At the height of Julia Child’s fame in the 1970s and ‘80s, Thanksgiving guests often felt the need to tell her she should get her home number removed from the public directory. (This was an analog tool called a “telephone book.”) ”The phone would ring all day,” said Sheryl Julian, now the food editor for The Boston Globe, who celebrated Thanksgiving dinner in the Childs’ home in 1976 and 1977. “Every time she hung up, it would ring again, and it would be another total stranger with a turkey problem.” No matter how busy, Child would hand off whatever kitchen task she was doing, take the phone and talk the nervous cook down from the ledge. (This could be nerve-racking for guests, Julian said,...
↧