Viewers thought she was drunk -- she was really just big and awkward. (Too big to join the service during WWII. If only I'd been able to pull that off 40 years later.) And she was fond of adding a dash of something to her cooking. I remember one show where she said, "You can add a little cognac if you like . . . and if you don't like . . . well . . ." It was one of the apparently many occasions when she couldn't think of anything nice to say, so she didn't say anything, just swept on to the next bit of fun.
It was all fun for her, as she often says. She seems to have been able to find enjoyment in all sorts of ordinary things. Here's how she describes one good time:
One December Sunday, the three of us drove out to the Fontainebleau forest. The cloudy gray sky broke open and turned blue, the air was vigorously cool, and the sun shone brightly.
She makes you wish you'd been there -- and yet, it was just a hike on a winter day that started out cloudy and turned sunny. It's the sort of thing I've done myself a few times, but somehow I didn't see it with that same -- okay, cliché alert -- joie de vivre.
And now that I've used French, I'll confess to one of the guilty pleasures of this book -- Julia Child uses lots of French and hardly translates any of it. Gave me a nice, smug, in-the-know feeling . . . connaissance?
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