Santa Barbara News-Press profile of Alex
I had a great time at the Santa Barbara Food and Wine Weekend, hosted by Bacara (“Be-CAR-ah”), a beautiful resort, with proceeds going to The Julia Child Foundation for Gastronomy and the Culinary Arts. We and drank extremely well, and talked all weekend. For future planning: a highly recommended event!
In advance of my talk there, I spoke to Dave Mason of the SB New-Press, who wrote this excellent profile:
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Great memories
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Great-nephew explores Julia Child’s life in ‘The French Chef in America’
By DAVE MASON, NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER
April 5, 2017 6:09 AM
The TV camera was Julia Child’s friend. “She would look in the camera and wink and smile, almost as if the camera were a person,” Alex Prud’homme, her great-nephew, told the News-Press by phone from his office in New York City, where he lives.
He was discussing “The French Chef,” the 1962-73 public television program on which Mrs. Child redefined the genre of cooking shows. She gave them personality.
“The person you saw on TV was the real Julia,” Mr. Prud’homme said. “Her enthusiasm was infectious, and it made you want to watch her.”
Mr. Prud’homme, a freelance journalist, writes about the late Montecito celebrity’s ability to reinvent the TV cooking genre, then reinvent herself after interest declined in her French dishes, in “The French Chef in America: Julia Child’s Second Act” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016, $27.95).
He will talk about his book at 2 p.m. Saturday during the fourth annual Santa Barbara Food & Wine Weekend at Bacara Resort & Spa in Goleta.
The talk will be followed at 4 p.m. by the 2009 movie “Julie & Julia,” based partially on the memoir Mrs. Child and Mr. Prud’homme co-wrote, “My Life in France” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). That book is about her and husband Paul Child’s life in France in the 1940s and ’50s.
Both the talk and movie are free.
Mr. Prud’homme’s “The French Chef in America” begins in the 1960s where Mrs. Child’s memoirs left off. Mrs. Child, a Pasadena native, and her husband, now retired from the U.S. Information Agency, were living in their new home in Cambridge, Mass.
In 1961, Alfred A. Knopf published “Mastering the Art of French Cooking,” a book of recipes that Mrs. Child co-wrote with Simone “Simca” Beck and Louisette Bertholle.
In 1962, Mrs. Child promoted the book by demonstrating how to flip an omelet the French way on “I’ve Been Reading” on Boston public TV station WGBH. She was an immediate hit with viewers, who wrote the station and asked to see more of the tall, loud woman. Mrs. Child and the station agreed she should host a series of half-hour shows on French cooking. The three pilot episodes included making a French omelet and coq au vin (chicken stew).
She went on to demonstrate more dishes on the show, called “The French Chef,” which WGBH shared with the other member stations in the National Educational Television network. NET was replaced by PBS in 1969.
Mr. Prud’homme, who earned a bachelor’s degree in history in 1984 at Middlebury College in Middlebury, Vt., credited Mrs. Child’s knowledge, technique, humor and enthusiasm for winning viewers over.
“She would use her giant knife or rolling pin or blowtorch to catch your attention,” he said. “She would include you and make it look like it was so much fun while imparting all this information. She kept up her patter even as she was chopping or sautéing or so forth.”
Mrs. Child found ways to enhance her show such as filming on location at Paris restaurants.
But by the mid-1970s, ratings for “The French Chef” had started to decline.
“In 1973, her ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking, Vol. II’ (which she co-wrote with Ms. Beck) sold well but not quite as well as Volume I,” Mr. Prud’homme said. “She was frustrated.”
Mr. Prud’homme said Mrs. Child asked herself how to stay relevant.
“She very intentionally reinvents herself, stops performing as The French Chef and ends her collaboration with Simca Beck. She starts to write in the first person for the first time (in her cookbooks), and tells personal stories, which she had never done before,” Mr. Prud’homme said. “It seemed to unleash a new Julia.”
“I love her books ‘From Julia Child’s Kitchen’ (1975) and her most personal books, ‘Julia Child & Company’ (1978) and ‘Julia Child & More Company’ (1979),” he said. “My favorite is ‘The Way to Cook’ (1989), a big colorful book with great recipes. It’s kind of a greatest hits book.”
Mr. Prud’homme said Mrs. Child expanded her repertoire to include dishes from around the world. She hosted several more cooking shows in the 1980s and 1990s, including “Cooking with Master Chefs” and “In Julia’s Kitchen with Master Chefs,” both on PBS, and did three-minute cooking segments during that time on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”
Mr. Child died in 1994, and Mrs. Child moved to Casa Dorinda, a Montecito retirement community, from Cambridge in 2001. (Mrs. Child knew the area. In addition to their Cambridge house, she and her husband had another home in Santa Barbara.)
Mr. Prud’homme, no relation to the late chef Paul Prudhomme, visited Mrs. Child between Christmas and New Year’s Eve every year in Montecito. In 2003, she accepted his help with a memoir she had planned to write since 1969. That culminated in the book “My Life in France.”
He visited her once or twice a month in 2004 and asked her questions. She hesitated to talk about herself, but Mr. Prud’homme got her to comment about her experiences by reading aloud letters she wrote her parents when she lived in France. She had saved the letters to help her with the memoir.
Mrs. Child told stories about her life at unexpected times, Mr. Prud’homme said. “We would go to the Santa Barbara farmers market. She would see strawberries and say, ‘Those remind me of the strawberries we used to get in Paris.’ She would be off and telling me a story.”
Mr. Prud’homme said Mrs. Child didn’t do much cooking in her final years but enjoyed various Montecito and Santa Barbara restaurants.
She had a bad knee and various health ailments, including kidney problems for which she declined treatment, Mr. Prud’homme said. “She felt she had lived a really full life. My impression was she was happy with her life, and she was ready to move on.”
She died from kidney failure on Aug. 13, 2004, two days before her 92nd birthday, and friends who had come from out of town to celebrate the birthday instead honored her with a wake, Mr. Prud’homme said. He finished “My Life in France” after her death.
He noted friends from her childhood were her neighbors in Montecito.
“Julia demonstrated a great way to live your life and end your life in a place you love and with people you love.”
email: dmason@newspress.com
FYI
Alex Prud’homme, Julia Child’s great-nephew, will talk about his book “The French Chef in America: Julia Child’s Second Act” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2016, $27.95) at 2 p.m. Saturday during the fourth annual Santa Barbara Food & Wine Weekend at Bacara Resort & Spa, 8301 Hollister Ave., Goleta. His talk will be followed at 4 p.m. by the 2009 movie “Julie & Julia,” based partially on the memoir Mrs. Child and Mr. Prud’homme co-wrote, “My Life in France” (Alfred A. Knopf, 2006). Both the talk and movie are free.
The food and wine weekend starts at 7 p.m. Friday and culminates at 11:30 a.m. Sunday with a Neighborhood Market Tour & Tasting. Highlights include headliner James Beard award-winning chef Nancy Silverton (co-founder of La Brea Bakery), cooking demonstrations, special meals and panel discussions.
Costs vary from $35 to $250 for events. All-Access VIP Passes, which include a two-night stay, cost $1,050 a night. To purchase, go to www.
For more information, call the resort at 855-817-9782.
MORE ON THURSDAY
Check out the News-Press’ interview with Nancy Silverton, James Beard award-winning chef and co-founder of La Brea Bakery, the headliner at the Santa Barbara Food & Wine Weekend.
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