If You’re Afraid of Butter, Use Cream

The day I waited on Julia Child. Yes, that Julia Child.

THEN:

It's 1969, and I run into the den, where my parents are watching TV. I say, “Mommy, I'm hungry, it’s dinnertime!”  And in stereo, they “SHHHHHHH!” me.

Oh. Yeah. They're watching Julia Child. That funny lady who cooks French food on Channel 13, the “educational” channel. The rule was I could hang out with them and watch if I didn't utter a word.

Julia Child was revered as a god in our house. A very odd god. Her strange voice, her towering height, the way she threw ingredients around and pounded meat and dropped things and made mistakes. She was funny, though I think most of the time it was unintentional. So, I’d sit with my folks and watch. Eventually I came to appreciate how special she was, though she never tempted me to cook.  My mother loved her chocolate soufflé. My father adored her cassoulet. I just liked watching, waiting for the next faux pas. She made me laugh.

20 YEARS LATER:

It's 1989 and I'm working as a server at Union Square Café in Manhattan. It was a dream job in the business. At the time, it was one of the top three restaurants in NYC and was so popular that getting a reservation required luck, patience, or fame. I arrive for a Tuesday lunch shift, and my manager, Bobbie, pulls me to the side to tell me which station I’m working.

"We have a very special guest coming today for lunch, and you’ve got her table." And I think to myself, it's about time, I never get the important guests.

“Who is it?” I ask, expecting someone in the book business because the restaurant was in the publishing industry neighborhood.

Bobbie looks at me, a huge gap-toothed grin on her beautiful face, and excitedly says, “Julia Child! Julia Child with a party of twelve!”

I choke and stop breathing.

Julia Child? No way can I wait on Julia Child. She's JULIA fucking CHILD. The grande dame of French cooking. I almost throw up I'm so nervous at the thought of it.

I say to Bobbie: “Why me? I'm not your best server. I'll screw up. Can't you give the table to someone else?”

She assures me I'll do fine, and to remember that we're a team at Union Square Café. I'll have backup from the food runner, the other waitstaff, and our sommelier. Gaining my breath, I tuck my blue and white striped button-down shirt into my pants, snug the knot of the stunning floral necktie we all sport, and re-tie my white apron at my waist––the uniform––and I start setting the table. I'm meticulous with every detail, making sure that the cloth napkins we folded the night before are flawless. I go into the kitchen to do my butter side work. We cut 1/4" slices from square 1-pound blocks, bisecting each square diagonally, forming perfect isosceles triangles, 2 per dish. The butter is top quality, the best you can get; the bread, fresh-baked.

12 people. That means 6 butter dishes, but I grab 8, because I know that butter is Julia Child’s favorite food group. I lay the dishes out on the table, so that the butter will be perfectly softened by the time of her arrival. I'm told we’ll be offering both menus, lunch and dinner, including the Tuesday night special.

The entourage arrives on the dot of noon, nine men and three women. Bobbie seats the party, with Julia in the middle of the long table, not at the head or the foot. The room itself is lovely, decorated with the most stunning, always-fresh flower arrangements, sunlight flooding the space. Menus are handed out, and I stand slightly behind JC at her left side. I’ve lost the ability to breathe properly, alternating between holding my breath and sipping little wisps of air. I can’t get a good inhale. I can barely make eye contact with the guests. My manner is obsequious and formal, a shocking departure from my usual ebullient nature. I barely recognize myself. I'm nervous and worry that the sweat at my armpits is noticeable, my necktie feels like it’s strangling me. Julia orders the dinner special, a bone-in rib eye steak for two. For two! I think to myself as she orders, that I'm swiping that bone for my dog once she’s finished her meal. It’s a famous bone. The dogs belonging to the waitstaff love Rib-Eye Tuesday. When we scrape plates for the dishwasher on Tuesday nights, we lay aside a pile of bones and divvy them up at the end of the shift. My dog Sophie always loves me, but on Tuesday nights I get extra kisses.

Our sommelier goes over the food order and takes care of the wine selection for the table. All is good. The wineglasses sparkle, spotless in the sunlight. I've got the first bottle in hand; a lovely Cabernet. Thank god it’s not necessary for me to decant this one. I pray to the fine-dining angels that I'll open that bottle flawlessly. That the cork won't break. That I won't drip the red wine onto the pure white table linens. I try to breathe, only filling half my lungs, then I pour. She swirls, she examines the legs running down the inside of the goblet with a discerning eye, she sniffs, she tastes, she nods for more. I hover nearby, not too close. JC isn't terribly friendly––not rude by any stretch, just not as cuddly as I’d hoped for––so no sweet stories from my childhood. No "Oh, Mrs. Child, I used to watch you on PBS when I was a little girl." She’s there with her people. My job is to wait on her, not make friends. I go into the kitchen to start serving entrees with the food runner, and I grab her rib-eye, taking it to the table and suddenly forgetting if I serve to the right or the left. I struggle for a breath again. Ah, to the left! Right!

I place the rib-eye in front of her with care. I offer pepper, she says yes. As I back away, she does the oddest thing: she leans forward, stretching each of her very long arms to the right and to the left, and enlisting the help of her dining companions, she gathers all 8 butter dishes in front of her, and places those golden triangles on her steak in a neat little overlapping row. She waits a beat or two for the butter to melt. Then she digs in. I stand there in awe, smitten by her appetite. I quickly break the spell I’m in to move around the table pouring wine for her guests.

She polishes off the entire steak, leaving a very clean bone (Sophie will be mighty disappointed). Julia drank two full bottles of the Cabernet with that meat. She completes her meal with creme brûlée. I’ve expertly torched the sugar on top of the custard to a glass-thin, caramelized shell; the best one I’ve ever done. Maybe being in her presence has graced me with culinary skills I’ve never possessed? Nah, just got lucky, I guess.

At meal's end she rises from the table, dwarfing all of us. She says thank you to me, bending down slightly, a little bow, to accommodate the difference in our heights, smiling most graciously, then walks as upright as can be on low heels out the front door. And I exhale.

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Some lovely quotes from Julia Child, the French Chef:

• If you're afraid of butter, use cream.

• I think every woman should have a blowtorch.

• Always remember: If you're alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who's going to know?

• People who love to eat are always the best people.

• I think careful cooking is love, don't you? The loveliest thing you can cook for someone who's close to you is about as nice a Valentine as you can give.

• 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.

• The only time to eat diet food is while you're waiting for the steak to cook.

• It’s so beautifully arranged on the plate, you know someone’s fingers have been all over it.

• Fat gives things flavor.

• Celebrity has its uses. I can always get a seat in any restaurant.

And an important tip from Nan Tepper, a former server with savvy:

• If the bathroom in a restaurant is disgusting, you definitely don’t want to see what the kitchen looks like or eat anything that was cooked there.

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