The CulinaryWoman Newsletter, 8/21/22

A new anthology of Julia Reed's writing

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Julia Reed Lived a Big Life

On the marble-topped counter in my bathroom, I have a little glass plate with a saying by Emily Dickinson. It reads, “Why Not Have A Big Life?”

I can’t think of anyone from my generation of writers who lived a bigger life than Julia Reed. She had a flamboyant and exciting career as an author, essayist and journalist for publications such as Garden and Gun, Vogue, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report, where we met in the 1980s.

Julia found her look early, as the French would say — short, perfectly coiffed hair, big glasses long before people were wearing them, designer clothes and a voice that was unmistakable. Mutual friends have confided that Julia sometimes scared them to death with her ferocity. I was simply glad to be part of her audience, since I never could have kept up with her personality or her talent.

Julia has been likened to Nora Ephron and Dorothy Parker, and she certainly cut a wide swath through the southern literary world. You might have seen her in two episodes of Somebody Feed Phil, introducing Phil Rosenthal to restaurants in New Orleans and her home town of Greenville in the Mississippi Delta. (More on Phil a little later in the newsletter.)

One of my regrets is that I didn’t get to New Orleans in time to pal around with Julia, who has now been gone for two years. It turns out that I live only a block from her last apartment. But there is a new collection of her work being published next week that will give you a full picture of what her life and writing were like.

A lovingly compiled anthology

Dispatches From The Gilded Age will be published on Tuesday by MacMillan. It was edited by Everett Bexley, an MFA candidate at Syracuse University who was Julia’s literary assistant for four years. A fellow native of Mississippi, they met at Square Books, the legendary shop in Oxford, Miss., where Julia was a frequent customer.

Clerks were not supposed to read while they were working, but Everett snatched moments to read her 2004 book, Queen of the Turtle Derby, and finished it within 24 hours.

When Everett moved to New Orleans, he landed a job at the Garden District Book Shop, which was across the street from Julia’s apartment. Her building did not have a safe place for packages, so Julia had them delivered to the store. “We would call her, she would whirl in, and offer the most witty, hilarious things you had ever heard,” Everett remembers.

They wound up working together from 2017 to her death in 2020. Only her close circle knew she was dealing with cancer, a diagnosis she did not write about, which is why her passing came as such a shock to so many people. But Everett says it did not leave her fearful, nor slow her down.

In that time, “She wrote two books, started two businesses, renovated and redecorated one apartment and built the house. Her energy level was way higher than mine, a 27-year-old kid,” Everett recalls.

Dispatches is perfectly organized from Julia’s earliest writing, through her years at Vogue, her writing about hospitality, and her global adventures, winding up with her most recent pieces for Garden and Gun. Before her death, Julia played an active role in crafting the anthology, and her mother Judy was a significant participant.

Mrs. Reed had collected all of Julia’s articles from Vogue, many of which have never been digitized. She delivered them to Everett in a huge box — “hundreds” — and he read through each one. I have been hit with intermittent bouts of grief over my lost loved ones, so I wondered if the experience was mournful for him. Everett says it was just the opposite.

“To tell you the truth, rather than being hard, it was kind of comforting,” he says. “It was like having her in the room again. I felt like I had her back.”

The party I threw for Julia

One of Everett’s favorite pieces in the book is Secrets of A Southern Hostess, in a section of the book called Food and Feasting. It’s Julia’s philosophy for throwing a good party, something that I witnessed first hand.

We met early in our careers in Washington, D.C., and became fast friends for two reasons. First, our parents were active in the Republican Party, during an era of Rockefeller Republicans (or in my parents’ case, Milliken Republicans). We knew many of the same people, although her parents were far more nationally prominent than mine.

Second, we both loved to give parties, a trait I inherited from my mother as Julia did from hers. I discovered that Julia and another friend had birthdays in the same week, so I offered to throw a joint birthday party. Julia shared a delectable chocolate cake recipe, which I made up for her, and arrived bearing a massive bowl of wild rice salad, something I’d never eaten growing up at a time when mini-quiches were ubiquitous.

