Dishing on Julia - Episode 8
The Julia Finale, And A Little Soufflé
Claire Saffitz:
The idea that what you do, you can be passionate about it forever. To have that not go away, I think is really something that I take away from the show and also from just knowing what I know about Julia.
Kerry Diamond:
That's Claire Saffitz talking about Julia Child. Claire, with her best selling cookbook and viral baking videos on YouTube has been compared to Julia and that she loves nothing more than teaching technique and helping people succeed in the kitchen. We'll be talking to Claire later to get her thoughts on Julia the show and Julia the person. 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. This is the final episode of both the show and the podcast. And I have to confess, I'm a little sad. This has been such a delightful experience. As Russ said in this episode.
Russ:
This is rough. This is a hard day for me, for all of us. Harder than I'd like to admit.
Kerry Diamond:
Well, this will cheer us up. In addition to Claire Savitz, we'll be talking to Julia showrunner, Chris Keyser and producer, Todd Schulkin, who is also the executive director of The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. Let's dish on episode 8, the chocolate souffle episode, shall we? A big theme in this episode is identity and how it relates to work. We know you are what you eat, but how does your profession define you? Julia and her gang grapple with this question.
Kerry Diamond:
We open with Julia making an omelet and oof, she is in a snit. A cheerful Paul bounds into the kitchen, singing a line from the song, "Everybody Ought to Have a Maid." You theater nerds know this. But that tune was written by Stephen Sondheim and is from the musical, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, which made its Broadway debut in 1962. But for Julia, there is nothing funny about it, especially after her take down from feminist, Betty Friedan, in the previous episode.
Julia:
Peter, look at me serving you breakfast. I'm exactly what she said I am.
Kerry Diamond:
Over at WGBH, station boss, Hunter Fox, calls Russ and Alice into his office. He finally gives Russ the green light to make documentaries and puts Alice in charge of The French Chef.
Hunter Fox:
Women may well be the future, Alice.
Kerry Diamond:
Over on the set of The French Chef, Julia's foul mood continues during rehearsal. In her dressing room, she tells Alice she is done with The French Chef and is moving on. So much for Alice's promotion. Later, Alice is on the phone with her new love interest, Isaac, who as we know is mom approved. She shares her disappointment and her dreams.
Alice:
I want to be someone. I want to show my mom, I want to show everyone, no matter how much you want that you can't go putting all of your little happiness eggs into one work basket, can you?
Kerry Diamond:
Julia, back home, finally confesses to Paul that she came up with the idea for The French Chef, not WGBH. And that she's been financing it with royalties from her cookbook. Paul is shocked.
Paul:
After all the gossip and humiliation at the embassy, I thought I was safe here.
Kerry Diamond:
Paul is referring to an incident in 1955 when he was called back to Washington, DC by his employer, the State Department. He was questioned about possible communist ties and his sexuality. He eventually left the State Department in 1961. Russ and Marion, in their home kitchen, are whipping up the components of eggs Benedict and ruminating on a life without Julia.
Russ:
She's not the kind of person you get out of your head that easily.
Marion:
No, she definitely is not.
Russ:
I mean, we will remember her when we're old. I'll still hear that voice in my head.
Kerry Diamond:
Over at Knopf, a tearful Blanche breaks some terrible personal and professional news to Judith. Blanche is losing her eyesight.
Blanche Knopf:
How can I continue without my eyes? Who am I without my eyes, without my sight? I am my work, Judith.
Kerry Diamond:
In reality, Blanche did lose her eyesight and passed away only a few years later, never knowing her publishing house changed the culinary scene in America and would a force both Julia and Judith would become. Back on the set of The French Chef, everyone assembles for Julia's final taping. She is making a chocolate souffle, the classic rich and airy dessert that is famously temperamental. The dish turns out to be a metaphor of sorts.
Julia Child:
As a matter of fact, I have a secret to tell you've. You've known how to make a chocolate souffle all along. All you have to do is plunge in. And I'll tell you another secret. That's the key not only to the kitchen, but to life itself.
Kerry Diamond:
Should you decide to plunge in, you'll find the recipe for souffle au chocolat and creme anglaise, Julia's favorite accompaniment in chapter 10 of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Speaking of chapters, it looks as if this chapter of everyone's lives is closing, but don't shut the book just yet. Simca calls Julia about a dream she's had. True to form, Julia's co-author starts with an insult.
Simca:
You and I were cooking together in my kitchen. We were making cassoulet and you overcooked the beans.
Kerry Diamond:
But she's not calling about beans. She wants Julia to come to Provence so they can cook together again. Julia immediately loves the idea. She talks to Paul and he helps her realize she doesn't have to abandon her beloved TV show. Just say oui, he tells his wife.
Paul:
Say yes to everything for as long as we can. Let's drop dead someday saying, "Yes." That'll be a life.
Kerry Diamond:
That will certainly be a life. If there's anything Julia Child taught us, it's the power of saying yes and not being deterred. If Julia could learn to cook in her 30s, become a culinary sensation in her 50s and remain a force into her 90s, there's so much potential for all of us at every stage of our lives. So what's next for Julia? Will she and Paul stay in Cambridge or might they head to the sunny lavender scented south of France? Julia did spend many glorious Summers in Provence, cooking and hanging out with the likes of Simca, James Beard, MFK Fisher, and other culinary legends. Stay tuned because Julia has been renewed for a second season. The team just found out earlier this week. So congratulations to everyone.
