Julia Child Cooks me Scrambled Eggs for Breakfast and I Hijack a Bag of Buns

Julia Child cooks scram­bled eggs for me in her Cam­bridge MA kitchen in 1999. Her kitchen is now in the Smithsonian.

This story appeared in the Toronto Star in Octo­ber, 1999, after my visit to Cam­bridge, MA, where Julia Child, who had become my friend and men­tor, lived. She invited me for break­fast. There was an inci­dent with some crois­sants. Read on:

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — I came bear­ing buns: rye sour­dough buns I man­aged to pro­cure in a mad dash moments ear­lier, after the crois­sants care­fully ordered for this momen­tous occa­sion failed to arrive at my hotel at the appointed time. (For that bizarre story, see below.)
Still recov­er­ing from that culi­nary escapade, I was both jit­tery and elated at the prospect of break­fast chez Julia Child as we drove along her quiet, leafy street a few blocks from bustling Har­vard Square one beau­ti­ful, sunny morn­ing last week.
In fact, by the time Star pho­tog­ra­pher Richard Laut­ens and I reached the door of Child’s sprawl­ing, three-storey, New England-style, wood-frame house, I was decid­edly on edge.
But as soon as my favourite foodie, main men­tor and, by now, firm friend appeared at the door (on it was a small black-and-white plaque bear­ing the name of Child’s beloved hus­band Paul who died in 1994) and wel­comed me with a big bear hug, I knew all would be well.
“It’s so good to see you again,” said Child sweetly and, as is her way, look­ing directly at me. “You look won­der­ful,” she added in that unmis­tak­able sing-song voice. “Come on in.“
Moments later, our coats were hang­ing on hooks in the hall, we were invited into the large kitchen and those buns, gra­ciously received with a “Thank you — that’s so nice,” were already out of their paper bag and in the oven.
“Paul and I moved here in 1956,” said Child in answer to my ques­tion about her lovely, lived-in, spa­cious home. “It was built in the 1880s and was once owned by a famous philoso­pher called Josiah Royce. We bought it for the kitchen.“
Scan­ning the colour­ful, cozy room before me, I could see why.
Cov­er­ing one wall was an array of hang­ing pots and pans, most of them gleam­ing cop­per. “I got those in France,” Child explained. “I don’t use them much; they’re lined with tin and have to be re-done. These days, they’re lined with stain­less steel, which is bet­ter, but they cost a for­tune.“
A big black fridge was decked with a few mag­nets and a cou­ple of fam­ily pho­tos. One large oven in which our buns were warm­ing is, said Child “a Ther­mi­dor. I think it’s con­vec­tion — which I never use.“
Beside the win­dows, cov­ered in vin­tage venet­ian blinds, hung two long racks of knives in an assort­ment of shapes and sizes — at least 30 of them in all. On an adjoin­ing wall, about 20 metal mea­sur­ing scoops were sus­pended, each marked crudely in white-out with the let­ter “J.“
On the counter nearby stood a royal blue KitchenAid elec­tric mixer. “It’s a heavy-duty one — the best,” chimed in Child.
As we chat­ted, Child, 87, now slightly stooped (“I used to be 6 foot 2 but I’ve shrunk a bit”) and dressed casu­ally in beige slacks, a bur­gundy man’s cardi­gan and pat­terned shirt, was slowly mov­ing about the room get­ting together ingre­di­ents for scram­bled eggs.
The large, rec­tan­gu­lar table, draped in a yel­low cloth then cov­ered in a layer of heavy-duty, white-striped plas­tic, was neatly laid out for three.
