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    Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats
    Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats
    Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats
    Ebook164 pages1 hour

    Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats

    By Patricia Barey and Therese Burson

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “A cat-centric biography of Julia Child? Why not? . . . The many feline fanciers out there will surely enjoy the photographs of the cats.” —Chicago Tribune

    The world knows Julia Child as the charismatic woman who brought French cuisine to America and became a TV sensation, but there’s one aspect of her life that’s not so familiar. Soon after the Childs arrived in Paris in 1948, a French cat appeared on their doorstep, and Julia recalled, “Our domestic circle was completed.” Minette captured Julia’s heart, igniting a lifelong passion for cats equaled only by her love of food and her husband, Paul. All the cherished feline companions who shared Julia’s life—in Paris, Provence, and finally California—reminded her of that magical time in Paris when her life changed forever.

    From Julia’s and Paul’s letters and original interviews with those who knew her best, Patricia Barey and Therese Burson have gathered fresh stories and images that offer a delightfully intimate view of a beloved icon.

    “It’s clear that all the cats that passed through her life gave her joy and comfort, probably in ways that food and even Paul could not. Having that perspective of this grande dame makes her seem all the more human and wonderfully admirable to me.” —Epicurious

    “This compact, entertaining read is filled with personal photos and letters that document the role cats played in Julia’s life as she moved from Paris to Provence, Cambridge to California.” —Shelf Awareness

    “Brings this little known aspect of Julia Child’s life to light in an engaging and entertaining way.” —The Conscious Cat
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateAug 1, 2012
    ISBN9781613123331
    Julia's Cats: Julia Child's Life in the Company of Cats

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    Reviews for Julia's Cats

    4.5/5

    25 ratings2 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Perfect, lighthearted, well-researched fluff- makes me want to move to Paris and get my own Minou!
    • 5/5
      This slim little volume was completely enjoyable. The authors tell part of Julia's story that is little told, her love of cats. The book begins just as Julia and her husband arrive in France and Julia eats that fateful meal that launched a career. But this book takes her momentous life and adds what has been missing from every other bio, her cats. Marvelous!

    Book preview

    Julia's Cats - Patricia Barey

    "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 adventure. 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

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