Kerry Diamond:
Now let's check in with showrunner Chris Keyser and producer Todd Schulkin, who is also the executive director of the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. So let's welcome them to Dishing on Julia. Chris Keyser, Todd Schulkin, welcome to Dishing on Julia.
Chris Keyser:
Thanks Kerry. It's good to be here.
Todd Schulkin:
It's great to be with you.
Kerry Diamond:
Chris, how did you get involved with this project?
Chris Keyser:
I was asked to join. The project began with 3 Arts and Kimberly Carver who was a manager there and who came up with the idea originally. Her mother had cooked using Julia's recipes. And originally I think they reached out to get Daniel Goldfarb and Daniel and I had worked together. He worked for me on a show called Tyrant a number of years ago, and we'd become very, very close friends. And then I suppose the question internally inside the company was, who can they get who has some experience in running television shows to join as a partner? And I was lucky enough to get that phone call. And I immediately said yes. I said yes for two reasons, for Julia and for Daniel.
Kerry Diamond:
What did you know about Julia Child?
Chris Keyser:
Oh, I knew a fair amount. I was a child of the 1960s. I grew up watching Julia Child. I think I've said this a number of times to people that my family, they were not good cooks. I came from a tradition of Jewish Eastern European, Central European cooking, but not the best version of it. It was like that old, they ran everything through the deflavorizing machine version of cooking. I once ran away from home because of pot roast. My birthday was right around Rosh Hashanah and so I used to get pot roast constantly for my birthday and it just drove me crazy. So anyway, my family was not a cooking family.
Kerry Diamond:
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You have to go back. You literally ran away from home because of pot roast?
Chris Keyser:
I got to the front porch, but it was a gesture of defiance against the cooking that I had grown up with. We ate the way America ate at that period of time. I lived in a small town, not a small town, I lived in a town on Long Island where you could get any fast food you wanted on the Main Street. We brought in a lot. We ate vegetables out of cans, fruit in sugar syrup, but we watched Julia Child and not because of her cooking because nobody in my family ever made those recipes. And I was too young I think to fully understand it, except I enjoyed it. But I do remember my parents watching her. And I suppose that there was something about the joy that she brought to food and to life that entranced them, even though they would never translate it in the kitchen that something that we could actually consume.
Kerry Diamond:
You are the showrunner. What is a showrunner?
Chris Keyser:
I am one of the executive producers and I have a number of partners on the show, but I am the executive producer who I guess is ultimately in charge. The showrunners is I guess in some sense the CEO. I'm the one who runs things and where the buck stops here kind of thing. There's so many jobs in a television show. You not only writing scripts, coming up with story and writing scripts, but eventually the casting and the production issues and all the way through editing, post, music, all of that. The showrunner is the person who's in an overarching way in charge of all of those things. This is a show where I had many partners. Todd was one of those partners and Erwin Stoff and Kimberly Carver, and most particularly Daniel Goldfarb.
Kerry Diamond:
Got it. I always found the title showrunner very sort of glamorous and mysterious at the same time. I had this vision of like a very jazzy dynamic human in sneakers.
Chris Keyser:
Yeah. That's exactly it in fact. I don't want to disabuse you of the idea. It is glamorous and extraordinarily powerful.
Kerry Diamond:
I love it. Okay, Todd, let's talk about you and the Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and Culinary Arts. First, tell us how the foundation came about.
Todd Schulkin:
Julia started it. She had the foresight to organize it with her longtime lawyer, Bill Truslow. And it was her idea that she wanted basically her whole estate to go to the foundation. She didn't leave anything to family members. She left basically everything to charity and then also to this foundation. And the idea was that it would continue to advance the causes that mattered to her when she was still alive, which were not really hagiography, they were about the culinary arts and the food world. And that's why she says she gave it that really long name which we are beholden to use because it was important to her because she said the foundation is not to be about me, but about the things that matter to me. Now, that's evolved in ways that I think she certainly never expected and I think even the trustee, the foundation didn't fully anticipate.
Kerry Diamond:
And what do you do for the foundation?
Todd Schulkin:
So my role of the foundation, I'm the executive director, which it's kind of like the showrunner of the foundation. I'm responsible for ultimately all the things we do, but it's kind of easy to boil them down. There's basically three main things. As I said, we're the protector and custodian and steward of all Julia's intellectual property, which are her rights and her books and the TV show, The French Chef, in particular. And it varies across, she made very different deals over time. She had a 50 year career and then the foundation also makes grants, which was one of the things she encouraged and designed. So we make grants to other nonprofits in the culinary world. And then also the foundation is funded by the royalties from her existing works. And really what the foundation is beholden to do is make all of that work and sustain itself as a private charity.
Kerry Diamond:
And I would imagine a lot of projects come your way. Why did the foundation give the green light to this one?
Todd Schulkin:
A certain number of projects come our way. We're not inundated with them. And Julia's a historic and public figure so there are a lot of projects that come our way at the very end asking for help after they've long been started. So there's as many, if not more projects that we're not involved with about Julia that are out there. As Chris said, Kimberly Carver was one of the executive producers who you've talked to really was the one who got the project started with her love of Julia. And I can still vividly remember sitting in the South Beverly Grill in Beverly Hills near 3 Arts office having lunch with her. And she's like, "So Julia, let's do a show about Julia. What could we do?" And I worked with Kimberly on this idea, which really Chris and Daniel and their team of writers have really run.
