I have a pretty good story, but it’s not one I tell often, because it takes me back to a time and place I’d prefer to forget for the most part. But it is what it is, and maybe getting it out here will help to exorcize any remaining bad juju.
Twenty years ago, I was homeless.
I had done well throughout the 1980s and ’90s, but after 9/11, through a series of connected and unconnected events, I lost everything — two jobs, my apartment, all my savings and investments, and eventually every single thing I ever owned except for two items — my first chef’s knife and my mother’s (now my wife’s) engagement ring.
The only reason I didn’t lose those items was because I always had them with me, so they weren’t in my storage unit when the contents were auctioned off.
Fortunately, some friends offered me a place to stay in their basement while I got back on my feet. Another friend offered me a job — one I doubt I’d have ever accepted had I not been in such a pickle. It was a pot-washing job in a magazine’s test kitchen.
Later, the job would become quite a bit more, but at the start, that’s what it was.
I was fewer than two weeks into the job when one morning the entire place went nuts.
Test kitchen staff, editors, photogs, interns were frantic with excitement — it ripped through the entire floor like a wave — Julia Child was coming to do a demonstration.
She was 90-plus years old at the time, and she rarely did this sort of thing anymore. In fact, she passed away only a few months later, so this was a Very Big Deal.
She rolled in like a rock star.
I mean that literally: She was pushing a giant black-and-silver padded road case — big enough to hold gear for a four-piece band. She rolled the case into the test kitchen, which was crammed with pretty much everyone of any importance at the magazine. And me.
When she flipped the locks and lifted the top off the case, everyone leaned in to see what was inside. It contained some of her favorite things from her kitchen, equipment you’d see in the background on her shows.
Pots, pans, utensils, the works.
And the best part: Everything — every pot and pan — was in a self-sized foam cutout in the case. It was amazing; it sang a soothing song to my particular flavor of OCD.
She launched into a cooking demo, which was shorter than I expected; I missed some of it because I didn’t have a place on the workplace hierarchy, much less ranked high enough to stay for the full show.
But after she finished and was whisked away, I returned to clean up the test kitchen and handwash her distinctive, orange-enameled cast iron pots. While I was elbows deep in suds, the famous chef peeked in through a side door, entered alone, and walked over to pick up a dish towel. Without saying a word, she began to dry the items I had just washed!
I didn’t know what to do; I wasn’t about to start gushing about how I’d grown up watching her on TV — blah, blah, blah. I sensed that she’d already had more than her fill of such talk — that’s probably why she was hiding out with me, the dishwasher — so I said something complimentary about the pot I was washing and asked her if it was a Le Creuset; at the time, that was the only cookware name I knew.
That set her off on a bit of a rant: No, no, no, these are not Le Creuset. She told me Le Creuset had driven other wonderful companies out of business and used their designs. These pots, she said, were her favorites; she’d had them absolutely forever. They were made in Belgium. They were a little lighter in weight, so they were easier for her to use now that she was older — and isn’t the color just glorious, like a sunset?
That laugh and voice, the one you know from TV, colored this too-surreal encounter.
We chatted about her cookware and the companies that made them, and the ones she liked and didn’t like; the encounter couldn’t have been more than 20 minutes, but it seemed so much longer in the best way, like when you’re fully in a moment.
Then she leaned over and handed me the pot she had just dried and said, “Go put this away somewhere. I didn’t bring enough of these for all the important people around here.” She winked at me and walked back into the office, and that was that.
I would have loved to have been able to keep working at the magazine — the test kitchen atmosphere really suits me and my distinct pathology — but what I wasn’t aware of at the time was that they were preparing to transition from print to digital, and within a few years nearly everyone I had worked with had left or retired. But my time there turned out to be the reboot I needed. My love of cooking was reignited, and I met some wonderful, talented people who are still my friends.
I gained an enormous wealth of knowledge from the folks I worked with, got a new apartment, and regained my confidence. Eventually, I went on to circle the globe a few times. I’ve cooked for a U.S. president, several foreign heads of state, and a bunch of cultural icons. I’ve consulted on more than a dozen restaurant openings.
I’ve tested recipes for famous chefs’ cookbooks. I designed, built, opened, and then sold my own place.
It would be great story if I could tie all my success to that chance meeting with Julia, but in reality, it was hunger and humility that drove me. What did happen, though, was I started researching the companies she had talked so earnestly about. I was just beginning to have access to the internet and was excited to be able to learn about those things in that way.
Everything Julia Child told me was true. There were dozens of companies in the 1950s and ’60s around the world that made beautiful cookware, but one by one they had gone out of business.
It would be great story if I could tie all my success to that chance meeting with Julia, but in reality, it was hunger and humility that drove me.
I started collecting those forgotten treasures — bringing something back from wherever I visited — and it seemed like I was the only one who knew the names of those companies.
In my downtime, I began refurbishing any damaged ones, because I’m handy like that.
I learned how and where they were made, and what made the good ones good and the bad ones bad.
Eventually I started branching out beyond cast iron because, during our chat, Julia had mentioned her love of copper cookware.
For years, collecting copper cookware and bringing it back to life has been a hobby and a side business for me. Some might say it’s a bit of an obsession (they’re wrong, of course — you can’t have too many pots, just like you can’t have too many knives or guitars).
Thanks to Julia, my house is a Museum of Cookery.
It all started with one orange pot.
Zac Greybeard is a former chef and restaurant consultant who lives in White Plains.
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