Luminaries

Judith Jones, the Vice president of Alfred Knopf, attended the IACP conference in Portland. She is the editor who shepherded both Julia Child and James Beard’s work to the American public. A fact unknown to many however, is that she was responsible for bringing “The Diary of Anne Frank” to publication. The reach, scope and depth of her accomplishments are monumental.

Under the guidance of President Scott Givot, this year’s conference in Portland broke with tradition or habit by turning responsibility for organizing it over to young people, Ken Rubin, IACP Board member, and Director of the Culinary program of the Art Institute in Portland, and Mike Thelin, chair of the Portland conference, who both shared a vision and a genuine love of place. They also had the intelligence, skill, and ability to network, pull people together, get things done, and stay true to that vision. Large conferences, for example, don’t play out without the de rigeur, 600-person rubber chicken dinner held in huge halls at convention centers, museums, or Stalinesque hotels. Portland’s organizers decided to go for a variety of small venues to exemplify Portland’s mystique. That way, they reasoned, participants at the conference would attend different events, and their varied experiences would create huge buzz. Their thinking proved correct.

When I was asked to do one such dinner, I turned at once to include two other local chefs to collaborate with me. Kevin Gibson is a colleague and friend at a very quirky café called EVOE. He is a master of pure flavors and I felt that the cauliflower soup that he often makes best exemplifies his skill. Kristen Murray, pastry chef at Fenouil, is the consummate professional. It is difficult to find words that frame her singular and exuberant expression of the food arts. We agreed she would make a Baba or Savarin, a soaked brioche dessert that would reflect season and place.

The young organizers decided to promote well-known professionals attending the conference and, referring to them as luminaries, asked each to act as host at various dinners. Madhur Jaffrey held court in one restaurant, Ruth Reichl went a cross town to another, and Judith Jones accepted an invitation to dine at the Chef Studio, a tiny venue accommodating fourteen.

As the IACP guests arrived at the Chef Studio, Andy put a glass of Apolloni Pinot Blanc in their hand, and helped them settle in with a slice of our pork, chard and prune pate, topped with a dot of violet mustard made from grapes leftover from crush. Kevin prepared the first morels of the season, so highly prized they were just short of contraband. He breaded them lightly, deep fried them to perfection, seasoned them with salt, and passed them around to be nibbled and savored.

Everyone was seated, welcomed, given an explanation of where they were, who was helping with the menu, and what the menu would be. We planned to begin with Kevin’s cauliflower soup. A dish of noodles, which I referred to as “pasta in the French manner” followed. It was a completely un-Italian noodle dish, originally from Madeleine Kamman, and served as acourse as the Italians do. The noodles were sauced with mustard cream with sautéed radish leaves. We garnished the presentation with paper-thin slices of radishes sweated in butter and vinegar until tender, and we finished our French noodles with caraway seeds.

Before going on to the main course, we offered an Intermet prepared as a gel flavored with honeysuckle eau de vie, cracked pepper and first-of-the-season strawberries.

The main course called for lamb prepared with a very old fashioned sauce that I was taught to make by Josephine Araldo. It was flavored with fresh mint and wild huckleberries. Cheryl Bennett, who raised the lamb at Lava lake Farm in Idaho, was there to tell her story. The lamb was accompanied by a savory ‘cake’ prepared with blanched herbs and green leafy vegetables, pureed with a little potato and eggs and baked like a custard. The magic of the dish was that instead of the custard being bound with cream, it was suspended with pureed vegetables. The recipe came from Georges Blanc and tasted like a garden in spring. Apolloni provided us with a reserve 2006 Pinot Noir that married perfectly with the lamb.

Kristen Murray’s dessert, devised to be served like a Baba, was soaked in a floral, tutti frutti syrup perfumed with kefir lime, vanilla, mint, coriander and schezuan peppercorn. Each Baba was garnished with fromage blanc mousse; a raw, shaved rhubarb salad tossed in loveage sugar and julienned lemon balm. It was accompanied first by a warm compote of Gayles Meadows Farm rhubarb with Meyer lemon confit, second with a rhubarb and celery sorbet, and finally with a white chocolate cigarette.

We were five in the little kitchen, Kevin, Kristen, and myself. Andy served and kept everyone in wine while Amie, one of the students at the Studio, made herself available to do whatever was asked. She prepared, for example, the medallions of lamb with perfect care. Everyone did a little of everything, helped plate, serve, clear, pour wine, and clean up. Judith Jones took great pleasure watching how well we worked together.

