Julia’s Cats Read online

  “Une maison sans chat, c’est la vie sans soleil.”

  When Julia Child arrived in Paris in 1948, she was a thirty-six-year-old newlywed, a late bloomer about to begin a journey that would transform her and forever change the way Americans eat and think about food.

  Madly in love with her husband, Paul, and the sights, sounds, and tastes of her beautiful new city, she thought her happiness was complete, until the day an adorable French kitty appeared at the door. Minette came to catch mice in the kitchen but captured Julia’s heart, igniting a passion for poussiequettes she would always identify with that magical time in Paris and the blossoming of her new life. As Paul once confided, “a cat—any cat—is necessary” to Julia’s happiness.

  Filled with rare personal photos, and based on fresh anecdotes found in Julia and Paul’s letters and on the reminiscences of people who knew her best, Julia’s Cats tells the story of Julia Child’s charmed life in the company of cats, from Paris to Provence, Cambridge to California. The book follows her progress from insecure culinary novice to TV superstar and beloved American icon—and the parade of pussycats that helped put the joie in her joie de vivre.

  Editor: David Cashion

  Designer: Darilyn Lowe Carnes

  Production Manager: Ankur Ghosh

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Barey, Patricia.

  Julia’s cats : Julia Child’s life in the company of cats / Patricia Barey, Therese Burson.

  p. cm.

  ISBN 978-1-4197-0275-4 (hardback)

  1. Child, Julia. 2. Women cat owners—United States—Biography. 3. Cats—Anecdotes.

  4. Cooks—United States—Biography. I. Burson, Therese. II. Title.

  SF442.82.C55B37 2013

  636.80092’2—dc23

  2012004512

  Text copyright © 2012 Patricia Barey and Therese Burson

  Recipe on this page from FROM JULIA CHILD’S KITCHEN by Julia Child, copyright © 1975 by Julia Child. Used by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc.

  All the photos reproduced in this book, with the exception of those listed below, are by Paul Child and published with permission from the Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University. Paul Child photos and images on pages 21, 31, 37, 53, and 112 © The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts.

  Additional photos provided with permission and courtesy of the following: Sandy Shepard/collection of Rosemary Manell (this page), Zoom-zoom/Dreamstime.com (this page), Manuel Freres/Hulton Archive/Getty Images (this page), private collection (this page), Maggie Mah Johnson (this page), the family of Julia Child (this page), Brian Leatart (this page), Jim Scherer (this page), David Nussbaum (this page).

  Published in 2012 by Abrams Image, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.

  Abrams Image books are available at special discounts when purchased in quantity for premiums and promotions as well as fundraising or educational use. Special editions can also be created to specification. For details, contact [email protected] or the address below.

  115 West 18th Street

  New York, NY 10011

  www.abramsbooks.com

  Frontispiece:

  Julia Child with copper cat. Photo by Paul Child, 1964

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1. LA BELLE FRANCE: A NEW LIFE BEGINS

  2. AND KITTY MAKES THREE: MINETTE MIMOSA McWILLIAMS CHILD

  3. MASTERING THE ART OF FRENCH COOKING

  4. RETURN TO PARADISE: A HOUSE IN PROVENCE

  5. FROM CAMBRIDGE TO CALIFORNIA: A HOMECOMING

  EPILOGUE

  NOTES

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A REPORTER ONCE ASKED Julia Child what she might whip up for her creator when she got to heaven. Julia wasn’t a religious person—she believed heaven was right here on earth, in her own cozy kitchen, hovering over a skillet sizzling with shallots and butter, then sitting down to share a meal with people she loved, a cat wrapped around her ankles, meowing for treats.

  She lost count of how often she’d been quizzed about what she wanted for her own last meal. She once composed a detailed menu that left nothing to chance: Begin with Cotuit oysters on thinly sliced and buttered homemade rye bread. Caviar and vodka, then fresh green California asparagus. For the main course, her favorite duck recipe, “the one in which you roast the duck until the breast is rare and then cook the legs and wings separately en confit, with a very nice light port wine sauce.” Serve it with peas and pommes Anna and a big Burgundy or Saint-Émilion from a very good year. Crusty French bread, of course. Follow the entrée with lettuce and endive dressed with lemon and French olive oil. A classic creamy dessert, Charlotte Malakoff, paired with an ambrosial Château d’Yquem. Top off the meal with some ripe grapes, a Comice pear, perhaps chocolate truffles with the coffee and liqueurs.

