People
2021
Bon Appetit!, Julia nan cye tut tle
L
ong lines snaked around the bookshelves and aisles at Lowell’s downtown Barnes & Noble bookstore on a warm Friday afternoon in May 1997, right before Mother’s Day. Waiting patiently, some folks carried grease-stained, dog-eared cookbooks entitled Mastering the Art of French Cooking, while others bore new volumes called The Way to Cook. A few wore t-shirts emblazoned with the phrase “Life itself is the proper binge.” All chatted excitedly as they awaited the arrival of Julia Child, the author of those culinary bibles and creator of that scrumptious slogan. Yes, indeed. Julia Child, everyone’s favorite French chef and star of numerous PBS cooking shows, was coming to the Lowell bookstore to sign books and meet her many fans, including me, a lifestyle reporter at the Lowell Sun. Maren Solomon, B&N’s manager, had arranged Julia’s visit in honor of the store’s first anniversary. The only stipulations, Maren recalls, were that she give Julia a ride to Lowell from her home in Cambridge and back and that attendees not ask her to write long salutations in the many books that they brought. Julia, nearly 85, was near the end of her long, illustrious career. She no longer drove, and she also had painful arthritis that made handwriting difficult. Her fans didn’t mind the signing restrictions. They just wanted to meet their idol and show her their love. One lady, arriving before the store opened, camped out in a lawn chair so she’d be the first in line. Another brought Julia organic eggs, freshly laid from her backyard chickens. The folks at Ymittos candles crafted a candle for her that looked and smelled like fruitcake. Anna Jabar-Omoyeni, owner and executive chef of La Boniche, the beloved Lowell bistro, got in on the action. She and her excited staff prepared numerous dishes from Julia’s cookbooks, passing samples out to people waiting in line. And Julia, herself, relished the eatery’s delicious pate and cheese plate, salmon cakes and signature black bean soup. “It was exciting and a thrill to serve her,” recalls Anna, looking back on that day. I was thrilled to land this plum reporting gig, too, waiting patiently along with the rest of the crowd for Julia’s arrival. I had been a huge Julia Child fan since the early 1960s when her first TV show, The French Chef, aired on Saturdays on PBS. Ada Tuttle, my future mother-in-law, and I huddled in her TV room in Vineland, N.J., enjoying Julia’s culinary antics and expertise in black and white as she flipped omelets, slurped wine, never got flustered or ever missed a beat even if the plump chicken she was stuffing slid off the table and onto the floor. “No one will know,” chirped Julia, with a wink, in her well-known warble, as she scooped the chicken up and kept on stuffing. Ada and I roared in laughter and rarely missed a show. My encounters with Julia reached a peak 18 years later in the early 1980s. By then, I
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