098 Pleasure Activist transcript (Julia Child)

Listen to the full episode and see show notes at this link.

Michelle: This is famous in gravy biographies from a different point of view. To participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com. Now here's the quiz to reveal today's dead celebrity.

Michael: This person died 2004, age 91. Her father was a wealthy farm consultant and investor. Her mother was a housewife.

With a cook and a maid who could not make much more than [00:00:30] baking powder biscuits, codfish balls, and Welsh rarebit.

Friend: Wow. This sounds like a Kellogg heiress or something like that. .

Michael: Not a Kellogg Hess, but good guess. She attended Smith College at a time when women could be either nurses or teachers, she said.

And she had some vague idea of being a novelist or a basketball star.

Archival: Well, there were a lot of interesting people at Smith College at that point in time. She must have been tall

Michael: after World War II broke out, she signed up for [00:01:00] intelligence work with the Office of Strategic Services, hoping to become a spy, but was sent off as a file clerk.

Friend: Oh, okay. Let me think about this.

Archival: Uh, I don't know. I don't know. I, did she go to law school ?

Friend: She

Michael: did not go to law school. A self-confessed ham. She became a darling of audiences and comedians almost from the moment she made her debut on WGBH in Boston in 1963. Phyllis Diller , not Phyllis Diller. Good guess.

All right. [00:01:30] She was a towering figure on the culinary front. For more than 40 years, most Americans knew her as the imperturbable host of the long running PBS television series. The French chef

Michelle: Julia Child.

Michael: Julia Child .

Archival: Today's dead celebrity is Julia Child. When you co-wrote Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Did you see it as um, a way to introduce Americans to French cuisine? Yes. I was tremendously interested in French [00:02:00] cuisine because it was, it's the only cuisine that has the real rules on how to cook. 'cause I had started in quite late, I was in my early thirties when I started cooking. And I found that the recipes and all the books I had were really not adequate.

They didn't tell you enough. And I'm, for one, I won't do anything. And this, I'm told why I am doing it. Mm-hmm . So I felt that we needed fuller explanations. So that if you followed one of those recipes, it, it should turn out exactly [00:02:30] right. My feeling is that once you know everything and it digested it, then it becomes part of you.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne, and my name is Michelle Linberg. And on this show we choose a famous figure who died in the 21st century, and we take a totally different approach to their biography. What didn't we know? What could we not see clearly? And what does a [00:03:00] celebrity's Life story teach us about ourselves today?

Julia Child died 2004. Age 91. All right. So Amit is out today and I've invited my friend Michelle to guest host. Uh, Michelle is a producer based in Austin. We have worked on a ton of projects together. Right now we're working on a show that Michelle had an idea for called, where Should I Live, Michelle, what's the sort of like pitch for Where should I Live?

How would you describe it to people?

Michelle: Yeah. Where should I live as a podcast? About how we figure out where [00:03:30] we belong. Mm. And it started out because I was trying to figure out whether I should stay here in Austin or move somewhere new. That felt more like home to me. Yeah. And now it's feeling a lot more relevant because there's a lot of people trying to figure out.

Does this place that we live actually feel safe and welcoming? And can I have the kind of life that I want here?

Michael: Yeah. Well, and I think that question is really on people's mind, and I like the way you describe it around belonging. Well, the other thing about it too is there's kind of relationship [00:04:00] between that.

And for me, and food, I mean, part of where should I live is like also speaking to a kind of travel lust. Which one of the criteria for should I move to this city or this town is, is the food good there,

Michelle: right? Does it have the kind of food that I love to eat? So on this podcast, I explore different cities and narrow down a list of places that I think I could live.

And then I'm gonna go to these cities and have someone local there give me a tour as a potential future resident. So I'm gonna imagine what it might be like to live there. Where would I go get coffee? [00:04:30] What restaurants would I go to where my my daughter go to school? Could I have this life? And it's not that different actually from some of the themes of Famous and Gravy, like what I want this life.

Michael: Totally. Well, and and I like that you're gonna be dating cities. It's like Tinder for, uh, yeah. For life. Uh, okay. Cool. All right, well, let's get just right into it. Category one, grading the first line of their obituary. Julia Child, who turned the art of French cooking into primetime television entertainment, and brought Cale [00:05:00] to a casserole culture in the two volumes of her monumental mastering.

The Art of French Cooking died yesterday at her home in Santa Barbara, California, two days before her 92nd birthday. Michelle, your reactions. So my gut reaction to this was, yeah, pretty good. Yeah, I think it's like somewhere between good and great.

Michelle: Yeah, I agree.

Michael: So what stood out to you?

Michelle: Well, the turn of phrase Cass Le to a casserole culture.

And I liked the way no one else can see you, but you kind of had this flare when you said [00:05:30] it, um, that felt a little fancy, like Cass Le . I wonder, do you guys ever talk about the people who write these? Because I wonder if the guy or the gal who wrote this was like, oh, wait, wait. I. Listen to this one I came up with,

Michael: I a hundred percent agree.

No. Whoever wrote this was a little bit proud of themselves, but I'm kind of good with it. Right? There is charm to that turn of phrase, Cassou le to a casserole culture. It's got the alliteration, obviously, but it's interesting what it means. Cassou le I don't, I don't think I've ever had Cassel le. I don't know what Cas [00:06:00] LE is.

Yeah, I don't think I know what it is either. But casserole culture, I don't know what casserole culture is, but it sounds bland.

Michelle: I actually do know what casserole culture is. Oh. Um, sometimes when people say, where are you from? I say, I am from the land of tuna fish casserole. I. I'm from Nebraska.

Michael: Right. And, and also the rise of processed foods.

One thing that's so interesting that I didn't really think about before getting ready for this episode is how much the rise of Julia Child is very different from the rise of a certain [00:06:30] American diet post World War ii. Yeah. And that one of the things she's doing is countering a very prominent trend where it was all about convenience and about efficiency and a little bit tasteless.

And she comes in and like reintroduces, a love of cooking in the kitchen. And I didn't quite understand those opposing forces. I

Michelle: don't think I did either. And I wanted to talk about this more later, but it's this idea that not only cooking could be something fun and interesting and [00:07:00] enjoyable, but eating itself could be enjoyable.

That, that's a huge contradiction because casserole, I mean, they're fine. It's like comfort food, but. It's not, I mean, it's not sexy. Let's go with that. The cas sole is like the steak and the casserole is like hamburger helper.

Michael: Right. Well, okay, let's talk about the rest of it. Yeah. I mean, I actually think the art of French cooking, that phrase had to be in here.

Yep. I love that they got both the TV show and the book. I mean, I think that they needed mastering the Art of French cooking, very [00:07:30] famous book and her primetime television entertainment. And I even like the word monumental. I wrote that too. The volumes of monumental. Yeah. There is something monumental about Julia Child.

Michelle: Oh yeah. Her voice, her personality, her gravitas. She's monumental. Yeah. I mean, so what do you think is like an omission here? What's missing? The only thing, and if anything. It could say just a tiny bit more about her exuberant personality and her voice. Mm-hmm . But maybe monumental is doing the work there.