  As time went on, she came to see the question about her final meal as beside the point. The menu she would choose didn’t really matter as long as it was soigné—prepared with respect for the ingredients and the process, cooked with care and presented with love.

  In the summer of 2004, Julia had been in failing health following complications from knee surgery, and after a brief hospitalization, she refused further treatment for a massive infection. She wanted to be at home, having decided her time had come to “slip off the raft.” One August night, just four days before her ninety-second birthday, she asked her longtime assistant to make a batch of soup. Stephanie took down Julia’s own copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and opened it to page forty-three. She knew the recipe by heart but wanted “The Book” nearby. Soon a cloud of rich scents rising from the bubbling beef stock and onions sautéing in butter—lots of butter—filled the apartment.

  The fragrant aroma worked its magic. Julia savored the bowl of her own French onion soup. A beloved dinner companion that night was a wild little black-and-white kitten named Minou, who shared Julia’s home in a retirement community near Santa Barbara. Full of feline joie de vivre, Minou was the soul mate who brightened Julia’s days. When she was ready for bed, the kitten curled up in his customary spot on the right side of the pillow. Minou kept watch through the night as Julia’s charmed life ebbed away, where she said it all truly began, in the company of cats.

  PARIS, HERE WE COME

  THIRTY-SIX-YEAR-OLD newlywed Julia Child was feeling queasy as she peered out the porthole of a heaving SS America. There were no stars in the November sky, but she could make out dim lights winking through the grimy fog. Julia’s first glimpse of France made sleep impossible, so she bent over her tiny writing table and added a note to the letter her husband, Paul, was writing to his twin brother, Charlie, back in Pennsylvania.

  She tells everyone that she misses them terribly but can’t wait to finally see Paris. She sends her love especially to the family dog and Mimi, her favorite cat-in-law. She pleads for news of their latest mischief.

  Julia had married into a letter-writing, animal-loving family that warmly embraced its dogs and cats, and the tall, two-legged newcomer with the warbly voice. Cold noses, sloppy dog kisses, and purring balls of fur were highlights of every family reunion. They reminded her of growing up in a rambunctious Pasadena household where frisky Airedales were the favorite playmates of Julia and her two siblings.

  A passion for animals was one more sign—if she needed any more—that her marriage to Paul would be a good match. They also shared an appetite for fine food and adv
enture. They fell in love over steaming bowls of potted chicken in Kunming, China, where they were both stationed during the war while working for the Office of Strategic Services, America’s first spy agency.

  Paul Child was ten years older—and ten inches shorter—than Julia. He worked for the Foreign Service and in the fall of 1948 was heading for his new job designing cultural exhibits at the American embassy in Paris. A talented photographer, painter, and poet, Paul had lived in a very different Paris twenty years earlier, when Americans came by the boatload to pen great thoughts in cafés and party the nights away in jazz clubs. Now he was eager to show his wide-eyed California bride, Julia McWilliams, the Paris he so loved. She jumped at the chance to live in the most beautiful city in the world.

  A love match: Julia and Paul

  Dawn was just breaking as burly stevedores wrestled with six trunks and fourteen suitcases, jammed with almost everything the couple owned, and lowered their massive Buick to the dock. The “Blue Flash” guzzled petrol at a breathtaking rate and would be a tight fit in the narrow streets of the Left Bank where they planned to settle, but it was a gift from Julia’s father they couldn’t afford to leave behind.

  They squeezed into the front seat, giddy with fatigue and anticipation. Paul revved the engine and aimed for Paris. On the French country roads, tiny Citroëns and Renaults were dwarfed by the Flash, like pilot fish around a huge blue shark. Julia’s head swiveled from the map to the window as she breathlessly pointed out every gabled farmhouse and church spire. Paul figured they’d see the City of Light by nightfall, even with a stop in Rouen for lunch.

