Tomorrow would have been Julia Child's 100th birthday.
We cats are not marking the occasion because we're gourmands. Heck, Friskies ocean whitefish and tuna pate, scooped fresh from the pop-top can, is our idea of heaven. No, we choose to salute Mrs. Child not just for everything she did for American cooks, but because, goodness gracious, she was a good Democrat.
You know that from the delicious 1940s-1950s letters she shared with Avis DeVoto, lovingly collected in As Always, Julia, which we cats highly recommend if you're still casting about for some good summer reading. "Always interesting what you say about the Republicans," Julia writes Avis in October 1953. "I find it rather hard to capitalize that word!" (So do we, Julia, so do we.)
Julia and Avis are equally aghast at the behavior of Joseph McCarthy, and thrilled at Joseph Welch's "have you no decency" smackdown at what would come to be known as the Army-McCarthy hearings.
"Welch is absolutely entrancing," Avis writes Julia in April 1954. "His intonations are positively devastating. The cameras immediately swung to Cohn-McCarthy — McCarthy tittered in a rather embarrassed way, then did a double-take and began to look mad — Cohn looked stony. The hearing room rocked with mirth. And it's all anybody is talking about..."
We cats shudder to think what Julia and Avis would think of today's GOP. Thankfully (for them), they're not around to see it — Avis died in 1989, Julia in 2004 — but we believe they would not be charmed.
In fact, if we cats had a time machine, we'd go back and try to spend an afternoon with Julia, Avis and a pitcher of martinis. Because we'd have a lot to talk about. How do we know? Here's a quote from Julia to Avis in October 1954:
"I keep thinking of the know-nothing Republicans, and their contempt for foreigners... Shall not pursue this line any further."
Some things never change.
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