Michael: I think monumental is more in reference [00:08:00] to the book. I don't know if it captures like her persona, and I think you're right that she is such a . A unique personality and figure there's not a whole lot of references to that side of her or to, to who she was. The way, when you see the word Cale, you do kind of wanna do a Julia Child impersonation.

We'll save that for later . Um, you know, what was actually missing for me is that they didn't mention public broadcasting or PBS, she's such a, like, figure of public broadcasting that I kind of wanted, not just prime time [00:08:30] television, entertainment, I wanted like public broadcasting, television, entertainment or something.

Even though she goes on to do commercial work with Good Morning America and, and so forth. She's up there with Fred Rogers and reading Rain. But I mean, she's such a like PBS figure for me. Oh

Michelle: yeah. And I

Michael: think for a lot of people that I kind of wanted illusion to that.

Michelle: I didn't even think about that. But you were so Right.

That's exactly how she started. She was on a book club show, basically like where they talked about books and she came on to talk about her book and then she makes an omelet. [00:09:00] On TV and it blows everyone's minds. , which sounds hilarious to say this today. 'cause like you made an omelet and that changed the world.

But it did. Yeah. Yeah,

Michael: yeah. No, it's true. And otherwise I think this is very strong. So I don't know. Let's go ahead and give our grade. What? What would you give this, Michelle? I would

Michelle: say. I'm gonna give it an 8.5. Yeah, you can't, there's no points. So you gotta either

Michael: go eight or there's no rounding in this.

I'll

Michelle: give it now. I can't decide. Do I me go up or down? Do you want me to go for

Michael: it? Uh, I'm gonna give it a nine. I'm gonna give it a nine too, if that makes it easier for you. I think a nine. Okay. [00:09:30] Yeah, I think, I think a nine here. I think this is very, very good. There's a piece or two missing, maybe could have used a little bit more for personality.

Kind of would've liked to see in the PBS, but this captures a lot. I think that turn of phrase here, Cass, relate to a casserole culture is just so nice to see in the first line of Julia Child's obituary. I'm giving extra marks for that.

Michelle: I like that too. You and I. Yeah, I, I, high five, whoever wrote this in the obit writer's room.

Good job.

Michael: Okay. Nine in a nine. Category two, five things I love about you here, Michelle [00:10:00] and I will develop a list of five things that offer a different angle on who this person was and how they lived. Would you be okay if I let off, I've got one thing that I'm sort of itching to say. Yeah, go for it. Late bloomer.

This has come up a bunch on Famous and Gravy. The more a figure becomes famous late in life, the more drawn to them I am and the more I feel I learned something important. So Julia Child was 32 before she ever cooked. She was a wealthy growing up and had people cook [00:10:30] for her and had no experience in the kitchen.

She was 34 when she married. And this is at a time when a lot of women and men were getting married at much younger ages. She was 39 when she finished at the Cordon Blue, which is where she trained as a cook and as a chef. And then she's 49, almost 50. When the cookbook that she co-wrote is published, she was on nobody's radar.

Yeah, for the first 50 years of her life, there was nothing before age 50 that would've said she will one day be a household name. Not only is that [00:11:00] unusual for people, that's unusual for women, and that's especially unusual for women who are not like bombshells on tv. Like it's such an unlikely story and I love how late in life it is her fame, what we know her for.

All happened after the age of 51, 52. And even then, it wasn't until she's like in her late fifties, that French chef really takes off. I need to be reminded of that. I am 46 coming up on 47. Sometimes I feel like the ship has sailed. It's not even that I want to [00:11:30] be famous, it's just that I want my successes to be in the future.

Yeah. You know, the things I am hoping for myself, I need to hold space that they may still happen. I think this is remarked upon with Julia Child in a way, but after all the research and after thinking about this, like it's my favorite thing about her story. So maybe a little generic, but late Boomer.

Michelle: No, I love that.

I am also almost 47 and I thought about that too. Like what if there's more to do? Maybe this isn't all there is. Maybe don't think I'm [00:12:00] going to become famous, nor do I want to be, but there's more to look forward to, like that's really exciting to think about and I love that she was doing this work up until she died basically.

Like she did a TV show into her eighties. Amazing.

Michael: There's a kind of patience with it too. The fact that she had never stepped into a kitchen, nothing in her story that would have suggested she had this innate talent. It's almost like somebody who's like a musical prodigy who doesn't pick up a guitar until they're in their thirties or something.[00:12:30]

Yeah. That's such a hopeful quality. So yeah, late bloomer. That's my thing, number one.

Michelle: I love that. All right. What do you got for number two? She was a promoter of pleasure and Okay. and then, yeah. Yeah. So we talked about this a little bit, the obit line, but she . Was such a huge contradiction to this time.

You know, this time in the fifties, like we were saying, she wasn't making more casserole. She was saying, you deserve pleasure, you deserve beautiful food. And I'm actually going [00:13:00] to argue that she was a pleasure activist.

Michael: Oh, I like that. Pleasure activist. Okay. You know that term? Yeah. No, I've never heard that before.

Michelle: Yeah. Yeah. So that term was coined by Adrian Marie Brown. She's a queer black American writer, organizer, facilitator, and she wrote a book called Pleasure Activism. And it's being talked about a lot right now because people are protesting and doing a lot of activism. And the idea is that, uh, centering pleasure is a political act, not suffering, not just work, [00:13:30] work, work, work, work.

The, the idea of taking time to breathe, taking time to have pleasure, joy, freedom, all of that stuff is actually a resistance act. I think Julia realized this, that having pleasure, taking pleasure in food, not just, you know, sometimes people think pleasure activism is about eroticism or sex, but it's also about food and cooking and anything that we take joy in.

And so I think Julia really, that opened up for her when she, I. First went to France and she tries this food for the first time, and [00:14:00] she's

Michael: has a sensory experience. Oh yeah. She's

Michelle: like, oh my gosh, what have I been? Yeah, what have I been missing out on? So this idea that it's our birthright to have pleasure and to get pleasure from food, and I feel like, I don't think she would've ever called herself this in her lifetime, and that term didn't exist then.

But if we think about the way that she, I mean, she has this TV show. She has this platform, . She has these books that sell 3.5 million copies, and she's promoting this idea of pleasure and joy through food. Again, that was this time that we maybe [00:14:30] don't even remember, realize that this was a time of opening a can of peas for your vegetable and not having fresh foods and not having beautiful food.

Archival: You are of a school that says . You should really enjoy your food rather than having to eat a certain balanced diet. Tell us about that. I belong to the American Institute of Wine and Food, and our logo is of moderation. Small helpings, . And a little bit of everything 'cause you don't know what you might be [00:15:00] missing and above all have a good time.

So you're not, you're not, you're not pushing away the butter and the cream and No, absolutely not. You should have something of everything and you should thoroughly enjoy it. 'cause if you don't,

Michelle: you won't digest well.

Archival: So

Michelle: I love that I, when I started to it that way, I really, it just opened something up for me.

Michael: No, I mean, the thing is like some of why we love Julia Child, I think is obvious that she does make an emphatic case over the course of the second half of her life that food is a pleasure and it's part of [00:15:30] living and it's joyous and it's sensory experiences should be indexed high in anybody's life. But I guess I'm curious to learn more about this idea of it as a political act, but it's a really helpful framing for sort of encapsulating her legacy.