After explaining the menu, I spoke to the group about Mrs. Jones. I asked that they make an effort not to just talk to the person next to them, but to profit from the opportunity of her company as host. I returned to the stove to work. I could tell the conversation defaulted to talking to the neighbors. I was too busy to do much about it, but found myself thinking that everyone there had probably seen the movie “Julie and Julia.” I was sure that in their circles they buzzed about it. That was only a movie, however, and Judith Jones, sitting at the same table, wasn’t. I could see them all back home telling their colleagues and friends that they’d had dinner with Judith.I imagined someone asking, “What did you talk to her about?” And I was frustrated to think they’d say “Well, I was too shy to ask a question.” When this line of thinking made me crash into a wall in my mind, I turned to Kristen, who knows me well enough to recognized ‘the look.’

I stepped from behind the stove as desserts were being prepared, and addressed Mrs. Jones. “I can’t imagine,” I began, “that you are a person who ever sought vindication for your work, but did you find something like vindication when “Julie and Julia” appeared fifty years after you’d taken what must have been a huge risk to publish Julia Child originally?”

She answered by saying that the marketing types always want to explain how things work, or how things need to be, as though they understand. Yet, no one could ever have predicted in the beginning the resurgence of interest in Julia Child after so much time had passed.

The people around the table became more animated and started to engage. Someone commented on how much they loved Kevin’s soup, noting how rich it tasted. When he told them there was no cream in it, they couldn’t believe it. I interrupted them: “Look at us. I’m all about cream and butter, and he’s thin. Believe him.”

The guests were starting to shift in their chairs, obviously curious. They asked about the making of the movie and if Judith was consulted. She told them a story about being asked to verify some “Julia-ism” the directors were trying to get Meryl Streep to say, and Judith told them Julia would never speak those words. She felt Julia would have gotten a kick out of the movie but wondered if she would have liked the representation of her. It was a fun, light story, but she brought us quickly back to understand that the movie wasn’t completely reality. She left us with the feeling that while the movie was a fun fluff piece, everyone should really read the books themselves which opened a whole arena of publishing.

As one guest said, ‘here we were randomly assembled from all strata of food life, from the legendary Judith Jones to others like me who are still finding their way in the food world, and yet we seemed like one big happy family sitting down to dinner at the end of a long day. Warm, friendly, comfortable – really wonderful.

Judith discussed the excitement of being in post war Paris between 1948 and 1951. She recalled how the French felt happy to have the Americans there. But, she was quick to add, it also didn’t take long for them to want us to leave, and to begin protesting our presence.

I had only recently learned that Mrs. Jones was responsible for advocating that “The Diary of Anne Frank” be published in America. I asked her about that. She explained that in the late 40’s she had been working in New York. She was offered the opportunity by the publishing company to go to Paris after the war to search for European manuscripts which would be published in the U.S. “When I went to Paris,” she added, “I wasn’t inexperienced.”

She described the day her boss left her with a pile of manuscripts. She was supposed to go through them and issue letters of rejection in French. When she came upon the manuscript of Anne Frank, it was in a more finished form because, at that point, it had been refused by five other publishing houses.

“I think they must have just been careless with it,” she reflected, and must have thought of it as the work of a young girl which couldn’t have been very interesting, so passed over it without examining it in depth. “I sat at my desk, opened it because the look of the girl on the cover drew me in and so I started to read. At 9 o’clock that night I was still sitting there, reading. My boss returned and asked what I was doing at the office so late. I looked at him and answered, “We’ve got to publish this.” She continued, “It was a matter of my being the right person in the right place at the right time. “

She went on to tell us that she met Anne Frank’s father when he came from Amsterdam to Paris to sign the contract. “I recall him saying that he didn’t want to sign away the rights for any movie or play because he didn’t want just anyone to be allowed to play the role of his daughter.”

The diary seemed to hold a cherished and sweet place in her memory. She was a young woman in her twenties, who by her own admission was not inexperienced, despite the fact that she had not been with the publishing company very long.Her storytelling revealed how poignant it was for her to be in that place and time. The story of Anne Frank was meant for her to publish. The experiences with both Anne Frank and Julia Child, showed how sharp her level of intuition was, and revealed a vision beyond her age and her awareness.

She was graceful throughout. When I asked if she would talk about Evan Jones, she replied without hesitation, “That’s a sad story.“ I backed away. In addition to her grace she demonstrated a fast wit. When we look at someone of her age, we forget, or are not mindful of how big a life they have to share. During the evening she spent at the table at the Chef Studio, she gave us a peek into the window of her intelligence. I told the students later, “When you are in the presence of someone in her age, and their faculties are intact, be open. They only have your interest at heart. They don’t want your job, they only want to share the benefit of their experience, their wisdom.”

When Kristen thanked her, and expressed the honor it was to cook for her, Mrs. Jones commented on how wonderful it was to watch the orchestra in the kitchen. The evening we created started and ended with the cooking, but it came together with conversations, laughter, and washing dishes. She loved watching us handle, plate, and keep the workspace in order. She missed that way of bringing an evening to a close, the way it was before dishwashers existed, and when everyone talked while cleaning up together.

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