  LOVE AT FIRST BITE

  THEY RUMBLED INTO the medieval town hungry, looking for la Couronne, a restaurant Paul picked out of his dog-eared Guide Michelin. The wood-beamed room was cozy and warm, and a low fire licked at three fat ducks slowly rotating on a spit. The air was dense with the scent of bubbling butter as they followed a waiter to their table and pored over the menu. Julia deferred to Paul, who seemed to know it by heart. Start with oysters portugaises on buttered rounds of rye. Then a whole Dover sole, faintly briny, from that morning’s catch, still sizzling on the plate, followed by a crisp green salad, fromage blanc, and strong filtered coffee. They shared a bottle of chilled Pouilly-Fuissé—in the middle of the day! Julia felt tipsily French already.

  Her first bite of French food was a revelation—she remembered it for the rest of her life, and the memory grew more delicious every time she told the story.

  They arrived in Paris as the sun was setting. Through the windshield lay a city Paul scarcely recognized. Piles of rubble clogged some streets and few cars snaked through the normally teeming traffic circles. Whole blocks of apartment buildings were dark, boulevards all but deserted. Gas was still scarce and electricity unreliable. Unable to get butter and cream, chefs at some of the fancier restaurants closed their doors rather than compromise their haute-cuisine standards. Cuisine of any kind was hard to come by for many Parisians, let alone the abandoned cats and dogs who roamed the city scrounging for food and warmth. When there were no table scraps, the ranks of gutter cats, the city’s renowned chats de gouttières, skittered along slate rooftops, hoping to snare dozing pigeons.

  Paul gripped the wheel tightly, cranked down the window, and leaned out to get a better view. Like other drivers he turned off his headlights, a cautionary habit left over from the war years, and slowly maneuvered the Flash through cramped streets in the murky dusk. Occasionally, shadowy figures emerged from the gloom, making driving even more unnerving.

  As they peered through the windshield, suddenly there it was—la tour Eiffel, outlined in red blinking lights, another reminder of the city’s vulnerability during the war. Julia’s heart exploded at the sight.

  ROO DE LOO

  THE FIRST MONTH, they stayed at the Hôtel Pont Royal, a snazzy address in the Latin Quarter, while Paul settled into his job at the embassy and Julia searched for an apartment. She finally found one at 81 rue de l’Université, in the most elegant quarter of Paris. Although the old hôtel particulier oozed Gallic charm, it had seen better days and definitely lacked American amenities, like dependable heat and electricity. Some nights as they sat reading in the dim salon, they could see their breath. The formal but shabby Louis XVI decor made them feel as though they should be wearing powdered wigs.

  The apartment was stuffed with bric-a-brac, faded draperies, and too many rickety tables and chairs, so they moved the most unsightly pieces to a storage room they called the oubliette, the “forgettery.” The drafty, high-ceilinged rooms quickly swallowed the contents of their many trunks and suitcases. They were glad they’d brought all those extra blankets, sheets, and warm clothing, since scarcity was still a painful fact of French life.

  As they settled in, Julia and Paul found that the warmest spot was the top-floor kitchen, up a narrow back staircase from the living rooms. Originally servants’ quarters, the kitchen had large windows facing the courtyard, so it was bright even on dreary mornings. And fairly spacious, though Julia towered over everything in it except for an ancient stove, a coal-burning “monster” that made her long for the modern kitchen she had left behind in their house on Olive Street in Washington, D.C. On one of her first shopping forays, she bought a compact gas stove with two small ovens on spindly legs, which they wedged next to the behemoth. The shallow soapstone sink that supplied cold running water, when the pipes didn’t freeze, just wouldn’t do. So she devised a makeshift hot-water system for dishwashing and warm baths, and insisted on covered containers for garbage. Roughing it at the family cabin in Maine was one thing, but she refused to put up with primitive conditions in the cultural capital of the world.