Todd Schulkin:
... which really Chris and Daniel and their team of writers have really run with. While the execution is very specific to what the writer's room did and decided to do, the basic concept is very similar to what Kimberly and I cooked up.
Kerry Diamond:
You two sort of have different goals. Todd, you're protecting Julia's legacy. Chris, your ultimate goal is to enlighten and entertain, not to make a documentary.
Chris Keyser:
The show is an expression of the joy of Julia, right? I mean, that's what we're after. It was very important to us as we filled in the blanks between the stuff that's known about her, and there's plenty known about her. She's still a private figure in addition to a public figure. We were talking about, she's not Marilyn Monroe. She's not Elizabeth Taylor. It's not as if every single she room she walked into and every person she ever spoke to wrote about those interactions. So that was nice for us. It actually gave us a lot of room to imagine. But it was extremely important to me and to Daniel and to all of the writers that as we imagined it, we were true to the spirit of her, the essence of her. We did not want in some ways to make things up that changed the basic truth of who she was and her relationship with Paul.
And by the way, the same thing was true with Paul Child. One thing that the partnership with the foundation has helped us do is both to give us the information that we need, but also if necessary, provide a check on all of that to say, listen, you know her better than we do. Did we get this right? Not in the details, the facts, but in the essence. And Todd being able to say, yes, keep going, has given us both the license, the freedom kind of lifted a burden off our shoulders of the responsibility of telling her story.
Kerry Diamond:
Todd, did you know Julia Child?
Todd Schulkin:
I did. I did that. That was one of my qualifications for the job. They have so far only had people in senior roles at the foundation who knew Julia. Or luck's going to run out. But yeah, no, I did. I met her actually, when I first started working in Hollywood as a film agent, because I had moved to LA when Julia had... This is before she'd left Cambridge, for sure, but she was spending much more time in Santa Barbara. My mother-in-law was a very close friend of Julia's, and Julia was one of her mentors, but also a close friend. And she had asked us to go visit her because Julia might be lonely in Santa Barbara. Which is of course now I know completely ironic because Julia was hardly ever lonely and had people constantly around her. But yes, I will never forget when I lived in the Miracle Mile and got home from work one day and Julia Child was on our answering machine, inviting us up. And I was like, oh my God, Julia Child's voice in my living room.
Kerry Diamond:
Chris, I want to talk about casting a little bit.
Chris Keyser:
Yeah, mm-hmm.
Kerry Diamond:
In particular, Brittany Bradford. I mean, anybody who's watched the show has fallen in love with the character of Alice. And we had Brittany on the podcast a few weeks ago, and I had no idea this was her first film or TV role. So you really took, the whole team really took a chance on her. What was it about Brittany that made you confident that she would be perfect as Alice Neman?
Chris Keyser:
We're taking chances on everybody in some sense. I mean, they are bigger and smaller chances. They vary in their qualities. You might say with David Hyde Pierce, there's no chance being taken. And I suppose you might make that argument that he was an inevitability.
Kerry Diamond:
I think you have a few short bets in this series.
Chris Keyser:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
You've got BeBe Neuwirth. You've got Judith Light. Yeah.
Chris Keyser:
Brittany taped for us. And we watched her tape with a lot of other actresses, and it sometimes happens in these situations, there was no question. There was not a single person in the network, the studio or amongst the producers who did not look at all of those tapes and say, this is the only person who can play this part. And why that's true, I don't know. It's an inevitable thing, the fact that they embody precisely what you meant in what you wrote and maybe some things that you had never imagined. Brittany did that. And yeah, she had never done a television show before, but she was well trained. And by the way, I should also say, we don't do this alone. We have remarkable casting agents, Sharon Bialy, Gohar Gazazyan, Stacia Kimler. Their job is not simply to put together a list of people and send it to us. Their job is to understand what the show is and which actors can actually do the job. They have insight into that.
I mean, Sharon is incredibly intuitive about this stuff, so is Gohar, and Linda is as well. And they said to us, "This is a young actress, reasonably new out of Julliard, and she can handle this." And her performance and their certainty let us take a chance. None of us were nervous about Brittany. We saw that tape and we thought.. And this is also true, and maybe I'd like actors to know this. Producers who don't sit back and laugh at the tapes and think, oh, none of you are good enough. We sit with our fingers crossed, holding our breath saying, please can somebody walk through the door and put him or herself on tape who embodies what we mean? And when Brittany came in and did that, there was an enormous exhale and a feeling of relief that we found somebody to be, who is Alice. So that was the feeling, not, oh, I hope this is going to work out, but boy, are we lucky.
Kerry Diamond:
I love that. It's really its own recipe and the most important recipe in a production.
Chris Keyser:
That is exactly right. That's exactly right.
Kerry Diamond:
Yeah. Todd, I would love to know, aside from Julia, who I'm guessing is your favorite character, who is your second favorite character?
Todd Schulkin:
Well, it's interesting in follow up to what Chris just explained, because I would say it's Avis De Voto. But I didn't expect it to be Avis De Voto. I mean, obviously I love the depiction of Julia and Paul and what Sarah and David Hyde Pierce have brought to the role. But oh my gosh, BeBe Neuwirth. I didn't know that much about what Avis De Vote was like in real life. But obviously she wrote a lot, so there's a lot to get her kind of personality from. And it's just, I don't know. I could watch it. I could watch BeBe play Avis for hours. She could have her own spinoff show.
