Julia Child tenderizes meat, hearts

Have you ever been to the New Haven Lawn Club? I mean, really been to the New Haven Lawn Club? Sure, you've probably passed a pleasant afternoon tea on one of its shaded verandahs, or sunk into a leather chair in the Pierpont Lounge with a day-old Wall Street Journal, slipping off your loafers; maybe you've even played mixed dou- bles with another elderly couple in matching white baseball hats, polo shirts, and shorts. But there's much more to the Lawn Club than these familiar leisure activities.

CHRISTOPHER HIRSHEIMER/KNOPF PUBLISHING "Say uncle, bitch!"

Take, for instance, all the lovely celebrity guests the Club is fortunate enough to receive every season. Why, currently it is holding an art exhibit in the downstairs reception rotunda, featuring original pencil and watercolor works by renowned local artist Augustine St. George. "Forsythia Year 2000" can be purchased for $300 right off the wall, "Bamboo" is available for a dear $500, but "Lichee Nut" is simply not for sale. It is reserved for the Club's permanent collection.

And what a perfect compliment this series is for its upstairs companion, the "Lawn Tennis" collection! You may remember glancing at works like "An Afternoon Bout at Tennis" or "The Last Match at Wimbledon" on the way to the powder room, but really, these pieces deserve a more discerning gaze—at your convenience, of course. In fact, it was while gazing at "There Goes Duece!" that two elderly women, elderly even by Club standards, were first spotted by the assembled crowd last Friday night. They did not have the comfortable breezy manner of the regulars, or the regulars' wives, though the look was right on: bright floral-patterned frocks, blanched hair, long faces. Indeed, no one seemed to know these two ladies, a rare occasion at the Club. The tall one was confiding something to the infirm one, who was balancing between a sturdy cane (right hand) and a glass of catered Le Terre (left hand). The second lady's response—several decibels above normal conversational tone—was the giveaway, though. It was the trademark pitch, the legendary quaver, the voice that is just as comprehensible to dolphins as it is to aspiring household French chefs everywhere.

Yes, Julia Child and Jurassic 5 live and on stage in New Haven in the very same month! If only they could play together. Still, imagine the delight of all those fortunate enough to gather this night to meet Child and Jacques Pepin, her old friend and new business partner. Child, the person most responsible for introducing Americans to French Cuisine and chefs to the possibilities of television stardom, is currently on her 439th book/speaking tour. And she had charitably picked New Haven as a stop, raising money for the Long Wharf Theater (her tall companion was her best friend, Long Wharf founder Betty Kubler) with a reception and conversation at the Lawn Club, followed by a $150-a-plate dinner at the Union League Café.

For another $35, guests could buy an autographed copy of Jacques and Julia's hardcover "Cooking at Home," though few purchased just one. Instead they bought them in bundles, hauling two or three of the tomes around at once like giddy traveling Bible salesmen. Jay Bryson, a high level local banker, was holding four copies of the book.

CHRISTOPHER HIRSHEIMER/KNOPF PUBLISHING Oh Jacques, what shall we make tonight? Sweet desserts or sweet love?

"My wife and I have a passion for cooking," he gushed. "I love cook—I love cooking demonstrations. I saw a couple of Pepin's cooking demonstrations before, and it's nice to see the two of them together."

Oh?

"When they're together," his wife added, "they share, like a married couple. She likes butter, he doesn't! And they love to get into it with each other. It's kind of a give and take." Her husband nodded gravely.

The dialogue that could be heard around the Vanderbilt Room went pretty much like that for the entire evening. After meeting Child on a reception line, dowagers remarked, "Now wasn't that fun!" After examing recipes in the new hardcovers, aging trophy wives cooed, "I've never made it before, but I'm sure it's authentic" or "Julia recommends her American-style Potato Salad...but Jacques says there's too much mayonnaise."

On stage, during the question-answer period, Jacques and Julia kept up their end of the bargain with a vaudevillian repartée that was as entertaining for the crowd as any Long Wharf mainstage production could hope to be. And just as moving. Cooking with Julia is as emotional as it is adipose. Recently, Child made a brioche tart with caramel-poached fruit and white secret sauce on her syndicated cooking show that was so good she cried. She cried. "It tapped into something stored deep inside her," confided the orthodontist sitting next to me.

Leaning forward in their seats, the Lawn Club crowd strained to make out Child's amplified voice, which was assuring a lady that red wine served with a Bouillabaisse was perfectly acceptable. The lady, cherry-blossomed and tidy, appeared deeply satisfied. And though she wasn't crying when she sat down, she might have been clutching her new autographed hardcover just a little bit tighter.

See the recipe for Julia's American-style Potato Salad

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