia Child shows and yeah, so she was in that kind of mix for me. I didn't gravitate to her specifically, but over time, like as an adult and then as a professional in the food world and food media, I really started to understand the incredible impact she had and also what a genuinely fascinating person and seeming like a genuinely good person. So it's hard to hit. It's hard to hit that trifecta these days. So she certainly looms large in my mind now.
Kerry Diamond:
Did you ever meet Julia or her editor, Judith Jones?
Francis Lam:
I never met Julia. I did have the chance to interview Judith.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, you did? I'm so jealous.
Francis Lam:
Yeah, and she was amazing. I mean, she was towards the end of her life. I think she passed away not more than really a couple years after I had a chance to speak with her, but it was amazing. And Judith Jones, for me as a cookbook editor, certainly for me as just a person who loves food and grew up in America and reads and speaks English-
Kerry Diamond:
I thought you were going say "reads and speaks food."
Francis Lam:
Yeah, no. I mean, but-
Kerry Diamond:
But you do.
Francis Lam:
Judith, I mean, look, we'll talk about this I'm sure, but I don't think there's a single person you can point to in American culture who did more to popularize so many cuisines from around the globe and make accessible in a new way to people who didn't know about those cuisines and didn't know about those cultures than Judith Jones. Anyway, I was writing an article about someone who had been one of her authors, Edna Lewis, who was another giant of American gastronomy, and Judith had been her editor. And in a lot of ways, wasn't just her editor, but was really her partner in writing.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me what Judith was like.
Francis Lam:
You know, I caught her in a very reflective mode and it was lovely to hear her tell stories. Some of these stories I'd heard her tell sitting on panels and stuff like that. But it was so wonderful. I mean, I knew that she was in her kitchen in Vermont when I called her. And like I said, she was older, but she definitely had her mind and she famously can be sharp, can be sort of cutting and witty. And so I was a little intimidated just by that reputation and by the fact that she is this giant and publishing in this industry that I feel like a pretender in. She was just so warm and wonderful to talk with. And yeah, I just cherish it. I have the recording on my phone.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell us what your job at Clarkson Potter entails. What does it mean to be editor in chief?
Francis Lam:
Clarkson Potter is a publisher of what we call illustrated nonfiction, which is a very sexy term of art in publishing. In reality what that means for us is we are known a lot for our cookbooks because they are nonfiction and they're illustrated, and we make beautiful objects. That's part of our stease, right? Like we're really into the object making. We also do lots of non-cookbook things as well, but we're really known for making these object-y type books and cookbooks are a huge part of that. And before I was editor in chief, I was editor at large for many years, which is a really fancy way of saying part-time employee. So I'm a little bit of a dilatant, but I came to publishing.
Kerry Diamond:
No one has ever called you a dilatant, Francis, except yourself. Can you name drop a few of your authors?
Francis Lam:
Sure. A few of my authors are Toni Tipton-Martin, Chrissy Teigen, Dave Chang, Christina Tosi, Carla Lalli Music. You know, I actually do still do my own books. So I have my relationship with my authors and I'll get on a call with someone hopefully during working hours, but sometimes not always. And we'll just talk about a recipe list or what is the story you really want to tell here, or what's the purpose of this book? It's one thing to say, "here's a book of a hundred of my recipes," but what's the story that the recipes will come together to tell? And we'll draw that stuff out.
The pleasure and privilege I get as editor in chief is really to work with our team of editors as well and help them problem solve and help them think about, "well, what's going on with this book or this relationship that I'm stuck on," or, "hey, let's put our heads together and really think of what are the books we want to publish in the future, who are the authors we want to publish in the future, how do we go after those authors or how do we cultivate those authors?" And really it's sort of like top to bottom how do we think of our as a publisher and what kind of marked we want to make in the world.
Kerry Diamond:
Can you tell us a little bit about how the cookbook landscape is changing?
Francis Lam:
I'll say for my part at Clarkson Potter, before I was editor in chief, and when the editor in chief was a woman named Doris Cooper, we had concerted conversations about like, hey, we really need to look at the representation on our list. And we started looking at our list and what identities were represented, what marginalized identities were there. And we thought we love all of our authors, we love all of our books, we love our list, but we're not doing a great job of that. And so we had actively sought to do better there. And it's not a matter of, hey, let's just start plugging people in and patting ourselves on the back.
It's really a matter of understanding that to do a good job, like your definition of what a good job is changes because doing a good job doesn't just mean, "oh hey, let's just publish nice books." It's thinking more deeply about, well, what are we doing in the world? If we're in the business of publishing, you're doing two things at once all the time, right? You're reflecting your society, but you're also trying to push conversations forward in your society. Like that's the purpose of creating culture because otherwise what the hell else are you doing? Like go make car tires. You're going to make more money.