Kerry Diamond:
Chris, I would love to know what are a few favorite moments that jump out for you when you think back about the series?
Chris Keyser:
I will say that here are my favorite moments, and they have less to do with, I love this scene or I love that scene, and they have more to do with what we've been talking about. One of my favorite moments was being on set on the very first day. The first scene we shot was Paul and Julia in the kitchen of the Child home. She makes him an omelet. It's the second scene of the pilot, and it was the first time I ever saw them together and it was the first time I ever saw Sarah be Julia. In the last episode, when Julia tapes what looks like it might be the final episode of The French Chef, and everyone is on set together. We actually all gather them together and they actually all take a picture, and Paul takes a picture of them.
It's meant to be a goodbye for them. For us, it was hello. But I think for everyone who made it, everyone who went through, the writers, the producers, the four year process, the people on in production, the many year process of finally getting together, that was sort of beautiful. So my two favorite moments are more about the emotion of having been part of a company that rode a lot of waves ups and down to actually make this show. That's my answer that has nothing to do with the a scene that made me laugh or made me cry.
Kerry Diamond:
Todd, I would love to know a favorite moment of yours. When you think back about the series, what's one scene that has stuck with you?
Todd Schulkin:
I love when joy does the cooking class and the whole coordination and there's the theatricality. And it's not a coincidence that a lot of the people on the show are also playwrights and there's very much a kind of stage theatricality to it in a great way. It's very entertaining. It's very choreographed, but in the best possible way. And the other scene that I love, maybe because it has past meaning in my life, but is when Julia leaves, Paul, who's not feeling well at the Pierre in sort of Avis' charge. And it's all in their interaction. It's not a scene with all the movement and the color and the music, but it just stuck in my head. I just love, love the kind of loving adversarial nature between Avis and Paul.
Kerry Diamond:
Everyone I've had the privilege of meeting from Julia and interviewing has just raved about the comradery and how special an experience this was. How did you maintain this kind of atmosphere and in the middle of a pandemic?
Chris Keyser:
You can't make that true unless the people naturally are inclined to feel that way about each other. And so that's just who we had on set. They were lovely people. Brittany is a lovely person and Fiona Glascott is lovely person, and Christine Tobin who made our food and the Patrizia Brandon Stein who built our sets, and Eric Moynier who was our DP, and Donna Bloom who was our producer, and all the rest of the cast. There was a feeling of maybe because we came through so much together that they were intimately connected. That's the first thing. The second thing is we're making a happy show. We're making a happy show about people whose message to us is enjoy things, enjoy company and being together. It's not irrelevant what that engenders amongst the people who play those parts and take part in that production is a feeling that has something to do with Julia.
Todd Schulkin:
As someone who, outside of my life at the foundation, also works in film and television, I always say, I remember very distinctly, and I won't mention the actor or the director, when I was an assistant, I saw a project get made really quickly as an independent film when they were still being made in multitudes by a major independent or mini studio. And on day one, the actor decided he hated the director or the director wasn't doing what he wanted, and there was no turning back.
And the amount of variables, and then I'll compare this to cooking. There's a certain alchemy, it's actually chemistry, to cooking that makes things come together, but no explanation or maybe theories of why the souffle doesn't work one day and the next with the same recipe, the same applies to making film and television, except that the variables are a million. Watch the credits of any show or movie, there are so many people, you need some kind of harmony for that to work. And that usually comes from the leadership, in television the show runner and the director, and film the director and the key producer. And if you don't have that, you're very, very unlikely to get a good outcome.
Kerry Diamond:
Todd, you get a gold star for tying this back to a Julia Child recipe. It's like a souffle. Chris, this is another question for someone who's outside the industry, which I am. I was surprised that a series has so many directors. Why does a TV series have multiple directors?
Well, it varies actually, Kerry. Now that we have much shorter seasons, there are actually television shows that have one or two directors. We made a very conscious choice not to do that. It's to allow the directors to direct their own episodes, to have the style of those directors within the framework that Charles had established. Charles McDougal is the director of the pilot and the second episode. We like the idea that you bring new voices in. And particularly, by the way, because Charles was doing that, and Daniel and I were, we wanted women also to be part of this point of view. And so we brought in most of the episodes after Charles are directed by women, and that was meaningful, I think. It's meaningful. Most of our writers were women, and that's conscious. It's a conscious choice to actually say that the story is actually in large part about women and the way they made their way in the world were remarkable and changed the world in doing that. But for us, it works very well that way.
Kerry Diamond:
Why did you leave Julia where you left her in the final episode?
Chris Keyser:
The season was very intentionally constructed in three acts. Act one is the first three episodes, which is really the making of, the birth of the idea. It starts really from the second scene, from the moment Julie has the idea to cook an omelet on television and ends with the very first few seconds of The French Chef itself. The second chapter is about exposing The French Chef to the world and how that became, at least in the early days, something of even a limited success and the changes that it made in Julia's life. And the third chapter was the kind of coming to terms of what it meant. And Julie and Paul are in the very first episode, so we want to make a show that changes the way the world cooks.
And by the end of the season, Julia also has to come to terms with what she means in the context of American culture. Most particularly in this case, in the feminism, the women's movement, and what she means for women going forward. And she comes to terms with that and has to decide which way she wants to go, whether she wants to continue to make the show or not. And she decides in the end to do it, but we wanted to leave her at that moment of having had that doubt, that uncertainty, then coming to terms with who she was or what the show meant to her and the people who loved it.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay, dinner with Julia, what would you make and who would you invite? Todd, I'm going to make you go first.