Rus­tic white plates, each hand-painted with a red rooster, were set on round straw mats. Each place set­ting had a large blue-and-white cup and saucer. “We bought most of our dishes when we were abroad,” said Child. “These cups are Dan­ish but we bought them in Nor­way.“
In the mid­dle of the table sat an over­sized, cauldron-shaped, antique sil­ver sugar bowl; beside it a small white pitcher of cream. At each place was a big tum­bler filled with orange juice. A Braun cof­fee maker gur­gled in the back­ground as the room filled with the lus­cious aroma of brew­ing cof­fee.
By now, Child had bro­ken six eggs into a bowl and was stand­ing over the stove heat­ing a gen­er­ous slice of but­ter in her “non-stick Wear­ever skil­let.“
The large com­mer­cial gas range was, she told me, “a Gar­land. I’ve had it since 1945.“
As she poured the beaten eggs, sea­soned with only salt and pep­per, into the pan and began stir­ring them with a white plas­tic spat­ula, I real­ized this was my chance to watch first-hand as Child made scram­bled eggs the way I’d once tried — with amaz­ing suc­cess — from a recipe in her indis­pens­able book, The Way To Cook (Knopf).
“The trick is to keep the heat low, only to have about an inch of eggs in the pan, to stir slowly so you make a soft cus­tard and to reserve a lit­tle bit of raw scram­bled egg to add at the end,” Child explained, as she pro­ceeded to do just that.
When the eggs were deemed ready, she moved the pan away from the burner, poured the reserved table­spoon or two of raw egg into it and gave the mix­ture a cou­ple of stirs.
Then, as if on cue, wield­ing that spat­ula, our host exclaimed, “And then a lit­tle extra but­ter for com­pany!“
My offer to pour cof­fee was gra­ciously accepted. And as we pro­ceeded to savour those won­drously creamy eggs along with the warmed rye buns smeared with but­ter (a stick of it, untouched when we arrived, was fast dis­ap­pear­ing before my eyes) and delec­table Robertson’s mar­malade from its jar, the con­ver­sa­tion flowed.
Here are some choice tid­bits from that mag­nif­i­cent morn­ing meal:
• On her health: “I don’t feel myself slow­ing down. I just got back last night from a two-and-a-half-week media tour across the coun­try. My only prob­lem is my legs; I do exer­cises for it.“
• On romance: “There’s not much hap­pen­ing at this age but if you know any nubile men my age, bring them on!“
• On cook­books: “I just keep a few in the kitchen: most of mine and the new Joy Of Cook­ing plus some ref­er­ence books. I have more books upstairs but I gave most of my col­lec­tion — thou­sands of books — to the Schlesinger library at Rad­cliffe Col­lege.“
• On her mis­sion: “I would like peo­ple to take cook­ing as a seri­ous hobby: learn­ing the basics of how to use and sharpen a knife, cut quickly and eas­ily, how to saute. It’s all very sim­ple — just a mat­ter of prac­tice.“
• On recipes: “There are as many ways to make a dish like coq au vin as there are cooks. I’d like to free peo­ple from slav­ish depen­dency on recipes to the free­dom of know­ing the basics.“
• On nutri­tion: “A few years ago, peo­ple were so afraid of their food. Things seem to have calmed down a bit. Peo­ple were using their emo­tions, not their heads. I believe in mod­er­a­tion — a bit of every­thing — and no snack­ing.“
• On fame: “If you’re off TV for a year, you’re dead — so don’t get a swelled head. Celebrity’s part of the busi­ness. If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.“
• On enter­tain­ing: “I love to enter­tain. It’s always casual. If I meet new peo­ple, I like to have them over here and show them this is a nest of sim­ple folk.”