I love that. Pleasure activist. Okay, I'll take number three. I guess, I mean, I feel like we have to talk about the secret agent lady, the fact that she w worked for the OSS. Yes. I guess a lot of people who know Julia Child's story knew this part of it. She was never exactly a spy. Yeah.

Michelle: When

Michael: I [00:16:00] first learned that she worked for the OSS, which was the precursor to the Ccia A, this is how she spent World War ii.

This is how she met her husband, Paul, who we'll talk more about later. I had really hoped that she was like, . Deep undercover in Russia or something. I was too, I was disappointed or you know, behind the lines in Nazi Germany and that was not the case. But she was working with senior leadership and what became the CIA and it more than anything, she was like the keeper of secrets.

She knew where the agents were and in as much as intelligence work is [00:16:30] about trading information, she knew who, who had what information. It's . It's just really cool to imagine Julia Child as a spy. She kind of like at times, downplays this and says, oh, I was more of a file clerk. But then the agents are like, no, no, no.

She had an unbelievably important role and she was mostly in Asia. So she was in Sri Lanka. She was in China, yeah. And in DC for a while. Anyway, a cool part of her story. I had no idea about that. I loved

Michelle: Did you dive into the shark repellent recipe? Oh, right, . Yeah, [00:17:00] I forgot about that. Why don't you explain what that is?

Okay, so. This kind of made into a joke sometimes in her biography, but people will say, oh, her first recipe was actually that she helped create shark repellent for the Navy. And so I guess during that time there would be navy men who would get attacked by sharks as they were coming down from the plains or whatever.

Michael: Yeah. I think it was also like setting under underwater bombs. And there were also under, I

Michelle: heard different stories. I read different, I even went to the [00:17:30] cia.gov website to see if I can find out more information, and they kind of hilariously, and maybe it's because it's a public facing site, but they're kind of like, isn't this cool?

Like even the CCIA itself is like, isn't this neat ?

Michael: Yeah. Yeah. But it, but so it's like some chemical concoction that repels sharks and keeps 'em away from the subs and the bombs. Right. But

Michelle: in some of the information about Julio was declassified apparently over the last . However many years. And evidently in the reports it says that it had a [00:18:00] mild deterrent effect.

So it didn't work super well. But what it did do was it helped the military folks. It it's helped them psychologically. And then I, I read that Julia would say in interviews, oh, it's still being used today by nasa when things come down into the ocean or whatever. And the CIA says, they cannot confirm that they don't know.

Oh, interesting. This, this has been redacted. They don't know. Like the CIA doesn't know who, who's gonna

Michael: know then , I dunno. I, I, they may know and just, or not Tell me this maybe. Yeah. [00:18:30] Um, okay. Uh, secret agent lady. That was my number three.

Michelle: Love it. What do you got for number four? I wanna talk about her aids activism and Planned Parenthood activism.

Yeah. And also her . Willingness to admit she was wrong because evidently she was, in retrospect rather homophobic as she Yeah, I

Michael: saw this a lot. She came up of an age where I think that that was the cultural norm, obviously. Exactly.

Michelle: Yeah. But yet she had a lot of gay friends, and I read, [00:19:00] you probably read this too, that she wouldn't even realize that they were gay because they had girlfriends and she would say, oh, I wonder when they're gonna get married.

And people would, you know, give do the side eye people. You're like,

Friend: Julia, really? Yeah, totally. Well, the poor Aren gonna

Michelle: get married. Or maybe they'll, but, and so then her close friend Bob Johnson is gay and he succumbs to AIDS in 1986. And this just galvanizes her. She wakes up, she apologizes. For the way that she has talked about

Michael: homosexuality.

Yeah. Gay people and

Michelle: [00:19:30] sexuality. And in the wake of his death, she pours herself into hosting benefits and raising money to fight aids. And I think that's amazing. To be able to publicly say I was wrong and I said some things that I shouldn't have said. Not only am I gonna apologize for that, I'm going to put my money where my mouth is, and I'm going to raise money to help.

Michael: It's especially unusual for somebody in their seventies . Yeah. I hate to be like ageist about it. Right. But the older we get, the more rigid we get in our thinking. Exactly. Often and And you've mentioned Planned [00:20:00] Parenthood. Yes. I mean, I didn't realize quite what an outspoken Planned Parenthood advocate she was.

She was like, you know, figure number one for that organization.

Michelle: And she took heap for it. Yeah. And people, and she was such a public figure at that time. It's the eighties. She's hosting benefits to fundraise, she's making statements that were considered risky. She gets backlash and she does not care. She writes in her articles and she, she just stands up.

She doesn't care if people stop watching her because that's that important to her.

Michael: The other thing that I felt was interesting about [00:20:30] her political activism is that her father and her upbringing is completely on the other side.

Michelle: Yeah.

Michael: He is like extraordinarily conservative and her mom dies at a fairly young age and she's the oldest and her father is like, kind of looms large that she came to her own.

Politics, like sort of independently is something I admired about her journey. There was definitely like an independent woman emerging as she grew.

Michelle: Yeah.

Michael: Okay. I I'm gonna take number five if that's okay. Great. I've got one thing. I love her violence whenever, [00:21:00] like, okay. So I had not watched a lot of Julia Child growing up.

That was not on my tv. Nobody in my family was watching it. When I went back and watched the clips the way she'll like take a mallet and start beating something else, it's like, oh my god.

Friend: You know, like she's got

Michael: these

Friend: like hands where she's like really rubbing it in and she's, you know, beating the heck out of food.

Archival: Cold and hard as it should be. And you want to beat it. This is not an actual rolling pin. It's one that my husband made for me out of an old garage broom handle. [00:21:30] And if you cut it right in the right place, if you go through the.

Cartilage is part of the vertebrae. You can cut it right through and you don't have to use a saw.

Michael: There is something violent about her in the kitchen that I really kinda like. It's like, it's, it's a take control kind of thing. I'm not a great chef, but when I do cook and I'm getting into it, I like it more.

The older I get, the more I actually enjoy the experience. I can be very timid in the kitchen. And [00:22:00] one thing, she's sort of famously kind of clumsy in a way. Yeah. But she's also violent, so maybe it's boldness in the kitchen that I'm really speaking to. Mm-hmm . But I, it's such a, like, it's agro and it's kind of awesome and I think it's part of what makes her so compelling as a, as a TV figure.

Oh,

Michelle: absolutely. And I was what popped into my head as you were saying that is chaos. Muppet. Yeah. . Because she, she's bold and she's like, I'm gonna chop this thing. I'm gonna do this. And if it ends up on the floor, who cares? She didn't really drop a chicken on the floor. That is not true. She dropped a's peanut [00:22:30] pancake.

I guess it's a, yeah, and it wasn't on the floor, it was onto the stove, but people remember her. Oh, she lets things fall on the floor and she's picks them right back up.

Michael: There's urban myths around some of this, but she does talk about it also as like it's okay to fail. That's part of the idea. There is a real forgiving to like fear of failure and that only that has to be exist with a kind of gusto that she brings to like, well, let's beat the hell out of whatever it is we're making.