Todd Schulkin:
So I think the thing that I never got to do, I was very lucky enough to dine with Julia on many occasions. It was always very simple. I had more popcorn and-
Todd Schulkin:
... hang with Julia on many occasions. It was always very simple. I had more popcorn and Goldfish crackers with her than I did anything that some people might imagine Julia was eating.
Kerry Diamond:
You need to explain. She was a fan of the Goldfish cracker.
Todd Schulkin:
That is all, yeah, historically accurate. And she was a big fan of popcorn, too. Most chefs don't eat the same kind of food that they make for their restaurant or even make for a dinner party, and the same was true with Julia. But I think if I could make any choice, I would choose to dine with her and Paul on the terrace at La Pitchoune in Provence. Especially if you were in France, in Provence at the right time of year, summer, you'd have the best tomatoes from the market with a vinegarette as your first course. You'd have a roast chicken, and you'd have some chocolate mousse. Although maybe actually if it was summer, a strawberry tart. But that would be ideal for me.
Kerry Diamond:
Chris, how about you?
Chris Keyser:
What I would do is, look, we're taping this on Passover. I'd probably bring her to my house, and just have my wife and we'd have a Seder.
Todd Schulkin:
With pot roast.
Chris Keyser:
It would be a pot roast. You're right, it would be a full circle. And great matzo ball soup, because now my family makes wonderful food. And it's not just because of Julia, but the world has changed since the 1960s when I first met her. And so American cooking is much different.
I probably would share with her our family's cooking, and then I'd just listened to her talk. That would be very meaningful to share the food that we made with her on a day where you're supposed to share food with strangers. Will you keep your door open?
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you to Chris and Todd, and congratulations on the show being renewed for a second season.
Now, let's welcome our next guest, Claire Saffitz, the author of the best-selling cookbook Dessert Person, and its popular companion video series on YouTube. Claire Saffitz, welcome to Dishing on Julia.
Claire Saffitz:
Thank you. I'm so excited to be here.
Kerry Diamond:
When did you first learn about Julia Child?
Claire Saffitz:
I don't have a particular moment or memory of first learning who she was because Julia was a presence in my house growing up. A personality, a known quantity always it feels like. My parents were huge devotees of Julia Child. We would watch episodes of The French Chef growing up. We had a little tiny TV that the whole family would watch and gather around.
Kerry Diamond:
With the antennas?
Claire Saffitz:
With the antennas, yeah. But we'd watch episodes. And I cannot remember precisely if my parents had a copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. I'm sure that they did. She was just a presence that I knew about and an icon as I was growing up.
Kerry Diamond:
How big an inspiration has Julia been on your career?
Claire Saffitz:
There have been moments in my career where I feel very aligned with Julia and her philosophy and her life even. I don't know how old I was, but I was in my early 20s when Julie & Julia came out. The movie, not the book. I was a fan of Julia Child, and my parents live in the Boston area, and so it was very common to have reruns of The French Chef on local... Was it WGBH Boston?
Kerry Diamond:
WGBH. Exactly.
Claire Saffitz:
So I would watch episodes, and it was particularly around this period in my early twenties where I was out of college, kind of aimless. My parents were like, "What is she going to do?" I was living with them, and I would watch episodes of The French Chef during the day and plan what I was going to make for dinner for my parents. And then the movie came out, and it was around that time that I was thinking about culinary school, and I decided to go to culinary school in France. And I think that had a lot to do with seeing these representations of Julia in France, and living this American, romantic dream of the American in Paris.
So I was heavily influenced by that trope, which I think she really embodies. And that's when I decided to go to culinary school in France. Her story made me think that I could do it, too.
Kerry Diamond:
So you did go to culinary school in Paris, and I know some of your experiences over there that sounded a little similar to Julia's. The tough instructors, the French students who wanted nothing to do with you. Tell us a little bit about your culinary school experience.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah. I had a wonderful experience. I did not go to Le Cordon Bleu where Julia went. I ended up going to a culinary school called École Grégoire-Ferrandi. Was run by and is run, I believe, by the French Chamber of Commerce. It's a trade school where high school-aged French students would go and learn a trade. So the cooking school was a very big part of that school, and there were other trades, like furniture making and other things that students learned there. But I was part of an international program that was taught in English, which is a big reason why I chose that. I did not speak French when I moved there for courses.
I loved having an international program with students from all over the world. It was several Americans, but also people from Brazil, and Turkey, and Taiwan, and Romania, and all over the world. And that was great.
It didn't focus on the business aspect of it, like schools in the US would of like how to run your numbers and your food costs and all that. But it was very focused on learning the canon of French cuisine, which I loved. I didn't really understand or realize how canonized French cuisine is. And we would go through our units. You have your cold appetizers, and your hot appetizers, and your cold soups, and your hot soups. And your meat, poultry, fish.
Kerry Diamond:
And these are all the stations in the kitchen that people are working under the direction of the chef.
Claire Saffitz:
Yes. And so we would move through these units, and it'd be like, okay, so for the next two weeks, we're doing poultry, and you learn how to pluck a chicken. And they call it singeing, like singe the feathers off with the burner. And it's the whole bird. Same thing with fish. So I really gained such an appreciation for how codified it was, and I really liked that. I loved the curriculum.