The Miss­ing Crois­sants and How I Hijacked a Bag of Buns

Here’s how the crois­sants intended for break­fast with Julia Child turned into buns.
The day before our mem­o­rable meal, I had scoured Cam­bridge on foot with the help of a map and advice from my savvy friend Jim Dodge — a tal­ented pas­try chef and cook­book author who is cur­rently direc­tor of food ser­vices at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston.
After agree­ing that crois­sants from a Boston bak­ery called Iggy’s would fit the bill, Dodge offered to order them for me since he dealt with that estab­lish­ment reg­u­larly.
Here was the plan.
The crois­sants would be deliv­ered to the front desk of my hotel between 8 and 8:10 a.m. the next day, ensur­ing enough time for me to arrive, good­ies in hand, chez Child for break­fast at 9 a.m.
The next day, 8:10 a.m. arrived and I was at the hotel’s front desk. The crois­sants were not.
By 8:20, I was bit­ing my nails. A phone call to Dodge informed me the dri­ver was stuck in traf­fic but only five min­utes away.
By 8:30, I decided I could not wait any longer.
Star pho­tog­ra­pher Richard Laut­ens was dis­patched to get the car. I decided to wait on the side­walk and scan the hori­zon for an Iggy’s deliv­ery van.
Min­utes later, a vehi­cle bear­ing that name drove down the side street beside our hotel. I ran like the wind, flung open the van’s door and began to bab­ble, “I’m Mar­ion Kane. Where are my crois­sants — the ones for Julia Child?“
The per­plexed, dark-haired, olive-skinned young man at the wheel either spoke no Eng­lish or was in a state of shock at the sight of a fran­tic woman who was, by now, rum­mag­ing through the brown bags con­tain­ing baked goods piled on the seat beside him.
He man­aged to mum­ble a few words that sounded like, “Miss, I don’t know.…” but ’twas in vain. I had dis­cov­ered a bag with stick­ers on it bear­ing my hotel’s name.
Inside, it appeared, was an assort­ment of buns and rolls but no crois­sants.
“These will have to do,” I rea­soned. In hind­sight, I was inca­pable of rea­son at this point as, glanc­ing at my watch, I real­ized it was 8:45 a.m. Sheer panic had set in.
Clutch­ing the large bag of buns to my chest, I slammed the van door shut and ran back to the front of the hotel where a ner­vous and con­fused Laut­ens was look­ing for me. “We’ll have to take these,” I gasped, open­ing the car door. “Let’s go.“
Sort­ing through sev­eral dozen buns as we drove, we agreed the rye sour­dough ones — though noth­ing like crois­sants – looked best. Eight of them were duti­fully offered to a gra­cious Child and con­sumed at our won­drous repast.
When I returned to the hotel a cou­ple of hours later, a young woman called me over to the front desk. “This note arrived for you with a pack­age.“
On it was writ­ten, “8:30 a.m. Your crois­sants are late due to prob­lems with proof­ing.“
I didn’t have the heart or stom­ach to eat or even look at those pesky, proof-challenged pas­tries. “Please give them to the near­est hos­tel,” was my defeated reply.
As for that poor Iggy’s dri­ver, he’s prob­a­bly still scratch­ing his head over what was behind that short, curly-haired wild woman and the hijacked bag of buns.

Here’s the recipe for those famous eggs as enjoyed by me at Child’s kitchen table from The Way To Cook (Knopf) by Julia Child.

Julia’s Scram­bled Eggs

Per­fect scram­bled eggs are ten­der and creamy. The secret is to do them slowly over low heat so the eggs coag­u­late into soft curds. You don’t want the eggs too deep in the pan or they will take too long to cook and if there is too shal­low a layer they will cook too quickly. A one-inch layer is easy to han­dle and a 10-inch non-stick skil­let works well for 6 to 8 eggs.

8 eggs
Salt and freshly ground pep­per
1 tbsp or more but­ter
1 tbsp or more heavy cream (optional)
3 or 4 tbsp chopped fresh herbs: pars­ley, or pars­ley and chives, chervil, tar­ragon or dill (optional)

Break eggs into medium bowl, adding salt and pep­per to taste; beat just to blend yolks and whites.
Set skil­let over mod­er­ately low heat; add enough but­ter to lightly coat bot­tom and sides.
Pour in all but 2 table­spoons of beaten eggs.
Slowly scrape bot­tom of skil­let from edges toward cen­tre with spat­ula, con­tin­u­ing slowly as eggs grad­u­ally coag­u­late. It will take them a minute or so to start thick­en­ing; don’t rush them.
In 2 to 3 min­utes, eggs will have thick­ened into a lumpy cus­tard; cook a few sec­onds more if they are too soft for your taste. Fold in reserved 2 table­spoons of beaten egg.
Adjust sea­son­ing; fold in but­ter, cream and herbs, if using.
Serve at once on warm (not hot) plates.

Makes 4 to 6 servings.