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Recent News... Just for Pope Gregory... |
2002-01-23 - 11:57 a.m. The cook, the spy, and the pod I'm a cooking geek. I accept this. I also hate Martha Stewart, because she pretends she does those incredible things and comes up with all that expertise and ideas without any help setting this impossible bar for women who are already stressed from infancy by the Barbie doll ideal. And she's condescending. And smarmy. I love Julia Child. Julia was a WWII spy - how cool is that? During her time on the continent, she fell in love with French cooking. And she made it her mission to demystify the art of food. I know people who use recipes (hi Roland) hate us people who cook instinctively (like me and Laura). Julia did too. She figured anyone should be able to cook anything given a good enough set of instructions, so she spent five years breaking down classic French cooking. And that, my friends, is how the modern cookbook was born. Think of that next time you pass the huge cooking section in a bookstore - without WWII, we probably wouldn't have them. Julia is anything but dainty. She makes a mess when she cooks. I once saw her and Martha on a morning show, and they'd made those pastry towers - Where you take cream puffs and pile them artfully together into a triangular 'tree'. Martha's was perfect. Julia's, bless her soul, was just a bit crooked. She grinned at Martha and said, "Mine's leaning a bit, eh?" She attributes her long life (currently 89 years old) to red meat and gin. She keeps hosting cooking even though she looks like someone's grandmother rather than the glamor girl Martha. Julia is my kind of girl. I bet she like chili dogs. American, apparently, agrees with me. The Smithsonian Institution is moving Julia's kitchen to the American history museum. This is a working woman's kitchen, not an overly glamorized piece of d�cor. And, she even has a kitchen junk drawer. A pilgrimage. I feel a pilgrimage coming once the exhibit opens on February 4th. Last night, I sat down in front of the computer to watch a CD burner software download. Roland walks by, pets me on the head and says Watched pots � Grumble. So I call Nia, who isn't home. Sigh. I try to make another call � but I left the correct number at work. Darn. Instead, I work on Alisandra's dolphin hood. The purple thread keeps breaking cause I'm not using good thread cause I couldn't find it in the right shade. Dammit. This instant gratification thing wasn't going well. Eventually, Nia answered her phone and I got to chat with her until social butterfly girl had to head out the door. But I did finish Lis's hood. 14 little dolphins - dolphins go up, dolphins go down. Woo-hoo says Roland. A school! Actually, a group of dolphins are called a pod. That's right. Oh, wait, does that make Mel a pod-person? Oh, she's not going to like this. � � � 
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