So I feel like I got a taste of what Julia got, something really rigorous. And for better or worse, it was like, "This is how you do things." And then when you'd ask why, it'd be like, "Because this is how you do things." That was the answer from our French chefs. I would ask, "Why do you have to skim the stock," for example, and they'd say, "Because you have to remove the impurities." And I'd be like, "But what impurities?" And they'd be like, "I gave you the answer. Stop asking. Just do it the way we tell you."
Claire Saffitz:
I loved it. I loved the education that I got.
Kerry Diamond:
Interestingly, both you and Julia decided not to pursue restaurant careers.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah. I wonder if that was ever a thought that crossed her mind, that maybe I'll open a French restaurant or something. She had such a gift for language and for writing, and obviously was a part of this literary or at least intellectual scene, which I love that that's how the show depicts that and contextualizes her and Paul's life in that way.
Before I got really passionate about cooking and cuisine and pastry, I knew that I wanted to write. I'm an introvert. I'm a pretty solitary person. I did not think that the restaurant life was going to be for me. I knew that I wasn't going to get a charge from the harried chaos of restaurant cooking, and I was correct. I did an externship in a restaurant following the culinary school and the program, and it was confirmed. I'm glad I did it. It was a great experience, but confirmed I don't want to pursue this. I'd much rather be writing about this subject.
Kerry Diamond:
Let's talk about cooking shows. I was talking to a friend earlier about the series, and she remarked that she didn't realize the extent to which Julia and her team really figured out the template for all future cooking shows. Now, you've done cooking shows in lots of different places. You've done them in a magazine test kitchen. You've done them in your own apartment. I was curious, were there any moments during the episodes when you thought that looks familiar or that's something I can relate to?
Claire Saffitz:
I like how it showed the whole production aspect of it from start to finish. Not just the building of the set, but, "Okay, Julia, this is how it's going to work. You're going to send your outline on Sunday. We're going to prep everything Monday, Tuesday. Rehearsal, Wednesday. Shoot, Thursday. Editing starts Friday." Now, when I do video, it's in my home and pre-production is relatively minimal. That resonates a lot to see that kind of planning. It's not just showing up with the ingredients and making something. It's timing all the swaps. I have done some productions where it's a little more choreographed, where it's like, "Okay, we need this swap. And I want this done at this time, but it still has to be warm. So put it in when I start doing this step," that kind of thing.
Kerry Diamond:
I, when you say swap, you mean something that's either totally finished or halfway finished?
Claire Saffitz:
Right. Something where you're bringing it in.
Kerry Diamond:
Give us an example.
Claire Saffitz:
So if I'm making a layer cake for a video, I don't want to wait for the cake that I'm baking on set that day to cool to be able to frost it. So I'll make the layers the night before, and then have them cooled so they're ready to frost. So I'll bring in the swap, which is the cooled, already baked layers, so that you're not having to wait the whole time.
So definitely seeing the level of production and thought that goes into it, and the detailed planning that she and Paul did about basically them having done that themselves, and the kind of pluck that it takes to do that, but then sustaining that over 26 episodes for a first season is a lot.
Kerry Diamond:
I think it's that Julia is so natural. It was surprising to me the level of preparation that went into it. And I feel the same way about you. You seem so natural in your videos that I would almost think you just show up and are like, "What are we baking today?"
Claire Saffitz:
Sort of.
Kerry Diamond:
Not all of them. Some of them, thinking gingerbread, croquembouche. Some of them, I know you can't just whip together.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah, right.
Kerry Diamond:
But some of them, you just seem so effortless. It takes a village, and you have your own little village.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah. I have my whole production team, who's so wonderful. Like Julia, it's friends and people that I really consider very close to me. And we all work together, and that's wonderful. I think she had Avis and she had so many people helping her. Of course, Paul, and the whole crew.
Kerry Diamond:
What is it about food TV or food video that people love to watch? They're not necessarily cooking or baking after watching them, as much as you hope that they do. It's almost like watching a sport you don't play. What's that all about?
Claire Saffitz:
I think there's something really satisfying seeing something happen from start to finish, and seeing the reveal the moment. Particularly with cooking and baking, there's such a transformation that happens. And I think French food is a great example of cuisine that's transformational. It's taking a set of ingredients and really creating so many different things with it. And so it's like you could have the same starting ingredients, and you could still make two dishes that look very different from one another. And sometimes they don't look so different. I love how in French food, you have one dish that has one name, but then you add mustard to it, and it becomes another dish with another name. There is that kind of iterative nature of it.
Kerry Diamond:
The building blocks.
Claire Saffitz:
The building blocks, right. Especially with The French Chef and with all the shows that came after it, it's just very satisfying to see that process and to also be able to appreciate someone's mastery. To watch Julia's hands and to see how she's beating the egg whites, or folding, or whatever it is. It's just fun to watch. I don't watch sports, but I imagine it's the same thing as watching someone throw a pass and someone else catch it. It's like, you can appreciate the skill of the people.
Kerry Diamond:
Wait a second. You don't watch any sports?
Claire Saffitz:
No. No sports.
Kerry Diamond:
No. Okay. Not even tennis? It's okay. You don't have to lie.
Claire Saffitz:
I'm not seeking it out, but I actually do like watching tennis. But I'm never like, "Oh, let's turn on this sports thing." I don't even know, when is that happening? I don't know.