Archival: You know, one thing, I think a lot of people are just so scared of any recipe they see that says sugar syrup or [00:23:00] caramel, that they, oh, I won't try to think like that. And that is this awful American syndrome of fear of failure. And if you're gonna have a sense of fear of failure, you're just never gonna learn how to cook because cooking is lots of, it is one failure after another, and that's how you finally

Michael: learn.

Okay, let's recap then. So number one, I said, uh, late bloomer. Number two, you said pleasure activist. That how you put it, I love that. Pleasure Activist number [00:23:30] three. I said secret agent lady number four, you went with AIDS and Planned Parenthood activism. And number five, I said violence in the kitchen. I like chaos.

Muppet, let's go chaos. Muppet . Okay. Awesome list. Great.

Michelle: Let's

Michael: take a break. Category three, one love. In this category, Michelle and I will each choose one word or phrase that characterizes this person's loving relationships. First, we will review the family life data. So she married Paul, who is the love of her life in 1946.

They met during [00:24:00] the war. Julia was 34 when they married. Paul died in 1994. She never married again. So they were married for about 48 years. They had no children, so Julia Child was childless. The other relevant info I put down here was that, uh, . Paul's mom was named Bertha, so her name was. Birth a child.

Michelle: did not catch that. I dunno. That struck me. .

Michael: That struck me as funny. Yeah. Her mother-in-law was birth a child. I guess the other thing that is [00:24:30] maybe noteworthy, it does sound like she did want to have kids and the ship sailed. I think Paul was less interested in children. It's hard to know what to make of the Julia and Julia movie, the Meryl Streep.

Mm-hmm . And Amy Adams movie, the way it's portrayed in that it was something she grieved and was sad about and a couple of times she makes reference to like, I would've liked to have children. Yeah. At the same time, you know, she's such a. Teacher that I feel like whatever parenting instincts she has find their expression in her [00:25:00] public life and in her professional life.

Michelle: And she also has a bunch of nieces and nephews and they all describe how she was like a parental figure to them. She's very loving and caring and in fact, her grand nephew ends up co-writing her autobiography with her.

Michael: Well, and I think before we share a word or phrase, I think it's worth saying another beat here about Paul.

So they met during the war, he was in the State Department, he's the reason they are overseas, and it's sort of his work that leads them to Europe, [00:25:30] Paris, and then later I think they're in Marsai and then Oslo, or they fall in love slowly. It sort of begins really as a friendship during the war. And then as the war comes to a conclusion and they're separated, they realize that, you know, have much, much deeper feelings when they go to Paris.

I mean, that feels like the, the real. Not just honeymoon, but honeymoon phase of their marriage. Right? That's when she takes an interest in cooking and ends up going to the Cardone Blue and so forth. His politics are very left and he ends up being a bit of a target for [00:26:00] McCarthyism. Mm-hmm . In the late fifties, and that happens to coincide with her deciding to co-write this cookbook and, and so forth.

I have more to say on that, but why don't I pause here. What did you have for, for word or phrase? For

Michelle: my word? Well, I was really. I don't wanna say obsessed, that's overused, but I absolutely loved their love. I read a bunch about it. I love the way it's talked about in the documentary. I love that she co-wrote this entire book called My Life in Paris.

Mm-hmm. All about that time, their letters [00:26:30] back and forth, just all of it. It was just, yeah, very

Michael: endearing and very sincere. Ruth Bitter Ginsburg had a similar sort of re relationship. It kind of reminded me of that one. Yeah, I, I agree. It's the thing that like sort of pops out when you get into her story is what a sort of unusual pair in a way, but also like committed, loving, sustained love relationship.

Michelle: Yes. So. Yeah, my word was nested spoons. , like big spoon, little spoon. Yeah. Yeah. [00:27:00] That's really good. Okay. And I think he was the big spoon to her little spoon, even though he's, she's actually bigger than him. She's six feet two, and he's, I was gonna say, who gets the

Michael: larger spoon here? Michelle? Yeah. Well,

Michelle: physically, but emotionally, he's the big spoon.

She talks about this, we had a happy marriage because we were together all the time. They talk about how they were better together than apart. And there's this quote from her where she says, Paul Child, the man who is always there. Porter, dishwasher, official photographer, mushroom, dicer and onion [00:27:30] chopper, editor, fish illustrator, manager, taster idea man, resident poet and husband.

Yeah. This guy, in a time where men dominated women and women were just relegated to do the household chores, he is her supporter and he lets her career eclipse his and just unconditionally supports her. And I was amazed.

Michael: It's very ahead of its time, this relationship. And I love that you said nested spoon.

'cause it, it's gonna just be so tempting to use a lot of, uh, cooking. I had to do [00:28:00] it. Kitchen metaphors. I'm funny. Yeah. And I was looking for one, and I didn't quite come up with something as clever. I'll tell you what I had, I wrote because it's very aligned and very similar in a way. I just wrote headroom.

Hmm. And there is a literal part of this when they move in together and buy a home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, one of the things that Paul is proactive about is making sure that the ceilings are a little bit higher. Mm-hmm. Because Julia is so tall that she's bumping her head on all kinds of things, and they designed her kitchen so that there would be [00:28:30] literal headroom.

But the bigger point here is the metaphorical headroom. That it is sort of incredible how, not just supportive, but like easy, it seems to be for him to say . Your career is heading somewhere. You are becoming a a figure with stature. It is my job as your husband to love and support and allow for that space because this journey you're on has a momentum, all of its own.

For me, one of the most hard things about marriage sometimes [00:29:00] is allowing. Your partner to grow? Mm-hmm. Like is it giving them the space to become a different person? Mm-hmm . That can be uncomfortable, right? You make a vow and a commitment at a young age when you're still midstream in life and we're all growing and evolving into different people, and the whole dance of a healthy marriage in some sense is allowing extra space so that you can go where you need to go while still having a relationship.

Headroom is basically what that is all about, and Paul creates that. [00:29:30] He does not sound like a barrel of laughs, by the way. No. He kind of strikes me as a little stiff. I don't know that I'd want to hang out with Paul, but that doesn't matter, but

Michelle: Julia did. It's one of those things where you look at them and you're like, huh?

It's like when you're, it reminded me of when your friend dates someone that you don't really get like, huh? Yes. Yeah. But then you see them together and you're like, oh, oh, you guys get each other. It doesn't matter if I understand him. You understand each other, and that's all that matters. And I, I have to say this really inspired me as a single, so I'm divorced, I am a single [00:30:00] person.

Yeah. And I frequently feel, I don't wanna say cynical about love, but I don't feel, I don't know. I feel differently than I did when I was in my twenties. You know? I feel like Right.

Michael: The whole happily ever after fairytale is a little bit like there's been some water thrown on that. No. Yeah. No, but

Michelle: I this, I will say, this gave me hope.

It made me feel like it's worth waiting for your spoon or whatever. Great.

Michael: All right. Nested spoon and headroom. Good words. All right, let's move on. Category four, net worth. In this category, Michelle and I will each write down our numbers ahead of time, and [00:30:30] we're gonna talk a little bit about our reasoning, and then we will look up the net worth number in real time to see whose guess is closest.