  Roo de Loo view: Paris in winter

  It took some getting used to, but “Roo de Loo,” as Julia named it, gradually became home.

  The view was dazzling—the Paris of her dreams. The windows overlooked the courtyard of the Ministry of Defense, and the graceful spires of the Church of Saint Clotilde floated above the rooftops, its bell softly singing the hours. It was all very picturesque, except that winter, foggy and damp, was settling in around the gray stone buildings. Everyone in Paris was looking for warmth, especially the mice.

  A BETTER MOUSETRAP

  TO JULIA’S SURPRISE, Roo de Loo came with a maid—and mice in the kitchen. Neither woman could tolerate souris scampering among the pots and pans, so one rainy day the frizzy-haired femme de ménage bumped up the kitchen stairs with a large market basket on her arm. Could a warm brioche, a spicy country pâté, pain au chocolat, or some other delectable edible be inside? No, this basket held something more delicious. Jeanne lifted the lid, and a black-and-mud-colored ball of fur emerged. Two glittering green eyes traveled up and up and up until they met Julia’s. A pussycat! It was love at first sight.

  Jeanne patiently explained that French housewives relied on cats to control the mice, and they usually just called them Minou (Pussy). She shrugged and left Julia gazing at her adorable new mousetrap. The cat stared back but couldn’t be coaxed from the basket. When Julia finally gave up and went to stir her simmering stockpot, the kitty’s curiosity took over, and it leaped to a shelf above the stove and crouched next to a mixing bowl.

  When Paul returned from the embassy for lunch, as he did most days, they embraced as if they’d been apart for months, not a few hours. Julia gleefully introduced him to Minou, the purrrrfect answer to their mouse-control problem. Paul studied the newcomer carefully and delivered some interesting news—Monsieur Pussycat was a mademoiselle. Without missing a beat, Julia rechristened her “Minette” and set two steaming bowls of soup on the table.

  She had been bending over her stove all morning trying to duplicate the velvety mushroom soup they had devoured at their favorite restaurant the night before. She pulled a baguette from Paul’s raincoat pocket, tore the crusty loaf into chunks, and sliced big wedges of strong-smelling Roquefort. She filled two tumblers from an open bottle of red wine and joined Paul at the table, frett
ing about the potage. It smelled scrumptious, but was full of lumps. Maybe it was the roux—was it hot broth added to flour paste, or the other way around? Paul took a spoonful, paused, then let his diplomatic training kick into gear. Lumpy, but still very tasty. He kissed her hand and told her not to worry so much. Julia vowed to try again even if it took all afternoon. Paul, sensing another chance to show husbandly support, volunteered to be her guinea pig and taste every batch.

  New arrival

  From her safe perch, the hungry cat watched and waited. Finally, she bounded to the floor and onto Paul’s lap. From under the table’s edge, her nose rested just inches from his bowl and the crumbled cheese on the plate. With one flick of her paw, she scooped a chunk into her mouth, then eyed the bowl of soup.

  Julia took the hint, spooned some soup into a saucer, and set it on the floor. She watched anxiously, worried that even a starving cat might find her soup wanting. At first Minette ignored the soup, seeming content on Paul’s lap. Suddenly she slid to the floor, dipped a delicate paw into the soup, and raised a lump to her mouth, chewed deliberately, then lapped the saucer until it gleamed. Paul marveled at Minette’s elegant French airs while Julia refilled the saucer—and their bowls. A drowsy pussycat studied her reflection in the empty dish, then rested her head on Julia’s large red leather shoe as the murmuring voices lulled her to sleep.

  The mice scurrying under the sink had little to fear—Minette had other menu options.

  MÉNAGE À TROIS

  WITH THE MOUSE patrol more or less in place, Minette quickly became an indispensable member of the Child household during the chilly winter of 1949. The furry newbie was loaded with personality. Sly. Curious. Tireless, unless suddenly overcome with the urge to nap. Clever and resourceful, she was an endless source of amusement. Paul and Julia had always loved animals but never thought of themselves as “cat people,” so falling head over heels for Minette took them both quite by surprise.