Kerry Diamond:
"Let's turn on this sports thing." I think that was the answer.
Claire Saffitz:
Right.
Kerry Diamond:
Tell me some of your favorite moments from the show.
Claire Saffitz:
I love the food moments. I guess that's not a surprise.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh, yeah. Let's talk about those. Christine Tobin was the food stylist. She's so talented.
Claire Saffitz:
Yes. I followed her work, and such an incredible diversity of film and television projects that she's worked on.
I really loved the way that the crew would get excited about eating the food at the end. There was a brief scene where she has a mousse a la framboise or something, and then the handing out of spoons at the end of the episode. And she got walks offset, and then all the crew dig in. I love that it shows like the pleasure of food. And watching the omelet making and then the enjoyment of the omelet. It's not just about the food, it's the enjoyment also.
There's a scene where Julia loses it a little bit in exhaustion and frustration practicing for the souffle episode, and this is why Christine ... It's such a hard job because certain kinds of food doesn't wait for anyone. That's really hard to get that, the timing of all of that right. And then it's funny, it's like trying to make the food and time it for the depiction of a food show where they're trying to do that same thing. I get it. It's like when the egg whites whip up, it's like everyone has to move.
Kerry Diamond:
It's so interesting that you pointed out the cast on the show eating the food, because Christine and everybody involved really tried to carry that over behind the scenes. And they built out a beautiful kitchen for the team, and none of the food got wasted. It was all real food. Christine's not one of those food stylists who does a lot of culinary trickery.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah. Right. I-
Kerry Diamond:
... Stylist who does a lot of culinary trickery.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah. I think it shows. Just in the way that I'm exposed to food styling as a profession, and as an art, I see the differences when food's real and that's something I feel really strongly about. The food that is photographed, or shot for videos, should be the food.
Kerry Diamond:
I love all the restaurant scenes. One of the French restaurants they go to in Cambridge all the time is based on a real French restaurant. I think it was the first French restaurant in Cambridge. It was just so much fun seeing the food from that era, the escargot, and the pate, and all the different things.
Claire Saffitz:
Right. I also love all the wine, the wine talks, they were such vinophiles. Especially Paul, the jokes around the wine, and when the father comes to visit, her father comes to visit.
Kerry Diamond:
Oh my gosh. Yes, I love it when he puts all the ice. I have put an ice cube or two from time to time in my rose, or maybe some white wine.
Claire Saffitz:
I think that's fine.
Kerry Diamond:
Never red wine, but that was enough ice to fill a Diet Coke cup at a movie theater. That was a lot of ice. That was hilarious. I love when Paul talks along with her when she's doing the wine segments. He's clearly very invested in them. Did you have any favorite characters?
Claire Saffitz:
Oh, I loved Avis. It's hard not to love- well, it's not to love Bebe Neuwirth doing anything, but just the spitfire character and someone who was so direct, and so assured in her support of Julian, what she was doing. Julia, who, at least as the show obviously portrays, had moments of doubt along the way. Avis was there at every step being like, "No, you have to do this," and being there to tell her, "You have to do this and you have to keep going." I loved the character of Avis.
Kerry Diamond:
As someone who is so beautifully bookish, you must have been happy to see Judith Jones as a character.
Claire Saffitz:
Oh, that was wonderful. I mean, I feel like I learned a lot about Judith Jones career. I first learned about Judith Jones, because of Julia Child. Then, to understand that she had such an incredible career in literature, as the editor of major 20th Century fiction writers was also wonderful to see. I love the way that this show treated these really strong women characters.
Kerry Diamond:
I felt like it was such a triumph for people who love books, and culture, when Albert Duhammel is like, "Get me Nabacau" It was so much fun. Then, at Paul's openings, Sylvia Plath is there, and trying to figure out what are all the connections to these characters.
Claire Saffitz:
I also like how this show takes major 20th Century texts and treats them equal to the cookbook, to Mastering the Art of French Cooking, just very influential in the same way that some of these major works of literature were. What's so impressive about the moment that Julia was in, and I guess not really a moment. It carried throughout decades of her life, but she was really part of this community of luminaries. Just this community of people from the literary world, to the food world, and in between. There's a lot to mind there I think.
Kerry Diamond:
Absolutely. Yeah, I love it from Updike, to Mr. Rogers, to Julia Child, but they all changed our lives in equal ways. What period of time would you love to see them do a deep dive into in a subsequent season?
Claire Saffitz:
I love that they start with her in Cambridge. They're already in Cambridge. They're flashbacks to their lives as diplomats. Of course, I would think going back in time a little bit to their life in France, and they spend time in Provence with Simca, and their time in Paris. It's hard to not want to see more of that a little bit.
Kerry Diamond:
I want to see 70s Julia for some reason. I do definitely want to see Provence, and all those just amazing food world folks she was surrounded by.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah.
Kerry Diamond:
But for some reason, I want to see what did Julie Child wear in the 70s? What was all that like?
Claire Saffitz:
I'm a big fan of Julian and Jacque the show, and her relationship with Jacque Papain, which was so wonderful to watch. He is a major icon, just as far as a teacher, and someone that does these recipe demonstrations and videos. Talking about a master.
Kerry Diamond:
If you could make anything with her, what would you make? She was a guest on Dessert Person.