Finally, we'll place Julia Child on the net worth leaderboard. I'll walk you through my thinking really quick. Okay. Because I wonder if it's very different from yours. So she's from a fairly well to do family. She's in Pasadena, California. Her father's an investor, and Landholder pretty clear. She's doing pretty well.

She doesn't have any dependents, which I think it can lead to fairly high accumulated wealth. It didn't sound like she was making a lot of money [00:31:00] from PBS, and I don't think PBS pays that well, , I

Michelle: think they said $50 a show for a while. Yeah, it was like

Michael: nothing. Yeah. But her cookbooks are crazy successful.

So what else did you factor in, if anything? Yeah. Or is that pretty much it?

Michelle: It's similar. I also noted that she donated a lot of money, so that's something. But what I did was I actually looked up the net worth of other famous female cookbook writers and TV show hosts, like cooking shows. Oh, so

Michael: you went for some comps where, so like [00:31:30] Rachel Ray and Yes.

So

Michelle: I looked up Paula Dean, Mary Berry, ina Garden, and Rachel Ray. So Paula Dean is worth 14 million. Mary Barry from the great British bakeoff, she's worth 25 million. Ina garden is worth 60 million, and Rachel Ray is a hundred million.

Michael: That doesn't surprise me at all, actually. Yeah, I think that it's sort of like looking at basketball stars in the sixties compared to basketball stars in the eighties.

Yep. Like this becomes a big money making ventures. Time goes on. Exactly.

Michelle: So I kind of, I was thinking [00:32:00] about her and I thought, I think she's more than Paula Dean and more than Mary Berry, but less than Rachel Ray.

Michael: Okay. I like that you went the comp route. I thought about this and then I, I just didn't bother to look it up.

Okay. So let's reveal. Michelle Linberg wrote down 60 million and Michael Osborne wrote $11 million. Julia Child's actual net worth 38 million. Oh, all right. So that's like almost right in between. Yeah. That's pretty good. Yeah. , thanks. [00:32:30] Um, I'm gonna say I was way off and you were way closer. You did better work on this.

I, okay. 38 million . Gosh, that's a lot of money. Yeah. For somebody, a lot of cookbooks. PBS famous. It is a lot of cookbooks. I was way off saying I was way off. Nicely done, Michelle. Thank you. So there is nobody else at the 38 million mark. This will place her at the 30th position on the famous engraving net worth leaderboard just above her at 40 million include Peter Fonda, Jaja Gabor, Bob [00:33:00] Dole, Nora Efron, Wes Craven, and Patrick Swayze.

Just below her at 35 million. George Romero, Phillips, Seymour Hoffman. That's nice positioning. Yeah.

Michelle: It seems like she could have a great dinner party with those folks.

Michael: What would she cook for? George Romero, Josh aor, and Philip Seymour Hoffman. I'd love to know the meal she'd prepare. I would love to know.

Yeah. Excellent. Okay, let's move on. Category five, little Lebowski, urban Achievers.

Archival: They're the little Lebowski, urban achievers. So yeah, the achievers, yes. And proud. We are of all of them in

Michael: this [00:33:30] category, we each choose a trophy, an award, a cameo, an impersonation, or some other form of a hat tip that shows a different side of this person.

Uh, why don't you lead off here?

Michelle: Okay. Well, I thought about going with the kitchen, right? The, so she donates her kitchen to the Smithsonian, which we can talk about, but I feel like a lot of people know that one,

Michael: that her kitchen's in the Smithsonian, it's so funny. Like there's like a very active fan base.

Yeah. For Julia Child, right? Yeah. There are de devotees of Julia Child that you'll encounter. Oh yeah.

Michelle: In fact, I found [00:34:00] this Reddit thread on the food network that said, is it just, am I the asshole? Or, um, I'm just a little over Julia Child. And then there's this edit. Um, yes, I am the asshole. Everyone loves Julia Child.

Michael: like piled on. You cannot say that in the comments on any Reddit, the comments that

Michelle: people are like. Dude, you can't say that. she's mother.

Michael: It was really Oh, that's fantastic. All right, so what did you, so you didn't go with the Smithsonian, what you got? Okay,

Michelle: so I did a, it was, it was just mentioned in a little [00:34:30] line in the New York Times obituary.

There is an opera that was inspired by Julia Child's show, and it's only 18 minutes long. It's a ch called the Chamber Opera because it's a small opera. It's called Bon Petit. So it originally, when they did the first production of it, it featured Gene Stapleton and then many, many people had performed it since I found a whole bunch of videos of Meso Sopranos performing this.

Oh,

Michael: so you can watch this online?

Michelle: I watched it, yes, and I listened to it because it's only [00:35:00] 18 minutes long. Right. Basically it says it's a lighthearted musical monologue that tells the listener how to make a chocolate cake in a roundabout way.

Archival: I'm going to have a. Between the online copper and the machine,

we're there and that's all for today.

Michelle: And the way this was created was [00:35:30] the Librettist Mark Shul. His partner was Lee Hobe, who's a contemporary 20th century composer. And I have no idea who

Michael: these people are, but you. I,

Michelle: well, I think I, you might know that I have a background in music, so I have, yes, a degree in vocal performance, actually. And Lee Hoy, the composer, I had a couple of his songs on my senior recital, so I knew this.

Composer a little bit.

Michael: Okay. So these are known people to you. Got it.

Michelle: Yeah. So I was really interested in this, right, because of my singing background. So [00:36:00] basically Mark creates the text for this by combining the transcripts from two episodes of the French chef. Okay. And then his partner, Le Hoy B, puts it to music.

And it's so fun. And what the singer is asked to do is create a kitchen on stage. And she's actually really making a chocolate cake while she's singing. And I ly love. I

Michael: would so see, I would so go to this. Yeah, like this actually sounds like such a fun performance. It's

Michelle: so fun. And so it was often [00:36:30] used to open for maybe another show, I guess you wrote another chamber opera, that sometimes they would be performed together.

But it's super fun and I think her, I don't know if you wanna talk about her voice now, but we

Michael: might as well. I mean, well,

Michelle: so I think. In retrospect, it's obvious to turn her into an opera because her voice is already so operatic.

Michael: Yeah, right. Oh man, that's a good call.

Michelle: I mean, this is why it's so fun to do a Julia Child impression 'cause it feels so good [00:37:00] in our bodies to do that.

That's

Michael: what I was gonna say, Michelle, I think it's time. Let's hear your Julia Child impersonation.

Michelle: Okay. All right. Well, do you wanna hear how you do a Julia Child impression or just Sure. Yeah.

Michael: Let's get into the mechanics of it. You're a voice person, so let's hear this.

Michelle: Okay. Yeah. Did you try to do a Julia Child impression?

Michael: I tried in my car. I, okay. I was driving around like Julia Child. There's a, there's a, it's, it, it's like I hear it up here where she's talking about a beef burgon and the way it kind of is like high, high, high, [00:37:30] low is, is all I was able to do. But then I also realized how . Awful. I sound trying to do this. I do not have a voice that lends itself to a Julia Child impersonation

So I think you, you just got my best effort there.

