Terrace Talk

Notes for June

Random Musings on June

In casting for this month’s topic, I asked Google why so many marriages happen in June. Several articles credit it to Roman times when Juno was the goddess of marriage and childbirth, and thus the month’s name and the popularity of the date. Another theory was based on the likelihood that if a bride conceived immediately, the baby would be born the following spring, before the woman needed to plant the crops. Yet another explanation is that in the days of spotty hygiene, when bathing was rare, the bride needed to carry herbs and flowers to help dispel the odors of the wedding party, and these were more available in spring.

After time passed, bathing increased, and deodorant was invented, but the custom of carrying flowers persisted. Google also says that now October is the most popular month for nuptials, mainly because it is cooler, and wedding finery makes people sweat, especially during the reception. Maybe those flowers have a purpose, after all.

Just to let you know, in an informal poll of our residents, the winter months were the most frequently named months for weddings.

-Karen Waitz

I Remember Group

Julia and Me

I was sitting in the driveway with gobs of newspapers, writing Julia Child’s address on a box. This is how it came about.

In the 1970s, I was home with five children, a big house to run, daily meals to cook, carpools, and bored to death. Two TV cooking shows had just begun: Julia Child and Brit Graham Kerr, billed as The Galloping Gourmet. I would watch Kerr in the early afternoon, jump in my car with whichever children were at home, and dash up to the corner to the wonderful small Matthews Market. I’d run in the back door, grab what I needed, and drive home to fix Kerr’s recipe for dinner.

Then, I graduated to the brand-new Rich’s Cooking School, where I took classes taught by Nathalie Dupree. It was terrific, and it has shaped my life. I became Nathalie’s friend, and someday, I will tell you about working on her TV series.

Julia Child was coming to Atlanta! She was on local television, touring for her recent new cookbook, and she was teaching a class for the cooking school and anyone else who could get a ticket. I was in the audience with bells on.

Julia was spotlit in the dark, small auditorium. While waiting for the show to start, she started talking, remarking on the Vidalia onions she had heard about, which were not available in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She allowed that she was longing to see what the Vidalia onion was like. I made a resolution.

Fast forward to the following summer: I had bought two big bags of Vidalia onions. I was sitting in our driveway with a box, many newspapers, and those precious onions. After wrapping each one separately in newspaper and packing it securely into the box, I taped it up to go to Julia Child’s address.

Suddenly, a horrifying thought popped up. What if she were in France, where she spent months every year, and Vidalia’s package sat for weeks in a warm Cambridge post office and rotted!! My return name was in the corner of the box!

I called Nathalie for Julia’s telephone number and dialed it, expecting a secretary to pick up 1000 miles away. I was stunned when that famous voice said, “Hello, Julia Child here.” I stumbled for words, explaining what I was ready to mail to her. Indeed, she was in Cambridge and wouldn’t be going to France for quite a while. So, after the Vidalia onions arrived at her house, I got an excellent thank you letter, and an unforgettable image when she said she had tied them, as popular opinion said to do, in her pantry hose with a knot between each onion and hung them in her basement.

She said she would send Paul down to the basement to take a picture, but to my everlasting disappointment, that did not happen. Julia Child was 6 feet two inches tall—can you imagine how long and draggy a used pair of pantyhose filled with onions would be? So, that was why I was out in the driveway packing Vidalia onions into a box, and that is how I missed my moment of fame — no picture of Julia Child’s pantyhose, lumpy with Vidalia onions.

-Pat Royalty