From the Top Shelf - Julie and Julia

I greatly enjoyed reading Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, in which she documents her project of preparing every one of the 500+ dishes in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking in one year. The book was based on the blog she used to record each day's efforts. I felt an affinity with Julie as she described the relationships she developed with the readers of her blog. They were her "bleaders", who cheered her on when she felt down, and gave her advice and support.

In her book, Julie also introduces us to her closest friends in real life. This small group often joined Julie and her husband Eric to consume the results of that day's cooking. It came as something of a surprise to find some subtle and not-so-subtle references to our favorite activity in Julie's recounting of her friend Gwen's long-distance relationship with a work associate she had never met. When Mitch finally arrives in Gwen's office in new York, he makes a startling (to me, anyway) observation:

"Phil said you looked like a young Renee Zellweger." Gwen, who maintains a long-standing abhorrence for Renee Zellweger that I've never quite understood, had heard this several times from Phil the shoulder-biter; she just grimaced. Mitch continued, "He's an asshole. You're clearly a dead ringer for Maggie Gyllenhaal."

"Oh, come on." she was starting to blush.

"Listen, I don't go around telling women they look like movie stars. I'm serious--I've worked with Maggie. You could be her twin."

Worked with Maggie? On the set of Secretary perhaps? Later, after Mitch has returned to California, Gwen receives an instant message from him.

You know what happens to cheeky monkeys like you, Maggie? They get spanked.

Ooh! Unfortunately for me, and possibly for Gwen too, no further mention is made of that special activity. Maybe it happened but Julie didn't think it worthwhile to record the details.


The other interesting reference to TTWD appeared several chapters later. During the year of yer project Julie worked for an agency that handled a variety of services related to the September 11 attacks. One day she received a telephone call from an unexpected source.

"Hi, I own a business downtown and I wonder if if qualify for business assistance."

"Well, I can try to help. Where are you located?"

"My business is in the seaport, and many of my clients used to work in the towers..."

"The seaport is in the designated Area 1, so you should qualify for ful benefits. What you need to do is call--"

"Can I be honest with you?" the woman on the other end of the line had a deep, gravelly voice; she sounded like she'd just finished laughing about something. I was intrigued; can I be honest with you? Is not a question you get a lot when you work for a government agency.

"Uh, sure."

"I own a dungeon; it's the only dungeon in lower Manhattan. We've got the NYPD's Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval."

"The police give out seals of approval?"

"The chief of police told his men, you know, 'if you want to go to an S and M dungeon, this is the one to go to'..."

I was still sort of just sitting there gaping into my headset when the woman confessed that it wasn't so much that she needed assistance; business was quite good, actually, but she really did want to expand, and her accountant suggested she should give us a call--

"That is so awesome." It came out a little belatedly, and rather without the husky cool detachment I might have wished for.

"I know."

I suppose a breathless 'awesome' was by far a better response than she expected to get in calling a government agency for assistance. It must have taken some guts to call...then again, I guess it takes guts to open an S&M dungeon in lower Manhattan.

See my previous post on Julia Child and spanking here.

Bon Appetit!

 This week I have been reading Backstage with Julia, a memoir by Nancy Verde Barr of her years of working with the famous television cook, Julia Child. The book contains many personal photographs and other mementos, and to my surprise I found this one.

It's a picture of one of Julia's team members, standing in a doorway in Julia's home in France. Over the door is an ominously large wooden spoon, and to the right is a large balloon whisk under a sign that warns: "Pain". I can't make out what it says underneath, but it gives one pause.

Later in the book I discovered a description of a road trip that I really have to share with you. In 1993, Nancy and Julia, along with Julia's friend John and Susy, another member of the staff, are in Colorado, traveling from the Aspen Classic to a dude ranch. John is having breathing difficulties but his doctor has given him portable oxygen for the journey.

It was a long, eight-hour-plus drive from Aspen to the ranch, and we decided to make a stop in Denver at the Tattered Cover Bookstore to buy a book on tape for the trip. We wanted something suspenseful and mysterious, and Julia and I stood looking at the possibilities. I spotted Anne Rice's name on a box of tapes entitled Exit to Eden and I picked it up.

"I just read her Interview with the Vampire and I really couldn't put it down."

"I've wanted to read her vampire story, but since you already have let's get this," she said, taking the box to the register without examining it.

We climbed back into the car with me in the driver's seat, Julia riding shotgun, and John and Susy in the back, with Susy diagonally behind me, so I could see her gesturing directions to turn left or right. We didn't want unnecessary talking to interrupt the storytelling.

I must have been concentrating especially hard on negotiating the streets out of Denver because I don't remember hearing the beginning of the tape. My first clue that it was not about anything as pedestrian as vampires was when I looked in the mirror at Susy for instructions on which way to turn. Her eyebrows were arched high in her forehead and she darted her startled eyes from me to the tape. I tuned in just in time to hear something about black leather and chains.

"What's this?" I asked, fumbling for and then ejecting the tape. "There must be a mistake. Do all the tapes say Anne Rice?"

It turns out that Rice writes explicitly erotic and wickedly pornographic stories that in book form appear under a pseudonym. On tape, they carry her name. At the time, we only knew we had something that seemed highly inappropriate to everyone but Julia.

"Well, let's listen to it anyway," she said, pushing the tape back into play position. Susy looked aghast, and I'm sure I heard John pulling extra hard on his oxygen tank. Meanwhile on the CD, two characters named Lisa and Elliot were pushing the envelope on the limits of pleasure at the Club, an exclusive, hidden resort devoted to the fulfillment of forbidden fantasies.

"What's he doing to her?" Julia asked. Was that John gasping? Susy was giggling.

"Look, Julia, we--we can listen to it, but I'm not explaining it to you." It wasn't so much that I was embarrassed; I wasn't exactly sure what kind of forbidden fantasies Lisa and Elliott were engaged in, and I wasn't sure John ever wanted to know. But Julia wanted to figure it out, so Susy and I did our best to offer commentary. John rolled down his window.

Spank that turkey, Julia!