After college football season ends, I find that my Saturdays are rather more open than normal. This is an odd feeling but has given me the time to see Erica on two consecutive Saturdays (awesome!). Being awake on a Saturday before noon and not having a day of football viewing ahead has led to some interesting Saturdays this January.
The first Saturday I met Erica for brunch and then found myself at home with little to do but feeling rather industrious. So, I cleaned out the files in which I keep my important papers, organized and labeled the sections and threw out the old stuff. I took down my Christmas tree, cleaned like a mad woman and did a nice bit of reading. Lucky for me there was NFL playoff football later in the day to ease my spirit.
The next Saturday I met Erica for a movie and lunch and again headed home feeling rather energized but with very little that actually needed to be done. After some light cleaning and 30 minutes before more NFL playoffs, I decided to see what’s on TV on Saturday afternoons when there’s no football. Since I wasn’t thrilled with any of the college hoops choices I felt a little lost. What does one watch on a weekend if not sports? And in the middle of the day no less? So I’m looking through the viewing guide and come upon The Cooking Channel. I didn’t know I had this channel though I’ve heard Maren say she wishes they got it in Canada. So, I tune in for a moment and discover that they are playing an old episode of The French Chef with Julia Child. It was the most wonderful thing I have ever accidentally watched. She was making home made pizza and bread and she was so funny. At one point she spilled something and more than once she dropped something. And she just laughed and moved on with the show. It was spectacular. She’s so funny! So I made a note (literally on paper) to try to watch more of The French Chef.
Fast forward to this past Saturday and I’m on Amazon adding books to my wishlist. (This is how I keep track of the books I want to read. There are way too many for me to ever remember.) I see on Amazon that Prime members (which I am) get free unlimited Prime Instant Videos. I have seen that notice on the site for quite some time but have never checked out my free video options. So, on a whim I search Julia Child and discover that there are 10 volumes of The French Chef with about 20 episodes each for my free viewing pleasure! I watched the first episode of volume one from 1963 “fruit tarts” and loved every minute. It was 28 minutes long and passed in the blink of an eye. I learned how to make a simple yet lovely custard for my tarts and also some rather funny things about Julia:
1. She calls a wire whisk a wire “whip”
2. She calls boiling “the boil” as in “wait until it comes to the boil”. It made me feel like it should be capitalized, The Boil.
3. Quote of the episode: “The fresh strawberry tart is the great tart of all time”.
It took all of my strength to only watch the one episode. I yearned to watch more but feared that I would lose the entire day. So I’m going to watch them slowly but surely and will probably have several more posts about them. Oh how I love Julia Child!