Really to do better work is to do better business too, right? We really started to have a better understanding of that. And so I do think you're seeing more really exciting books by authors that frankly would not have had a super easy time being published even five years ago. And we're seeing a wider array of stories. It's not only the right thing to do, but if you're looking at it from a cynical business point of view, it's a better business move because you're actually opening up more stories to your audience and you're opening up more audiences to your stories. That's the other key part.
Certainly one way I think cookbooks have changed a lot since Julia's day is that they have become much more visual and they have become much more object-y. And part of it is just because, look, at some point if you just want a recipe for something to make on Tuesday night or you just have like a pack of chicken breast and you need to know what do with it, you can just Google it. There's actually no reason to go to a shelf. There's certainly no reason to go to a bookstore. We in the cookbook publishing industry realize like, oh, we have to make beautiful objects that people want to own, that really want to be proud to have in their home. They want to have proud to on their shelf, proud to have on their coffee table or at their bedside table, frankly. We want people to really live with their books and have a different experience than if you just put up your phone and Google "chicken breast" and put it down on your counter and start cooking from that. So they have changed over time, but especially I think in the last 10 years.
Kerry Diamond:
In your opinion, Francis, what makes a great cookbook in the year 2022?
Francis Lam:
I really think cookbooks should tell a story. For a long time, cookbooks were manuals, right? For a long time cookbooks were in some cases or many cases for many, many decades, if not centuries, they were literally manuals for your household help. They weren't for the head of the household or the lady of the house to read or whatever. They were like instruction manuals. For me, what I think a cookbook offers is the opportunity to tell a story. I'm so driven by stories. It's to tell a story either about the author's life or people they know, or a community or a culture that they're a part of or of a specific place. It doesn't really matter. But tell me a story and let the food give me a different, deeper, more 3D way into that story.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about Judith Jones and her legacy. Judith is remarkable for so many reasons as we've covered, I'd love to know what you admire most about Judith and her career.
Francis Lam:
This is a woman who published the Diary of Anne Frank, for God's sake. She rescued it from the slush pile. She literally had at her job there was this book called the Diary of Anne Frank that was like in the pile of proposals that came in that they're just going to throw in the landfill.
Kerry Diamond:
And she was an assistant.
Francis Lam:
Yeah. And she was like, "that looks interesting." And she picked it up and read it and said, "we have to publish this." Like as an assistant, went to the publisher and said, "we have to publish this." And that's how the Diary of Anne Frank became published. That's history changing, right? That's basically like more than you could ever ask for out of a life. And that was a start of her career at a time especially when publishing was definitely like what's called a very traditional industry and the industry very built on personalities and primarily the personalities of powerful men, powerful white men. That whole structure was based on this idea that, "oh, we are educated. We're elite. We know what you should be reading. We are the arbiters of what's great literature. We are the makers of great literature." Like that's the whole vibe, right? And Judith Jones shows up and says, "we should publish more cookbooks." And these are people who are like, "are you kidding me?"
Kerry Diamond:
And we see that in the show, where they make fun of Judith in an earlier episode for abandoning John Updyke, another one of her great authors in favor of Julia Child.
Francis Lam:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
They're like, "how could you run up to Cambridge to work with this woman who wants to be on a cooking TV show and just blow off John Updyke?"
Francis Lam:
Yeah. It was unfathomable. Like why'd you want to do that? And a little bit, it was kind of like, "okay, little girl, do your thing. Sure. Cute, cute." Like that's kind of the patronizing attitude people had, I think towards her idea at first, but then she would publish Julia and then she would publish Madhur Jaffrey. One thing that she did throughout her career that I think was so fascinating, and especially in like the 1960s, seventies, eighties and nineties version of it was, she did so much to broaden the sense of what American food could be when American food was still set in its very white bread way and the higher end was like looking towards France.
The person who was so personally responsible for solidifying that idea of French food in America was also the person who published Madhur Jaffrey, probably the seminal cookbook writer on Indian cuisine in the English language. Invitation to Indian Cooking was her first book and published Edna Lewis, has taught us so much about the dignity and the beauty of Southern food and the grace of Southern food, in particular black Southern food. God, who else? Claudia Rodin, who is like the great voice on middle Eastern food.
Judith Jones published all these people and every one of those people basically started the story in the English language of those cuisines in America. Yes, there were middle Eastern people cooking their food in America and they were Americans. There were obviously black people cooking black American food. Obviously Indian American people cooking Indian food. But Judith Jones was the person who brought forth these seminal voices in English and broadened millions of English speaking Americans' ideas of what food around the world and what food in America could be.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to see all those authors, these characters on Julia one day. Wouldn't that be fun?