The party was lively and crowded, and then a thunderstorm struck. The power went out, the heat was stifling, and things began to melt, including Julia’s cake. I have a vivid memory of watching the letters, “Happy Birthday, Julia!” and candied violets sliding down the sides. She rounded up every candle in my apartment, we found a battery-operated radio and the evening went on with aplomb.

The epitome of generosity

That was typical Julia, says Everett, who he found to be the model of generosity. “Julia was not just physically generous, but generous with her knowledge. She was a natural teacher. She wanted to impart as much as she could.”

He continues to benefit from her wisdom. Julia left him a collection of her books, including her cookbooks, which have Post-it notes and scribbles throughout. It’s almost as if she’s left him little messages, which I’m sure will guide him into his own writing career.

There are two events scheduled for her book, with more likely to come:

• Oct. 22, at the Downtown Butcher and Mercantile in Greenville, where Julia always liked to launch her books.

• Nov. 11 at the Garden District Book Shop, with special guest Roy Blount Jr., who wrote the introduction. In it, Roy says, “Such a downer to think of Julia as departed” and I can’t help but agree.

A New Season Of Somebody Feed Phil

Phil Rosenthal’s fans woke up to a happy surprise on Saturday. A new season of Somebody Feed Phil will debut on Oct. 18 on Netflix. In this series, Phil visits Croatia, Philadelphia, Nashville, Austin, Santiago, and pays a tribute to his late parents, Max and Helen.

Oct. 18 also marks the debut of Somebody Feed Phil: The Book, a companion cookbook to the series. There will be recipes, photos, behind the scenes anecdotes and more from the first four series.

In the meantime, Phil is a co-host of a delightful podcast, Naked Lunch, whose guests have included Judy Gold, Lyle Lovett and the legendary Elaine May. Of course, food is involved.

Farewell To A Treasured Literary Influence

I was a huge fan of the historian David McCullough. We never met in person, but we corresponded, and I considered him to be one of my most important literary influences.

I began reading David’s books when I discovered The Johnstown Flood, the compelling story of the disaster that ripped through the Pennsylvania town in 1889. I followed that with The Path Between The Seas, about the Panama Canal, and Mornings On Horseback, his biography of Theodore Roosevelt.

But his most meaningful book, to me, was Truman, his biography of Harry S Truman. Not long after Truman was published, I read an essay by David about making historic figures come alive.

His method was to learn so much about them or a period in their life that he could sit down and write a draft without looking at his notes. He wanted the words to come shooting out of his fingers like fireworks.

With the initial draft complete, he would then go back in and add details and dates and check the accuracy.

I’ve used that method ever since, and I also have followed his advice that secondary characters in a main character’s life can provide valuable insights into the person who is a story’s focus. He used this strategy with Mary Jane Truman, the president’s sister, who most biographers dismiss in a line or two. Mary Jane was actually a lively resident of Independence and lived a wonderful long life.

The Vineyard Gazette had a lovely remembrance of David. I appreciate all his advice and credit him for helping to hone my interest in history.

Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman

Speaking of our beloved Garden District Book Shop, I will be interviewing Vishwesh Bhatt on Sept. 1 about his new book, I Am From Here. The evening will kick off at 6:00 PM with a cocktail reception featuring spirits from Cathead Vodka and Wonderbird Gin. Small plates will be made by Chicory House head chef, Martha Gilreath.

This is a ticketed event and you can find the details here. I’d love to see you!

Meanwhile, I was both a guest and a meme this week. WDET-FM in Detroit had me on to talk about Satisfaction Guaranteed, just as Bro Girl was rocketing around social media. You can hear my interview with Stephen Henderson, which focused on how Zingerman’s has navigated through the pandemic.

My book events crank up again in September. You can find a full calendar here.

You can reach me by email at culinarywoman at gmail dot com. I’d love to have you follow my New Orleans adventures @micki_in_nola on Instagram. I post to @culinarywoman on Twitter and there’s a CulinaryWoman page on Facebook.

Please be careful of your health. If you’re a paid subscriber, see you tomorrow with Red Beans and Advice. There will be a new podcast episode this week, too. Otherwise, see you next Sunday!