Julia Child

I am easily motivated by what I watch/read (oddly, not by advertising – hunh). Before the internet, if I was feeling sluggish, but knew I should get up and clean the house, all I would have to do was start re-reading Agatha Christie’s 4:50 from Paddington. There’s an incredibly efficient character in it, and as soon as we got to the housekeeper, Miss Lucy Eyelesbarrow (I still remember her name), I would be motivated to get up and start cleaning. Seriously, worked every time. It’s like that with TV too; the Mad Men years were particularly drinky – I asked for martini glasses and crystal whisky glasses for birthdays & Christmas in those days.

Now I use the internet (more specifically YouTube) to accomplish the same I-gotta-get-things-done tactics: before houseguests are coming, I type “deep clean house” into the search bar and only have to watch 5 or 10 minutes of a video to get up and get cleaning. Ditto “productivity home office” – that has me sorting drawers or cleaning up my Inbox. And typing in “minimalism hints” gets the Marie Kondo in me purging stuff left, right, and centre.

I’ve noticed this year that books are influencing me in a particular way: I started reading Andrea Camilleri’s series of crime dramas – the hero Inspector Montalbano thinks a lot about food, so this summer I made a lot of pastas and seafood, based on whatever he was having before catching the murderer. And last week I took a couple of the Harry Potter books out of the library – they always make me want to have onion soup (Mrs Weasley & Kreacher both make a mean onion soup). So this morning I decided to make some for myself – it is such an easy soup to make that I rarely use a recipe, but, last night I saw a guy on YouTube making Julia Child’s version, so I went out and bought a bottle of brandy (it only called for one tablespoon – what else I am going to use it for, I have no idea; I hate brandy) and made Julia’s soup, following the recipe to the letter.

OMG – that was the best onion soup I have ever had. I mean, really. Dear God, that was good. I didn’t do the cheesy crouton on top – the soup was just perfect without it. I have been wondering how to spend these long, dark evenings this winter (last winter I spent a lot of time buying, assembling, furnishing, organizing, etc.. and have been a bit worried about what I will do this year). So I think I may spend this winter doing a bit of a Julie & Julia, picking out some of her classic recipes, and following them exactly (there, I’ve just found a use for the brandy – when she’s not adding butter to things, she’s pouring in glugs of brandy to everything). I don’t see myself doing every recipe in her book; that’s sounds waaaay too much work, just a few of the classics.

It probably won’t be that great for my health (she loves butter, pork fat, and booze), so I will have to compensate with very Scandinavian breakfasts (smoked salmon, crisp breads, cucumbers, and tomatoes) and Asian lunches (bento boxes, Buddha bowls, and lots of raw veggies), but I bet it will be worth it.