Product. Passion & Salt.

The movie’s out and it’s time for me to jump on the bandwagon.  I knew Julia for many years.  Close, you might say.  Very close.  Very, very close.

First: the movie is fine.  Meryl Streep is Julia Child, omg.  The essence of Julia is pretty much captured.  She was witty, sarcastic, unpredictable and awesome.

I got a call back in 1994 saying that Julia was putting together a new TV series and my name had come up.  We had met a few times before but she wanted a tape to look at.  I sent her one of a show I had done before and she chose me, saying I looked “so manly”.  (Remember, she was in her 80’s.)

The first time I met her, I was having lunch at Galileo in Washington, DC when a friend, Ann Brody passed by my table.  “Jimmy” she said “we’re having lunch with Julia Child in the back room.  Would you like to meet her?”  Would I ever!  Wondering how to break the ice, I recalled that Julia had gone to the Cordon Bleu in Paris and I was lucky enough to get a job there 25 years later.  The owner even arranged an apartment for me, nice, sweet old French lady that she was.  So I shook hands with Julia and said “I also was at the Cordon Bleu.  You must remember Mme. Brassart.”  At that, Julia looked at me and said, “I certainly do.  What a despicable woman!”  Not shy, she.  You’ll see the connection when you see the movie.  More later, gotta run.  But, believe it or not, they’re still showing re-runs of my shows with Julia on PBS.  Even though it has been 15 years, I haven’t changed a bit.  http://www.pbs.org/juliachild/meet/sneed.html