Our first episode of You & Julia At Home — an extension of You & Julia for pandemic times, in which we chat and cook with chefs from their home kitchens — features Amy Traverso, Senior Food Editor at Yankee Magazine and co-host of GBH's Weekends with Yankee, making Julia's famous Quiche Lorraine. We talked with Amy about how Julia would find comfort through cooking during the pandemic, and how Julia inspired so many female chefs in Boston.
On how Julia would react to the pandemic:
"It's a very comforting thing to be in the kitchen cooking, to be feeding your family, to be nourishing it. We talk a lot about self-care now in this age, and this is a really great form of self-care. I think Julia, if she were alive today, would be encouraging us all to use our kitchens as places to take care of ourselves, to take pleasure in life, and to connect with our families. I think at a time like this, she would be all about finding those moments of pleasure in your day-to-day life to sustain you, especially in a situation where we don't have a lot of control."
On why Quiche Lorraine is the perfect dish to make right now:
"First of all — bacon makes everything taste better. If you're not a vegetarian, bacon is the reason, maybe, you keep eating meat. I know that's true for me. I think quiche is a dish that feels very special, and it feels a little bit fancy because you do serve it in a pie crust or tart. But in fact, this dish is so easy. It's six or seven ingredients. And once you bake off that pie crust, it takes five minutes to put together. And as we transition into the cold weather months, this is the kind of comforting dish that really warms you up and makes you feel so nice and cozy."
On how Julia inspired female chefs in Boston:
"One way I really love to see Julia's legacy in Boston is the fact that we have long been a national leader, even compared to New York and LA, for having so many women celebrity and leading chefs. Julia's presence altered the culture for all the years she lived here. And so we have Lydia Shire, Jody Adams, Ana Sortun, Tiffani Faison, Cassie Piuma, Irene Li… and of course I can’t forget Barbara Lynch. There are so many women chefs who brought other women up through their ranks and who then went off and started their own kitchens. Boston has been very progressive on that front, and it's a real point of pride."
On the future of the restaurant industry:
"We are all really worried about our restaurant industry. We are thinking about how to support them, how to keep them going through this time until we can all be back together in restaurants again. Seeing the way that they're innovating and offering incredible takeout or turning their restaurants into a market, or doing outdoor dining for as long as humanly possible — I know they're really struggling, but I also just so admire how they are endlessly adaptive and endlessly innovating."
"If you value the restaurants in your neighborhood, if the food makers in your neighborhood are part of what makes your life great where you live, be as creative in the way you support them, as they are being in the way they are offering their food to us. Because we really want them to be here when we get through this time."
“You & Julia” is a GBH-produced digital video series that brings the magic of Julia Child to viewers like you from the home kitchens of chefs and food personalities throughout Greater Boston and beyond. Check out more from our "
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