Michelle: No, that was great. That was good. So you're right, it's this, do you know the hard palette? It's sort of like high in the head. High in the head. So your hard, there's your hard palette inside your mouth and then your soft palette is behind it. So you have to lift that up, like Hmm hmm.

Yeah. To get to get to it. Right. And then I was looking up [00:38:00] like, where did her voice come from? And people were saying that they think that no one really knows why she speaks this way. Yeah. Someone wrote, and I thought this was really interesting. She's super tall, she's kind of a manly figure. And they wondered if she might've taken on this voice to sound a little more feminine.

Michael: That's interesting. 'cause it does feel like it's all like upper half of the body and mostly in the head. Yes. Like it's not the whole trunk. Yes. Right. It's not torso, it's it's all, dude, we here every now and then goes down, you know? Yeah.

Michelle: So people are also saying that she may have [00:38:30] been influenced by the transatlantic accent.

Do you know that?

Michael: What is that?

Michelle: So think Catherine Hepburn, the way that people used to talk in this very, you know, I can't really do it, but this heightened way, the time to make up your mind about people

Archival: is never .

Michelle: And I think that's Julia Child. So here's my impression. Okay. Welcome to Famous and Gravy.

I'm Julia Child[00:39:00]

because that biographies from a different point of view. . I need to work on that. That's really good. Michelle, do you like your

Michael: Yes. Good. I'm gonna, we're gonna have to start doing that at the top of the episode. This is Shamus and Gravy.

Michelle: Imagine if your show was in the 1950s on PBS.

Michael: Yeah, exactly. We'd be talking about Albert Einstein today on the show,

All right, let me give you my little bki urban achiever. This [00:39:30] probably should have come out by now, but I went with kind of the easy route, the Dan Aykroyd impersonation, 1978 or 79. I was a big fan of early SNL. They would show it on reruns at Nick at night when I was growing up, and I, I think this was actually the first time I learned who Julia Child was, so,

People probably know this moment, it's Dan Aykroyd playing Julia Child. He accidentally cuts his finger and then it becomes, it's kind of my point about violence in a way. All of a sudden blood is spurting everywhere and he's talking about like [00:40:00] feeling a little bit of fate.

Archival: Now. I've done it. I've cut the dickens out of my finger. Well, I'm glad in a way this happened. You know, experts do time to time in the kitchen. We've never really discussed what to do the best way with direct pressure on the apron. Like Saul,

Michael: here's why I love it. It's not just the impersonation. She's one of these figures where everybody wants to do an impersonation.

What I loved about this one was how much . She loved [00:40:30] it. She kept a tape of it and when people would come over, she'd say, check this out. I gotta show you. Dan Aykroyd impersonating me and blood spurting all over the place and, and this is the most hilarious thing you've ever seen. I love the humility of that because I've always thought it's an gotta be an interesting thing.

To be so famous to be impersonated was your relationship to the impersonation. I feel like people on SNL have had to kind of like make peace with it, but this actually sounds like she delighted in it a little bit the same way James Lipton and Alex Trebek [00:41:00] liked watching Will Ferrell Impersonate them?

Michelle: It must be so fun, and I think that that speaks to something that we haven't talked about yet. As much, but her sense of humor. Yeah. That she's so freaking funny. Well, in the opening quiz, isn't there a line about how she's a ham?

Michael: Yeah, a self-confessed ham. Yeah. So she's,

Michelle: she's a self-professed ham. Right. So I think she knows.

I think she knows. She's funny.

Michael: I think. Well, and she's also at times described as a flirt.

Michelle: Oh, yes. I read about that. Yeah. She's a flirt

Michael: and you see that in some of her public [00:41:30] appearances that she's, she,

Michelle: she's

Michael: flirting.

Michelle: She loves, and it's really, she loves, she loves to tease them. She loves totally to be close to them, especially as she's an older woman, she's an elder and she's flirting with these, these hosts of like, good Morning America or whatever.

It's just awesome. Yeah.

Michael: Okay, let's pause for another break. Category six words to live by. In this category, we each choose a quote. These are either words that came outta this person's mouth or was said about them. Actually, before we do this, I wanted to call out a listener, Mary, who sent an email the other day.

She was talking about the Roger Moore [00:42:00] episode. One of the things we said we loved about Roger Moore was charm, and she said her grandmother used to say, charm will get you anywhere. Manners will keep you there, which I loved. And I was like, oh, Mary, I'm gonna say that on the show. I thought this would be a good moment for it because Julia Child has good manners and she's charming.

Yeah. So thank you Mary for writing in. Okay. What did you have for, what did you live by here, Michelle? I

Michelle: had the sky can fall. Omelets can go all over the stove. I'm going to learn, I shall overcome. It's, wow. [00:42:30] It's from her cooking show. It's, I have the video. Um, and she's, it's a longer clip where she's talking about failure, which you referenced earlier.

She's saying, yeah, who cares if the omelet goes all over the stove, pull some more eggs out and do it again? Learn, overcome. And I think it also speaks to what you were saying earlier about doing things later in life, like maybe it's not as easy to do this or that, or whatever. It speaks to so many things in life, not just cooking.

Don't be afraid to experiment, to mess things up. I

Michael: love that, Michelle. [00:43:00] And I gotta say, you just spark something for me. I've really been on, on a few episodes recently, I've been talking about this, how much I really struggle with patience most of the time when I'm . Telling myself, like, self instruction, Michael, be patient.

What I'm really saying is repress your emotions, suck it up, and try not to be self-centered. But I really like the idea that part of what patience is, is allowing failure and is allowing self-forgiveness. Right? That being patient is also about learning, which [00:43:30] I, I'd never quite put together in my head before, just now.

No, and I think she's an excellent example of that.

Michelle: And maybe there's patience for other, you know, if you're trying to cultivate patience, it's like patience for yourself that you don't, you're not always patient. I'm learning to be patient, but also patience for other people. Like I, yes. I think of my young daughter, and you have young children too.

It's like you have to have so much patience with kids sometimes,

Michael: and you have to allow them to fail too. I mean, these ideas really go together. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm . Well that's really good, Michelle. I love that one. Okay. I'll tell you what I [00:44:00] had. I had, drama is very important in life. You have to come on with a bang.

You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake . Uh, it, I think, I think my favorite part of that was the last line, even a pancake, because it sounds so grandiose, but I mean, she understood as an entertainer that like, we have to make cooking dramatic.

You have to come on with a bang. You never want to go out with a whimper. Everything can have drama if it's done right. There is a balance that we [00:44:30] have to strike in life between making sure. It's interesting that the story of our lives have ups and downs that have some drama to them without being drama queens.

Right. I so I I really like the last part of this quote. Everything can have drama if it's done right. Even a pancake. I wanna

Michelle: see the episode where she makes a dramatic pancake.

Michael: Yeah. I've made, oh, I've made dramatic pancakes before.

Michelle: I have to ask you, when you were researching Julia Child, did you get hungry?

Michael: Yes. Not only that, I also was like, [00:45:00] alright, you know what? I'm gonna add some recipes. I'm gonna expand my repertoire. Same because I've got, you know, I've got a handful of things I do very, very well and I've gotten a little stagnant. I came away inspired and I think I wanna, I've never really dug into the mastering the art of French cooking either.

