Mastering the Art of French Murder by Colleen Cambridge EPUB & PDF – eBook Details Online
- Author: Colleen Cambridge
- Language: English
- Genre: Historical Mysteries
- Format: PDF / EPUB
- Size: 2 MB
- Price: Free
Paris
December 1949
Julia Child had a mayonnaise problem.
I knew all about it—every sordid detail—because, first, I was one of her
closest friends in Paris, and second . . . well, I wouldn’t be surprised if
everyone in the seventh arrondissement—from the Place du Palais-Bourbon
to the Tour Eiffel—had heard about the mayonnaise problem. Julia was just
that kind of person. She was gregarious and ebullient and giddy and
enthusiastic.
And I loved her dearly—probably because we were a lot alike in some
ways, while in other ways, I wanted to be like her. If I could just do half the
things in the kitchen that she did—or even a third of them!
Julia had been bemoaning her mayonnaise problem for a few weeks now,
and I couldn’t help but worry about what that meant in the grand scheme of
things. After all, if Julia, who’d been taking lessons at Le Cordon Bleu, was
suddenly having problems making mayonnaise—a sauce she’d been
making for months with ease and perfection—what did that mean for me,
someone who could barely boil eggs?
The implications were ominous.
“I just don’t understand it!” she said as we walked down rue de
l’Université, the street on which we both lived. Both of us were bundled up
against the bitter December cold on our way to the market. I carried a small
basket of fresh sage and rosemary bundles from my grand-père’s
greenhouse for some of the vendors, but I would also be buying as well. I
was hoping Julia would help me pick out a nice roasting chicken.
“Your mayonnaises have always been so delicious,” I said enviously. I
had yet to create one single mayonnaise that came together properly. “So
beautiful and creamy and stupendous—I can’t believe it’s still not turning
out right.”
“It’s simply inexplicable,” Julia replied. “All of a sudden, the sauce is
just not doing its thing! The eggs and oil won’t emulsify no matter how
many times I whisk them up. I wanted to make an herbed mayonnaise last
night to toss with spaghetti. But the sauce broke and simply refused to come
together. I tried three times until I finally ran out of eggs. Paul had to eat
spaghetti with black pepper, parmesan, and butter instead—the poor man,”
she went on with a gusty, affectionate laugh. “He listened to me clang about
and whisk and curse, and clang some more, and finally he was so hungry he
just wanted to eat.”
Paul was Julia’s husband, and it was because of his diplomacy job with
the United States Information Service that the Childs had moved to Paris a
year ago. As Julia told it, the very first meal she’d eaten here in France had
been like a switch that flipped inside her, or a light bulb suddenly
illuminating. She’d never enjoyed food so much in her entire life. She still
spoke about that serving of sole meunière in the hushed, reverent tones of
someone entering a church.
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