Francis Lam:
It'd be amazing. I've totally thought, like the dude on the Jones Show would be the super friends, right? It'd be like the Justice League. It's like, "oh, here comes Madhur."
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. I would love that. Let's pitch that to the HBO Max folks. Over the years we've obviously seen a lot of magazine and newspaper editors portrayed in TV and movies, but I can't remember ever seeing a cookbook editor. Have you ever seen a cookbook editor on TV before this?
Francis Lam:
No. It's not a very sexy job. It's hard to make a ...
Kerry Diamond:
It's a sexy job today. Come on. Was it fun seeing one of your own portrayed on TV?
Francis Lam:
It was, although I have to say that's not how we work anymore. One thing did ring very true, which was, "oh, Judith is going to spend her vacation up here working on the bread chapter." I'm like, "ah, that sounds familiar."
Kerry Diamond:
Wait, because that's happened?
Francis Lam:
How many vacations I've spent just sitting in the corner on my laptop. It's hard to actually make TV out of what we do most of our jobs, which is just sit in front of a computer or be on a phone call. But I do think things were different then.
Kerry Diamond:
It's not all lunch with Updyke and lobsters with Julia Child? No?
Francis Lam:
It's not all lunch with Updyke, but Judith was very hands on and I think that was a Testament to her and her curiosity and her desire to make books that really change people's lives. It'd be one thing to be like, "oh, this is a great idea. I'll buy this book. I'll publish it." Whatever. But she cared. She really wanted people ... like she loved to cook and she loved learning to cook and she understood that that's what she wanted to put out in the world for her audience. So she would go and cook with Julia Child. They would go and cook together for days and sometimes weeks on end, cooking all day until like 10, 11 at night. And then all of a sudden they would just like clear the table. Paul would go get a tablecloth, put it down, he'd start making a drink. Julia would go make dinner and they would have dinner at like 11:30 and be drunk and asleep by two. And Judith would say she would wake up at six o'clock to the sound of Paul and Julia exercising, which you could actually kind of see in the episode.
Kerry Diamond:
Judith was very invested in that book probably because she really had to sell it to Knopf to get them to publish it. So now it really was in her best interest for there to be a successful follow up for the first one to be as successful as possible.
Francis Lam:
Yeah. I mean, she was making her name on this as well. I mean, that's a definite reality for us as editors. we live and die by our lists, as we call them.
Kerry Diamond:
All right, Francis, final question. If Julia and Judith were coming to dinner, what would you make and who would you invite?
Francis Lam:
It's funny because this is something I truly whip together in 20 minutes when I have nothing else going on at home, but I would make them Chinese stir-fry tomatoes and eggs, very home styled dish. It's literally like you whip up eggs in a bowl, a little salt, some pepper splash and some wine. Scramble them in super hot pan with a lot of oil. Before they're fully cooked, scooped up into a bowl, and then I basically, if it's in summer, I'll slice tomatoes. In winter, I'll just crack open a can of tomatoes and just make a very simple tomato sauce with ginger, garlic, oil, get those sizzling, add the tomatoes, season with salt, a little bit of sugar, a little bit of corn starch slurry just to thicken it up, and ketchup actually. And then tip the eggs back in just to finish it. It's done in literally 10 minutes tops in the pan. And I serve that with a whole bunch of white rice and it's like such a comfort food and such a home food. And I think that even though maybe because Judith and Julia had access to the most wonderful foods in the world, I think they really had in their heart a real love of home and the sense of home that comes from home cooking. So I think I would just serve them that.
Kerry Diamond:
My stomach has been grumbling through this whole interview. Just made it worse. And who would you invite?
Francis Lam:
I'd love to have Edna there. Ms. Lewis. I'd love to have Ms. Lewis there.
Kerry Diamond:
Francis, that's amazing. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you for all the beautiful cookbooks you've helped birth.
Francis Lam:
Oh, thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
And put into this world, and it's good to see you.
Francis Lam:
It's so great to see you. Thanks so much for having me.
Kerry Diamond:
That's it for this 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. Thank you to the Cherry Bombe team, including executive producers, Catherine Baker and Audrey Payne, special projects editor, Donna Yen, associate producer Jenna Sadhu and editorial assistant, Krista White. I'm your host, Kerry Diamond. Special thanks to Steven Tolle and the team at City Vox for the audio production. Check back as we dish on the latest episode of Julia and chat with our cast and crew and special industry guests.