I think I'd really like, we've, Allison and I have done a few recipes. Allison loves to, I mean, she won't cook it without doing her beef Bergen, y'all impersonation, . Um, but having researched this, like she is infectious that way. Yeah. Mm-hmm . She is somebody who makes you [00:45:30] want to like, spin some hours in the kitchen absorbing the aromas and hearing the sounds.

And like I said, I didn't grow up with her, but I, I came away inspired to be a better cook. That's your superpower.

Michelle: Absolutely. Yeah. I am in such a rut with food and I'm so busy right now that I feel like food is just like a box I have to check off, and I hate that. Totally. I really wanna enjoy food , so yeah.

You're,

Michael: you're, you're, you're succumbing to casserole culture as it

Michelle: means I am in casserole culture and I wanna be in Cale culture. .

Michael: Yeah. I, [00:46:00] well, you know what, we should add a Cassai recipe to the show notes. Yes, we should. I'll make sure it gets into it. Okay. Let's move on. Category seven, man in the mirror.

This category is fairly simple. Did this person like their reflection? Yes or no? This is not about beauty, but rather a question of self-confidence versus self-judgment. I went back and forth a little bit on this one. How'd you reason this one out?

Michelle: My gut reaction was, yes, absolutely. And then I dug a little more into it and I looked at, you know, things she'd said about herself or other people had [00:46:30] said about her, and it's very difficult to find a lot of

Places where she is very open to talking about how she feels about herself. I didn't find a lot of that.

Michael: And her physique in particular and her

Michelle: physique. Yeah. But I did find, remember I mentioned her grand nephew who co-wrote her autobiography and he said before she met Paul and lived in France, she considered herself too tall, too loud, too unsophisticated.

Michael: I saw that too. Yeah. I, I think before she finds Paul, there's a lot of [00:47:00] self-doubt. Yes. And she is six two. She is, you know, it's

Michelle: kind of awkward. I, I saw the word gawky. Yeah. That's the beginning. But then she meets Paul and he absolutely adores her. And these letters back and forth between the two of them are just to die for

They're

Michael: just so passionate and, and also sounds like, especially in France, but really throughout that there, there's illusions to a very healthy sex life. Absolutely. Right. And that makes sense. This is, you know, a woman who is building a career and is a, a voice of sensory pleasure. Yeah. So I kind [00:47:30] of was happy to see that and expected, but it does sound like a quality that was discovered.

Michelle: Yes. And now she loves to be up in front of people. She's so confident. She loves, we just talked about the, you know, she's showing this video where she's mocked for her voice and her appearance and she loves it. I think the only place I read where she doubted her appearance is after she has breast cancer.

I. So it's in the sixties and she has a mastectomy. And in her recovery period she tells Paul, how can you ever love me like this? And he has this great quote that you probably sat to you [00:48:00] where he says, I didn't marry you for your breasts. I married you for your legs. . Yeah. Which is the perfect thing to say,

Michael: It's, I saw that one and I, and I had the same reaction. So, okay. So did

Michelle: I think that she did, I think that she was someone who was proud of herself. She was a great business woman. She had so much success. I don't think she, if she didn't feel good about herself, I don't think she would've kept going on television into her eighties.

And

Michael: I agree that's where I landed too. And I [00:48:30] basically had the same journey. I think ultimately she likes her reflection in the mirror and, and is at peace with it.

Michelle: And I have to say that is so refreshing. Yeah. And I was telling you this offline, you know that it's just such a contradiction to the times we're living in right now to be able to study and learn about such an exuberant, happy.

Grounded person

Michael: and like body positive too. I mean, one thing I, she comes into criticism a lot for cream and butter and a, and a high fat diet, and she [00:49:00] talks about dieting and all things in moderation. And something else I love about her, which I, we haven't really talked about, but I, I love her relationship with food.

Mm-hmm . Not just like how pleasurable it can be, but she has a sense of nutrition as well. Mm-hmm . She has a sense of variety and everybody has a complicated relationship with how they eat in as much as there is an ideal. I actually think she embodies that ideal

Michelle: and she has this great quote. She says, if you don't feel comfortable with butter, use cream

Michael: Yeah,

Michelle: that's that . She doesn't care. She [00:49:30] said, stop doing this to yourself. You can enjoy food in moderation. You don't have to . Eat heavy meals for every meal, but enjoy things. Try the desserts.

Michael: Totally. Okay. Next category. Coffee cocktail or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most wanna do with our dead celebrity.

I'll kick us off here. Is it too obvious to say a glass of wine in the kitchen? So I made this sort of more public on the show. I don't drink anymore. I'm retired from drugs and alcohol. Same. But I do have very fond memories [00:50:00] of drinking while cooking. Mm. And having a glass of wine while working on, one of my favorite things to make is a chili.

Mm-hmm . And I will reduce it for hours and hours. Any kind of reduction recipe where you're kind of like checking in on it. Periodically and, but you're seeing it bubbling on the stove. Mm-hmm . That with like a glass of wine and Julia Child, that sounds like such a delightful afternoon to me. Maybe that's obvious, but that's the scene I want.

And I will say in as much as this category is about, [00:50:30] questions I would like to pose to her. I don't know, it's probably the thing that we were just talking about, relationship with food. I mean, I, I do think that, this is such a hard question. Our food environment, especially in America, is filled with junk food.

It's filled with variety. It's filled with all kinds of complicating psychological factors of how do we eat, how do we eat better, what should we eat? This is like a central conflict in everybody's life. And somebody who says, well, let's start with pleasure. Let's be a pleasure activist to use your [00:51:00] phrase.

And then let's go from there. I almost like wanna write that down. I almost want, wanna capture that. So I don't know that I have anything I. Really wanna like poke and prod her on, in terms of her life story more. What I want to do is sort of absorb the wisdom and the attitude and anytime I'm asking myself, should I eat this or should I eat that, I should ask myself, what would Julia Child say?

So I'd like to have that conversation with a glass of wine and some kind of, you know, reduction recipe. Maybe

Michelle: we could get you a little one of those bracelets made that's like [00:51:30] WW JD

Michael: D

As long as, as long as we're clear on who the jcs in this context , that's just a, I think it's a great idea. It's a great idea. And you know, maybe I will get that bracelet and then if anybody asks about it, I'll say, Julia Child. That's what I

Michelle: mean. . That was great.

Michael: So, alright, so what'd you go with for coffee cocktail cannabis?

Michelle: Oh man. I had a really similar reaction and I started with the glass of wine. I also don't drink. [00:52:00] So in, so I'll paint this picture of the scene here. So we're in her kitchen just like you were. Yeah. And she has just shown me how to make a chocolate cake. And it's in the oven and we're having coffee and we're sitting at her table and we can smell the cake.

And there's dishes around. 'cause Paul's gonna do 'em later probably, right? Yeah, yeah. Um, because he's the assistant, right? Yeah. And we're sitting at her table and she's showing me pictures from Paris and we've got them on the table. Oh, this is this. And this reminds her of this story. And she's [00:52:30] just telling me stories.

