Thanks for sharing this with us, Bri. Of course I sat right down and read the whole thing! (I loved the description of Julia breaking a sweat and panting.)

As regards killing your own chickens, I remember the first 200 we ever raised to butcher. I had gone out to the hen house to feed the chickens and accidentally stepped on one. (Now this is not the recommended way to kill a chicken, so in that regard, I can completely relate to Julia dropping her potato pancake while trying to flip it. ''Whooo is to see'', indeed! That's Fine, until you have to go and confess it.) The chicken was only half-grown at that point, and instead of bury it, we plucked it, cooked it and ate it. I don't remember it being too much of a tasty morsel, as morsel was about all it was. What I do remember was that meal seemed like a whole lot of work for what we got for it in the end. What I learned from that was: Watch where you're going and Don't eat chicken before they're full-grown.

I loved the klutzy Julia. She was REAL.

LOL, Claire, definitely do NOT eat half grown chickens. I've never stepped on one but I have raised chickens from eggs to stew pot, including the cleaning of pens, the eventually slaughter, plucking and cleaning, then cooking. Yeah, I probably AM crazy.

I'll never forget the smell of wet feathers. Of course I've also cleaned and plucked ducks, geese, pheasants, quail and one wild turkey. My brother used to hunt....

Which is why I can also field dress a deer, or skin and clean a rabbit, squirrel, porcupine, etc. Eventually I got smart and invoked the "you kill it, you clean it" rule. I think it was the snapping turtle that finally caused me to snap. (grin)

Get it? Snap? Oh never mind.....

I really liked the article and especially the diet. "If you want to eat it, cook it yourself". I like that, but I do not believe that we are unable to cook or that baking a cake from a mix is "from scratch", no matter what Mr. Balzer says.

I did have to smile about the Chicken Kiev and minute rice, it was so much something my Grandmother would have done. She liked Julia but she had a BIG thing for "The Galloping Gourmet". LOL

I loved the book "My Life in France" too. I read it on the plane on the way home from California, it was a gift from from forum members, along with a cookie cookbook that Makayla has appropriated.

MY granddaughter will certainly know how to bake cookies, her own bread, how to can tomatoes and how much work it is to get that Chicken Kiev onto her plate next to the rice.

Annie

Great link, Bri: thanks for pointing it out. Cooking from scratch is becoming a dying art form.

I loved watching Julia tackle anything--she seemed fearless and was able to project that. I wish PBS or some other entity would run her stuff regularly; my local PBS affiliate doesn't have her on a regular basis. One of my favorite dishes is from Julia's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking"--the 'Poulet poele a l'estragon', or chicken cooked in casserole with tarragon. Wonderful.

Not meaning to hijack the thread, but I've been pondering something. I'm in my late fifties, and I'm taking cooking more seriously now than I ever have in my whole life. My thought experiment: what skills do I wish I had learned at an earlier age? Roasting poultry, for one; I never learned to properly roast a bird until recently. I wish I had learned earlier; could've had a lot of fairly cheap meals that tasted great. Becoming skilled with cast iron cookery, for another--both in searing stuff on the stovetop as well as braising stuff slowly in a casserole.

I have a young relative who is getting married in the near future, and neither he nor his bride-to-be do much cooking. I'm in the process of making up my own little cookbook for them to include such basics as roast chicken and some braised dishes like osso buco...Stuff I wish I knew how to do when I was their age.

Oh, in looking for that Julia Child recipe to link to it, it turns out that it happens to be Meryl Streep's favorite.

Here is a link that might be useful: poulet poele a l'estragon

NPR did an interview with Michael Pollan pursuant to that NYTimes article. DH happened to tune in on his evening commute home and thought I would love hearing it.

I am, shamefully, very low tech - you've likely noticed there are never any links or pics w/ my posts - so I can't describe how to do it, but in just a couple minutes he downloaded the free podcast from our computer to my MP3 player, and I got to listen to the whole thing at my convenience.

I found it so thought provoking I meant to post about it. I haven't read the Times article yet, but will. Thanks for the link!

I think many of you would really enjoy the NPR program, as well.

Thanks for that link. It was a thought provoking article. I just received two of Michael Pollan's book from amazon the other day. In Defense of Food and the Omnivore's Dilemma now I can't wait to dig in.