If you’re a reader of a particular brand of LadyBlog, you could not have missed the Julie & Julia craze surrounding the movie release this summer. First came the promo stills of Meryl dressed up like Julia, and then came the usual biographical nuggets about about Mrs. Child (she was in the OSS! She didn’t get married until she was 36! She cooked!) followed by fistfuls of links to more mainstream fare, like the New York Times talking about the food styling, or a profile on the upcoming 50th anniversary of the book.
You would probably notice how, inevitably, in the comments section of those particular brands of LadyBlog, there would be the chorus of, “that’s great but — or should I say ‘butter?’” followed by 83 women chiming in about how Julia Was Great for Feminism, But I Would So Get Fat if I Tried to Cook Like That (Butter, Don’t Do It), or alternately, She Was Revolutionary For Her Time, But Alice Waters Says I Should Eat Local, And Besides, Julia’s Recipes Are Kind of Fussy (Also, Did I Mention the Butter?).
To which I hold up tonight’s meal as proof that those women are doing themselves a great disservice by not cracking open the copy of MtAoFC that Amazon shipped them three weeks ago (when we were belly-deep in the J&J hype) and make cream of mushroom soup.
Before today, on the off-chance that my mind flittered to the notion of mushroom soup, it went straight to the red-and-white can of condensed white glop that was added to some casserole recipe before the potato chips, but after the green chile. It was a base, never to be eaten by itself.
But the Capt’n likes cream of mushroom soup, and there it was, the fourth recipe in the book, and it was rainy today and I have this new green Le Creuset pot just aching to be put to use and what the hell? Soup.
An hour later, we had soup. It was amazing. It tasted just like cream of mushroom soup, but in its platonic ideal. There was no need for it to be baked with tuna and potato chips with a crunchy noodle crust. This soup had no time for such plebeian froofery. This soup is like the self-assured geek: a loner who knows that lesser folk have to have the crunch and the tuna, but this soup, this geek can stand alone and be taken straight up and be praised for it.
(I could be reaching.)
It was good, fine soup. I was impressed.
And yes, it had butter in it. It also had heavy cream, chicken stock and some onion. It also had flavor. And that’s when I started feeling bad for the LadyBlog chorus. It’s a mixture of pity and frustration, more like. Pity, because by turning up their noses at a perceived passing trend (I mean, dear lord, the movie has made made $85 worldwide! That’s so … plebeian!) and saying redonkulous things like “butter gives me cellulite” these women are cutting themselves out of the opportunity to have the satisfaction of making (and eating) a simple, yet profoundly tasty dish. Frustrating, because butter doesn’t cause cellulite.
And, really, Julia Child was a freakin’ member of the OSS. She was a spy. Who doesn’t want to get down with some of her recipes?
And butter is good. There, I said it.
(But this soup is so much better.)