Claire Saffitz:
One of the things about Julia is she so seamlessly crossed this invisible barrier between cuisine and pastry. It would probably be something, not surprisingly, a dessert. Maybe souffle's, because I feel like that really embodies what she was about, and the way that she extolled French cuisine as something that's really simple, but you have to do it correctly. There was that scene in the show where she is goes into that meeting with the producers, where they're telling her, "We can't make the budget work, so we can't make the show," but she has that cake, and he leans over, and he's like, "What cake is that?" She's like, "I'll give you a slice if you give let me do an episode."
Kerry Diamond:
Give me a show. I'll give you a slice.
Claire Saffitz:
She says something like, "I promise you it is the most delicious cake you'll ever make. It is just this simple recipe and I'll teach you."
Kerry Diamond:
That was a beautiful scene.
Claire Saffitz:
Yeah. I feel like a lot of the food that I make is like that. It's something that is really... The word simple, I think, people interpret it one way, and maybe I mean it in another, but there's something elemental about it, but there is technique. You have to pay attention to the technique for it to turn out properly. Something like souffle's, it embodies that, and I think that's what she was all about. I would probably do that, souffle's.
Kerry Diamond:
What would you say was your big takeaway from the series?
Claire Saffitz:
I think seeing the persistence of her passion, and Paul's as well, and also the partnership that they had, which is so wonderful to see. I feel like you don't really see so many positive depictions of a marriage, especially people in their 50s. I know that's something that is referenced frequently in their lives together. What I think about is the real Julia and Paul put out that Valentine's Day card of them in the bathtub that they sent around to their friends, which is so funny, and quirky, and weird.
Their sense of humor together and the playfulness of their relationship. To see people at their stage in life. Paul being recently retired, and Julia in her 50s, just the idea that what you do, you can be passionate about it forever, and for your entire life, and to have that not go away, I think, is really something that I take away from the show. Also, from just knowing what I know about Julia.
Kerry Diamond:
Okay. Last question. If Julia were coming over for a meal, what would you make and who would you invite?
Claire Saffitz:
I think keeping it simple. I think the worst mistake you could make, if you were to have Julia Child over for dinner, would be to try to do something- don't try to impress her. Don't make something complicated. I think that would be a really bad idea. It would be maybe something chicken. I wouldn't go something as simple as a roast chicken, but something pretty simple. Not coq au vin, because I don't know if I would want to make something so explicitly French, and nothing out of Mastering The Art of French Cooking, that seems like a bad idea.
Maybe a roast chicken. Maybe go the Ina Garten School of Roast Chicken with some simple vegetable sides, maybe some white asparagus with butter. It's just a little butter, and salt and pepper, a really beautiful green salad. I think I would just try to do something that is simple in its execution, that I wouldn't get so stressed out about, with a focus on really quality ingredients. Just keeping it really simple is really important, but buy the best chicken, buy the most expensive chicken you could possibly find, and cook it properly.
Kerry Diamond:
Because you're a dessert person, what's for dessert?
Claire Saffitz:
For dessert? Great question. My first thought was chocolate mousse, because you can make it ahead of time. I would never want to be in a position where I had to execute something while she was there.
Kerry Diamond:
Claire can't talk to Julia, because she's in the kitchen.
Claire Saffitz:
I think this is wisdom for any entertaining scenario, whether it's someone like Julia Child or not. Try to do everything you can do in advance. Chocolate mousse you can make ahead of time, and just pull out of the fridge. That feels really achievable. Don't overthink it. I love to overthink things. The worst mistake I could make, but I know that at least. I would be careful not to come up with something so elaborate as to try to impress her, because then you're not enjoying yourself anyway. I would want to enjoy myself if she came to my house for dinner.
Kerry Diamond:
Who would you invite?
Claire Saffitz:
Definitely a Jacque Papain. Someone that I just find to be the most charming personality ever, and obviously, a dear friend of Julia's. I would say if I could get Jacque at the table, that would be great, because it's just a delight. I want people who are going to have fun. I feel like he would be the most fun addition to a dinner party.
Kerry Diamond:
He is a delightful human, as are you, Claire Saffitz Thank you so much for joining me.
Claire Saffitz:
Oh, thank you. It was a pleasure and a privilege to watch the series, and then get to chat with you about it, and all things, Julia. Thank you.
Kerry Diamond:
Thank you so much to Claire Saffitz for joining us. Be sure to check out her videos, and her cookbook, Dessert Person. This is it, folks. I'd like to thank the entire cast and crew of Julia, and the team at HBO Max, for making such a beautiful show and from trusting me and the Cherry Bombe team with the official companion podcast. Also, thank you to all of our guests, and thank you to Steven Tolle at City Vox for the audio production on the series. Lastly, thanks to all you listeners and Julia lovers out there. Those who delight in all things Julia are a special person. I appreciate you tuning in each week. Working on the show has been a personal and professional highlight.
Paul Child:
This show is for us, and the people who make it, and the people who watch it more than we ever imagined.
Kerry Diamond:
If you're sad, because the first season of Julia is over, well, me too. We can always watch it again. We also can start cooking. There are 524 recipes in Mastering the Art of French Cooking. That should keep us busy until season two is finished baking. I'd also love for you to leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast platform if you have a moment. Which episode and interview did you love the most? What do you love about Julia, the person or the show? The team and I would love to know. Dishing on Julia is produced by Cherry Bombe Media. Our Executive Producers are Catherine Baker and Audrey Payne, and 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. For more on Cherry Bombe, visit cherrybombe.com.