And I, I think what I'm wanting to get out of this is inspiration about love and life. Because I think that's what I need right now. Tell me that I can have this beautiful life because, you know, life can feel like a grind sometimes, and I don't want it to feel like a grind. So tell me, contradict the grind for me.

Help me inspire me. I need

Michael: reassurance. I need a gratitude list. I need to direct my attention to the things that are available to me that I can experience, and that, that bring me joy and, you know, yeah. And pleasure. Yeah. [00:53:00] Yeah. Oh, that's beautiful. So coffee. Coffee and cake. Coffee and cake. All right. We've arrived.

Final category, the Vander. Named after James Vander Beek, who famously said In varsity blues, I don't want your life. In that varsity blues scene, James makes a judgment that he does not want a certain kind of life based on a single characteristic. So here we form a rebuttal to anybody skeptical of how.

Julia Child lived and we found it useful to start with a counterargument. Why would you not want this life? [00:53:30] There's not a lot of great reasons. I do think the fact that she never had children is an actual regret.

Michelle: I had that one.

Michael: Yeah, but we can make way too much of that, and our society is way too judgmental about.

This question in general, why would you not want this life? What else is in the counterargument category? I mean, I mean, is there anything strike you about that?

Michelle: I wrote down a, a small list of things, but they're all things that I think are survivable. Like I wrote down, I wouldn't want to have had breast cancer in a mastectomy.

But people do. People do all the time and they [00:54:00] survive and it's very common. So, I mean, would I choose to have it? No. But that wouldn't keep me from wanting her life. I wouldn't have wanted her uncaring, conservative father, but um, that wouldn't keep me from wanting her life.

Michael: Yeah. Right. No, and and it's mostly things that you don't have a choice around.

Michelle: Yeah.

Michael: Right. I mean, a lot of the way the counter argument plays out is, did you have a say in the first place? No. And we don't have a say with cancer, and we don't have a say with who our parents are. We don't have a say in a lot of things. So I mean, it's, it's sort of how you [00:54:30] played the cards. And I guess that's actually how I would start with the argument for why you do want this life.

She played the hand of life really, really well. She sort of like. Starting off with such the right ideas, patience and ability to forgive, authenticity, self-determination. It really does sound like it was during the war when her eyes were open to the world, when she was spending time with diplomats and academics and that she began to be attracted to a life of the mind [00:55:00] that she discovered Chinese food,

It was, it was like, it looked like her first love there. There is such a journey that involves the sort of companionship of travel and food. Adventure. And adventure. Yeah. She's an

Michelle: adventurer. She was this in this . Waspy upbringing. There is this secret adventure trying to get out, and it's not until she goes with the OSS and she becomes a spy or tries to become a spy.

I know she works alongside spies and makes shark repellent. She realizes there's this whole [00:55:30] world, there's this quote that I, I didn't read, but I don't have it right in front of me. But it's basically her saying, if I had had to live the life that my family wanted, I would've been playing tennis and I would have become an alcoholic.

Michael: Yeah. I saw that. There's

Michelle: nothing for her there.

Michael: This is all about self-determination. Yeah. Reason number one is, is a self-determined life. I'd say reason number two, I can't get over the late bloomer thing. Yeah. I I, maybe that's part of the patience. It's such a hopeful message to me. Mm-hmm . That you keep moving in life and following your passions, and if [00:56:00] it's gonna break your way, it may, that can happen at any time.

It's such a lesson for me. What else would you put on this list, Michelle? Why else would you want this life?

Michelle: I was just thinking about this quote she says. I don't think about whether people will remember me or not. I've been an okay person. I've learned a lot. I've taught people a thing or two. That's what's important, and here's the part of the quote I really like.

Sooner or later, the public will forget you. The memory of you will fade. What's important is the individuals you've influenced along the way. And so I think she [00:56:30] influenced so many people. So I wanna say she was one of the first influencers, before Instagram, before all of that. But in many ways she influenced people in terms of, you know, I use this term pleasure activism.

That changed the world. She changed the way women thought about themselves. She influenced, we didn't talk about this, but she influenced so many women to become chefs.

Michael: Yes. She helped make being a chef and being a cook, reputable, like desirable profession. Yeah. In some ways she even destigmatized it.

Michelle: She destigmatizes it.

So I [00:57:00] guess I would say she has a lasting legacy.

Michael: But you know what I also hear in that, that I think is really resonant. It's, if you want keep it, you gotta give it away. Mm-hmm . Like her whole thing of like identifying as a teacher, first and foremost, I'm a teacher. That's why I wound up on PBS and that is my mission in life.

The more you are generous with your gifts and the more you are empowering other people, the more you open up space in your own heart and soul to like have meaning and joy in your own life. I love that. And I think the other thing to add in here [00:57:30] is Paul, yes. You know, like she's, she's got a soulmate.

Absolutely. Right? And, and that this looks like this is kind of what we all want on some level. Yeah. This is love.

Michelle: She's this deep, inspiring, beautiful love she had seems to have had wonderful friends and family. It seems like wherever she went, people loved her.

Michael: Relational wealth is the term I would use.

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely.

Michael: Okay, so let's recap these arguments. So number one, and we eventually got to self-determination number two, the late bloomer thing, and hope more than anything else the way hope is at [00:58:00] the center of her story. What did you say for number three? We

Michelle: were talking about how she was a teacher and I said this is, she influenced, she was the first influencer, but she influenced first influencer influenced a

Michael: positive way.

Yeah. And I understand that as generosity, as, uh, as a opening up space in your, in your heart and soul. Yeah. Number four, we also said Paul and

Michelle: I think four was Hall, but also all the wonderful relationships that she had. Paul

Michael: and relational wealth. Yeah.

Michelle: Yeah.

Michael: So with that, James Vanderberg, I'm Julia Child.

And you want my life?[00:58:30]

All right, plugs for past shows. Michelle, is there a famous and gravy episode that this Julia Child conversation reminds you of?

Michelle: Well, it made me think of the Shirley Temple Black episode, and I went back and re-listened to it. And I wouldn't say that it's so much because they're the same story at all, but it's two great women who will, might surprise you, especially Shirley Temple.

You know, we think of her as this little girl, but there's [00:59:00] so much more to her. And she also has this service component to her, this activist component to her that I think will surprise people.

Michael: We rereleased that one. That's number 81, dimpled Ambassador. I was gonna go with I think Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

There's something about the late in life, the love story, the kind of unlikely fame, and there's some interesting parallels there. Uh, so that was episode 20, notorious Dissenter Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Mm. So if you enjoy this episode, you might enjoy those. [00:59:30] Here is a little preview for the next episode of Famous and Gravy.

His American born wife was his business partner and onscreen CoStar.

Friend: Oh, okay. So this tells me he's not American. Otherwise, I don't know why we would've said that. Uh,

Michael: famous Eng Gravy listeners, we'd love hearing from you. If you wanna reach out with a comment question or to participate in our opening quiz, email us at hello@famousenggravy.com.

In our show notes, we include [01:00:00] all kinds of links, including to our website and our social channels. Famous Eng Gravy is created and co-host by Ahmed Kippur and me, Michael Osborne. This episode was produced by Ali Ola, with original music by Kevin Strang. Thanks and see you next time.